50. Colt
50
colt
She’s yelling from the other room. “Just say whatever you need to. Whatever you’re gonna do. Just do it. Doom us. And go.” I stand up and walk to face her. She’s not taking this well, and it’s killing me. I guess I was selfish to think she’s okay with me walking away again. I shift my weight and spread my legs wide.
“Maggie, I have to choose them. After Paris, they saw the way we were. The way I can’t help but look at you. Daisy’s not stupid. Insolent, lost, and hormonal but not stupid.”
Her voice drifts over the tension of the moment. I can’t get to her it’s so fucking thick.
“You’ve always chosen her, and I get that now. You do realize you’re choosing Gemma again right now, not the girls. Or is it your dad you’re choosing? I do know you’re not choosing yourself. When do you choose yourself, Colt? When does that happen? Because every decision you’ve ever made has affected my life. I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Tears well up and I see her swallow them down, her spine strengthening as she speaks words that only tear away at me like lashes.
“I didn’t mean to hope we’re supposed to be together, but I cannot continue to wait. It just happened, and I hate me for it. I fucking knew it. I knew all this would kick me down. Your decisions or lack thereof directly affect me and always have. And that’s ridiculous. So go. Because I’m choosing me.”
“Maggie, you got married. You had a career. You moved and had friends and a life and now you have this insanity house. You didn’t wait for me. Maybe Paris was our happy. Both times and now we move on.”
She gets furious with that sentence. And to be honest, it ripped my fucking insides to fragments to say it.
“Fuck you if you don’t think at the back of my throat, heart, and head I’m always waiting for you. I’m always choosing you, whether I was conscious of it or not. As you did me. Yes, you had the girls, and you had a life, a career you hated because you didn’t choose. And you didn’t choose where to go to college or where to raise the kids or even that you wanted kids. The only thing you’ve ever chosen are your brothers and to kiss me in the rain in Paris. I’ve been your only choice.”
“Maggie, understand---” My body is heavy. I’m sweating profusely. I keep drying my hands on the front of my jeans but still more sweat pours out.
“Nope. Done understanding. You didn’t love her. I know that sounds like a horrible harpy shrew of a person. I’m not the kind of person who wants to be chosen over a child, but please look at this whole messy crayon scribble picture. Don’t do this to you. Don’t do this to me. I adore those girls and seeing you happy would be a good thing for all of you. Are you not happy with me? Was I not all you thought I’d be?”
“You’re everything I’d ever want.”
“I may look cheery and small, but I will cut a bitch. I didn’t get to fight for us when I was younger but now is a different story.”
She’s panting and shaking. I can’t help but laugh. “Well, I’d prefer if you didn’t call my daughter a bitch, and maybe don’t cut her but I appreciate the sentiment.”
I pull her into my arms, and she holds me tight as she begins to cry. Wiping her tears, she pushes me away. The girls can only fill up so much.
“She’s 14. She just lost her mom; she doesn’t know which way is up. The most selfish thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, moving these girls here to Italy, is blowing up in my face. I got so mad at Daisy today I grounded her for the way she talked to me and demanded we break up. I took her phone. I didn’t know what to do to stop her from saying hurtful things.”
“You have to go.” Maggie’s voice is flat and even. And she shifts. Her face, her body, that sparkle in her eyes, all different. Even when I left her in the parking garage in Reno, she still sparkled. She’s stern, and the room has gone dark. Oh fuck. What am I doing? I have to fix this with Daisy. Focus on my kids. This is cutting up everyone, and I don’t know how to stop the bleeding.
“I don’t want to go.” Her body is rigid, just full of steel and anger. I’ve made her into something else that is all twisted and wrong.
“Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to take some lemons with you as you go.” She pelts me with a lemon.
I put my hands up. “Let’s talk this through.”
“Go.” There’s a cut to her voice. I did that.
“I’m sorry.”
“The three of you are trying to navigate life without having to cater to Gemma, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. But she’s still a part of the decisions. You get that, right? You need to figure out who you are without her and without them. Think about what you’ve done in your life you’re proud of. And don’t say those girls because they’re something to be proud of. But are they the sum total of what you want your life to be? I came here to figure out who I am. The things I’ve done for everyone else pale compared to the things I’m doing for myself. Turns out I’m better for everyone when I’m happy.”
“It’s complicated. It is, you know this.”
“Uncomplicate it. What’s on your list of things to be proud of? Whether this tops your list, being loved by you, tops mine. I’m proud that I loved such a kind, beautiful, all-encompassing, forthright, if not selfish and sacrificial man. But I can’t sacrifice myself any longer for a promise of un jour.”
I mutter, “Someday.” Tears form in my eyes, and I bat them back. “Maggie.” I hear a scuffle upstairs. She doesn’t even flinch anymore at the mongoose. I look upward.
She gets in my face and shoves at my chest so I’m backing up toward the door. “Nope. You get no part of me from now on. That’s the way this goes. Done pining, hoping, and waiting. I have a life to fill with joy, adventure, and laughter. People who want to be with me. Our lives will intersect because of our friends who I’m not giving up again. Deal with it. I choose to be happy for the first time in my life. If you’d let me choose you, I’d love for it to be me. But get the fuck out of my house.”
“Meerkat.”
“Oh, hell no. Do not Meerkat me. You do not get to talk to my mongoose. We have something to fight for on our own terms. Mongoose and I are getting it done. We’re scrappy and we’re going to figure this out, and I need you to go figure your life without having to damage mine. Leave me out of your thoughts.”
“The girls go away to school?—”
“Are you flipping kidding me? You want me to wait, what five years or ten when Sloane goes off to college? I didn’t fight when you left me for Daisy the first time but now, I think I have to fight for me. I’m all over the place with this but now I’m angry. How old is old enough for you to choose to grow a pair? Pretend you’re in the wall with me, and I’m the one doing the killing of the whatever Mongoose kills. Fuck Meerkat, I’m a mongoose now.”
I can’t help but laugh at this girl. “Why are you so fucking perfect and beautiful and amazing?”
“Seems like noble reasons to leave me behind.” She’s not laughing.
“I’m not.”
“You are. I need you too. This is a nightmare.” I walk over and kiss her on the forehead. She lets me, but she stands there rigid. And then she hands me a lemon. I turn away from her to head toward the door, and she pelts me with more lemons.
“I’m done making this out of my life.” She holds up a pitcher of lemonade. “You should be too. I deserve better than knitting scraps together. Get out. Time for adult lemonade. Limoncello. Time for all the limoncello, lemonade’s more sophisticated cousin and the kind that says, don’t fuck with me. It’s a drink earned with time and patience. One of an acquired taste that can be finicky and nuanced.”
She tosses another lemon at me and hits me in the chest. Then picks up another and I’m out the door. Standing staring at the threshold watching her become a better person than I can be.
“This is your last goodbye. Do you hear me, Colton Andrews? This is your last goodbye.”
I’m barely to the car when I’m sick to my stomach. Everything feels fucking wrong. It’s all wrong. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I have to talk to Daisy. I get in my car and pull around the corner from her villa and park, well aware I’ve left my heart with her. As I did all those years ago. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I have to talk to Daisy. I call her school.
“Ciao. Salve, dove il Daisy Andrews.” I give up on Italian and speak English. “I need to pick her up in like twenty minutes.”
“Daisy isn’t here today. She has an unexcused absence.”
“Are you sure?” I panic a little. Where could she have gone?
“We’ve called twice.” I scan my phone, and I did miss calls.
I hang up as they continue to talk and dial Daisy, but it fucking rings from my jacket because I took her fucking phone. I dial Sloane, and she picks up immediately.
“Well, I’m married.”
“Later. Have you talked to your sister?”
“No. Why?”
“She’s missing and I have her phone. Call me if you hear from her. I’m going to find her.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too. And congratulations,” I say absently and hang up, bolting from the car.
“ Fuck! ” I scream and kick the gravel all around me.
The only person I want to talk to or get help from is the one person I kicked out of my life. Or she kicked me out. It’s nebulous, but I’m definitely the catalyst. I’m a moron.
I let all the noise in my head take her away from me and right now I need her. And not just to find Daisy, although that’s kind of front and center. How could I be this stupid? My therapist’s voice rings in my head, ‘Then go.’
Am I afraid of being happy? Of getting what I want? Am I hiding behind being chivalrous because I’m afraid? Mags told me it was my last goodbye. I broke Maggie, and I certainly fucked me up. Dammit. I get back in my piece of shit car, and it, of course doesn’t start. I dial the school again as I jog back to the one place I never should have left. What was I even thinking? Why?
“Hello, It’s Colton Andrews and if you find Daisy, call me immediately. And do you have any of her friend’s numbers?”
“We can’t give out those numbers.”
“Brilliant. Thanks, you’ve been so god damned helpful.” I quickly dial any number I can think of.
“Enzo! Daisy’s missing. I don’t know where.” The mechanic begins screaming through the garage, telling everyone to scatter through the city to look for her. After I rapidly call everyone, we know, I get the café owners, the florist, and the idiots who run the little store on it too.
“Grazie mille,” I say to all of them and quickly dial the culinary school and they haven’t seen her either. I’m in a full out run now and slam into her front door with too much force. I bang on the door with my fist. “Maggie. Margaret! Meerkat! Mongoose. Please answer this door now. I need you.” She doesn’t answer. I run to the side window, and I don’t see her.
I bang again then I hear a thud at my knee level. I look down and say to the door, “Mags. Meerkat, are you leaning against the door?”
A voice full of tears bursts out as if she can’t control the volume of her response. And the pain trapped in her sob mirrors what I feel. “No.”
“Meerkat. Please help me, Daisy’s missing,” I say in a panic.
She whips the door open, and her eyes are red and rimmed in all the tears I never wanted her to shed.
She wipes her face and rolls her eyes. “I’m not talking to you, but let’s go find her.”
“Mags.”
I reach for her, and she jumps back. “My daughter is missing, pissed off at me and alone without a phone. I need your help.”
“Where’s her phone?”
“I took it from her this morning since she was such a dramatic, annoying human throwing tantrums and shade at me and you.” She wraps her arms around herself as her eyebrow twitches. I want to reach over and hold it for her. She opens her phone. “I haven’t heard from her.”
“Maggie, she doesn’t have a phone.”
“Right. Whatever. I’ll let you know if I find her.”
That same steel that filled my sweet girl’s backbone might have transferred a bit to me. I shake my head, then lock eyes with her.
“Fuck that. I’m going to shorthand this given that Daze is missing. But there’s always been a blueprint of what I’m supposed to be and since her diagnosis I’ve been winging it. I have to walk back to town because our car is a piece of shit. And now my daughter is missing in a city she doesn’t know that well. My other one may or may not be researching how to create Acid or plan a revolution or be settling down to be an Italian wife. I have no real job, but what I have been doing is failing miserably. But none of that matters because you’re here in Tuscany. And Italy does have magic like you said. I don’t know how to keep you and keep Tuscany and make sure they’re okay. There are so many fucking lemons, and you threw them at me and I have this.” I pull out the remnants of the Reno Elks Lodge pen. “I made you cry, and that’s almost as bad as when I tore us apart after Paris at the Reno airport and it was hot there that day in addition---”
Maggie puts her hand up. “Focus.” My life snaps into place.
“I love you. And I swear to you that was our last goodbye.”
I stare at her, and our eyes connect, but they’re not quite in sync. She purses her lips. “Let’s go find your daughter.” She grabs her car keys and closes the door and tugs on my hand, and I don’t dare say anything else. I climb into the car as she pulls out of her driveway, passing by my garbage car.
There’s no sound but the rough road crunching and bouncing us around. It seems like an eternity and each time I prepare to say something she puts up a finger silencing me. We turn into the city, and she pulls up in front of my house. “Stay here in case she comes back. I have an idea.”
“You do?” How does she have an idea and I have no clue?
I get out of the car and run to the door. I fling it open and yell, “Daisy, honey? Are you here, Bug?? Ladybug! Lady Daisyfeld.” I bolt around the house, yelling all the names before returning to Maggie.
“She’s not here.”
“Keep your phone on.”
I lean into the passenger side window. “And that’s all you have to say to me?”
“There’s something I have to do first, but you got one thing right.”
“What’s that?”
“That was our last fucking goodbye. You will never say that crap to me again.” She grins and speeds off, and I’m left marveling at that magnificent and daffy as hell woman.