Chapter 2 #2
Well… she’s not so little anymore. She’s growing by the day, now fifteen. But when I look at her, she’ll always be my little girl, no matter the age. Her whole face lights up as she sees me and then jumps and squeals, welcoming me inside.
“Daddy!”
As I step inside grinning, she throws her arms over my shoulders and almost knocks the pizza and soda from my hands.
“Careful, Peanut,” I say. “I’m carrying precious cargo.”
She giggles as she steps back and then steals the box of cinnamon twists off the top. She squeals all over again. “My favorite! You’re the best! JACK! GET DOWN HERE! DAD’S COME!”
When she screams, she really channels her mother. She already resembles her, her hair loosely curled and the shade of tangerines. She’s naturally thin and even has the same birthmark on the apple of her cheek as her mother.
But Jack… he’s almost all me.
He comes tumbling down the stairs looking like a replica of me from when I was his age. His hair’s a caramel sort of brown that’s short and spiky and contrasts his blue eyes and flushed face. Like Tabitha, he leaps off the stairs and rushes toward me, vibrating from excitement.
I don’t get to see them as often as I’d like.
Custody agreement is every other weekend and all summer long.
Otherwise they’re primarily in their mother’s care, unless I’m invited over like the off-chance I was tonight.
They’ve gone from seeing me under their roof every day to only seeing me a few days a month, despite the fact that I’m often just a few miles away.
We head into the living room and start setting up for our movie night. Tabitha and Jack can’t agree on what movie we’ll watch. I chuckle along as I prop the pizza boxes open on the coffee table and let them snag first dibs.
“You two flip a coin. It’s an easier way to decide,” I tease them. “I’ll grab some paper plates.”
I step into the kitchen and reach for the cabinet where they’re kept.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
It’s Rachel. She’s appeared in the opposite doorway of the kitchen. The one that leads from the back hallway into the room, as if she’s been monitoring the situation all along. She merely let Tabby answer so she could observe from afar.
“We’re about to start the movie,” I answer.
“You know what I mean,” she snaps, stepping deeper into the room. “I didn’t say anything about eating in the living room. I meant we could have dinner at the table. In the dining room.”
“We’re watching movies, Rachel.”
“That’s after dinner. The kids aren’t allowed to watch TV as they eat. You know that, Jack.”
My teeth grind together. “It’s just once.”
“That’s what you always say. You always set me up to be the bad guy.”
“Then we’ll eat in the dining room. I’ll go break the news.” I can’t stand looking in her direction as I turn to the opposite doorway and start back toward the living room.
“And, Jack?” she says at the last second. “Don’t open my cabinets. You don’t live here anymore.”
It takes all the patience I have to keep from snapping back at her. From pointing out that she invited me over and suggested pizza and movies. That she knows I don’t mean any harm by grabbing some paper plates for the kids. I’ll buy her a thousand more paper plates if it’ll make her feel better.
But that’s not what Rachel’s scolding is about.
She doesn’t like that I’m still so comfortable in this house. That I move around it like I still live here, opening cabinets and sitting down on the couch.
That’s her right—I no longer live here. She got the house in the settlement. This is her place now.
But it doesn’t make it any less frustrating that I’m always put in situations like these.
I can’t see my kids when I want to see them, and then when I get the chance, I’m still doing things wrong.
I’m still the worst father in the world.
I’m still the asshole ex-husband that can’t seem to please her.
The kids are disappointed about being recalled into the dining room.
Tabby lets her glum expression speak for her while Junior openly drags his feet and whines.
“But we were about to watch Spiderman!”
“We eat in the dining room,” I explain, keeping my tone neutral. “No TV while eating dinner, Junior.”
“Mom said so, huh?” He rolls his eyes. “She always has to ruin everything.”
“Don’t speak about your mother that way. Blame me for forgetting the rules. C’mon, the quicker we scarf down this pizza, the quicker we get back to Spiderman and his web-slinging.”
He grins. “Okay!”
Dinner’s not as laidback and fun as I hoped it would be.
Tabby’s glum mood remains as she picks at her veggie lovers pizza and avoids eye contact with the rest of us.
Junior tries telling me about his game and how his team had fumbled during the last inning, but Rachel interrupts and scolds him for speaking with food in his mouth.
More than once she slips in a dig or two against me.
Your father this. Your father that.
Her tone holds hostility. Her stiff shoulders and sharp expression match it.
The patience I’d been clinging to starts to thin out. I’m swallowing down every rebuttal, every retort I’ve got for anything she says.
I don’t like arguing in front of the kids. We’ve agreed we wouldn’t do it.
It makes Tabby tear up, and Jack usually tries to get in, hoping it’d make us stop.
But I’m human. I’m a man with a short fuse at times, and Rachel needles away ’til it almost feels like this was a trap from the beginning. She invited me over to frustrate me then reprimand me for it.
Once I’ve got this in mind, I don’t let it happen. Jack chews his food first, then speaks, his attention mostly set on me. I keep calm and interact with him, looping Tabby into our conversation where I can. Soon we’re laughing and enjoying ourselves just the same.
Rachel can’t find any other complaints to lodge as we finish up at the dinner table then move into the living room for the movie.
First we watch Spiderman, Jack’s favorite superhero. I prefer the original movies with Tobey Maguire, but I’m showing my age. Jack chooses the trilogy with Tom Holland, which are still entertaining movies.
Tabby’s brightened up some again. She curls up on the couch under her favorite throw blanket, and I ask her about her classes.
When the first movie ends, Jack asks if we can watch the second one.
“You’ll have to ask your mother, Champ,” I say. “She might have something else planned.”
Rachel reluctantly agrees, citing the fact that it’s Saturday night and neither kid has any homework or chores left to do. She disappears upstairs and doesn’t come back down again, which tells me what she’s up to.
She’s resigned herself to the fact that she invited me over and I’ve got the kids. It means she has time to chat on the phone with the man she can’t get enough of.
As we start the third movie and I head into the guest bathroom, I can hear her soft, playful laughter traveling down the staircase.
She laughs at the things he says like she used to laugh at the things I said. She finds every damn thing he does funny and charming. You’d never know how particular she can be when she’s around Fred.
When she’s around him, she’s as bright and easygoing as possible.
All things she used to be around me.
It doesn’t matter anymore. Rachel could giggle at everything I say, and I still wouldn’t take her back. I could never fall in love with her again like I once did.
I’m here for my kids and my kids only.
Because I love them more than life itself.
We spend so long watching movies that eventually we doze off.
Rachel comes down around two in the morning to nudge us awake and tell Tabby and Junior to head up to bed. Both kids are yawning and rubbing their eyes as they sleepwalk out of the room, trudging upstairs.
Rachel stands over where I’ve been knocked out, splayed out in the armchair, feet kicked up on the ottoman. She sighs, arms folded over her robe. “You can sleep down here if you want. It’s late, and you don’t have to drive home, Jack. Go back to sleep.”
I’m so damn drowsy I listen to her. I’m nodding off in the next few seconds as she turns and heads up to her (our) room.
It’s only a few hours later that I’m waking up again. My phone starts vibrating in the pocket of my jeans.
Somebody’s calling me.
Still half asleep, I dig my hand into my pocket and pull it out, squinting at the Caller ID. It’s a number I don’t recognize, though the area code matches Pulsboro.
Who could this be? One of the guys calling about club business? Did something go down last night?
As president, it’s exactly the kind of thing that would happen. I’d be the first notified. I tap the green button to answer the call, holding the phone up to my ear.
I’m expecting somebody’s deep voice, like Bush or Big Eddie or even Johnny Flanagan. Instead, the first sound is a soft, warbling cry.
“Is this…” comes the sobbing voice. “Is this Silver?”
Female. Youthful. Maybe early- to mid-twenties.
“Speaking,” I rasp. “Who is this?”
There’s hesitation on the other end. A pause that goes on for a second or two, like she’s second-guessing her decision to call me.
“It’s, um, it’s Solana. Big Eddie’s niece,” she says. “I was wondering… I just… can you please come get me?”