Chapter 2 – Knox
two
Four months later
Knox
“Vincent!” I shout up the steps. “Westley.” My voice goes a touch higher. “Nora,” I sing out the last name, “it’s time to get going.”
“Coming.” Nora is the only one who answers me as she walks out of her bedroom with her backpack, dragging it behind her, and my stomach tightens the way it usually does when it’s time for them to go back to Josephine.
“Daddy, I can’t pick it up,” she whines at the top of the stairs and tries to lift it and grunts out, “can you help me?”
“What is in there?” I ask her, taking the steps two at a time and stopping at the top.
“I brought some of my books,” she replies. I pick up her backpack and then look back at her. “So I can practice at Mommy’s house.”
“Got it,” I say, not telling her that if her mother wants her to practice reading, she should go and get her own goddamn books.
Instead, I smile at her and bend to kiss her soft light brown hair.
“Your breakfast is on the counter,” I tell her and she nods, going to walk down the steps. “Did we brush our teeth?”
She snorts, “I forgot.” She laughs and runs back to her bedroom where she has the Jack and Jill bathroom with Westley. “Daddy,” she shouts, “Westley said I can’t brush my teeth, he’s in here!”
“Westley,” I throw over my shoulder, “share the sink.”
“Ugh, Dad, can I have my own bathroom?” he groans and I chuckle as I grab her bag and head downstairs.
“Vincent!” I shout. “Let’s go, buddy.”
“Dad,” he groans out my name, “five more minutes.”
“Your mother is going to be here in twenty minutes, and you still have to eat. Don’t make me come and drag you out of the bed.”
“Fine,” he huffs. I can hear him mumbling to himself and only then do I start to go down the stairs.
“Daddy!” Nora shouts. “Westley spit toothpaste on my toothbrush.”
“Westley!” I shout his name in a stern voice.
“It was an accident.” I shake my head and walk to their shared bathroom. “I was spitting out my toothpaste and she put her toothbrush there.” He points to Nora; I walk over and pull out the first drawer to see if we have another toothbrush, and we don’t.
“Did you brush your teeth already?” I ask her and she nods her head. “Then you’re good, go eat.” I look at her hand under the water. “Toss that in the garbage. I’ll get you another one for next time.”
“Okay,” she sings, and I look over at Westley.
“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt.” I point at him. “But next time”—he gives me a smirk, so I know he did it on purpose—“you get grounded.”
“Deal,” he says. “Can I get my own bathroom?”
“Yeah,” I reply sarcastically, “I’ll get right on that, build you your own wing too.” He rolls his eyes. “Go eat.” I motion with my head toward the door, and he runs out of the room.
I get to the hallway at the same time as Vincent walks out of his room. He’s wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. “Buddy, your shirt is backward,” I say, and he looks down, “and inside out.”
“Ugh,” he huffs as if I just told him he has to go outside and run around the block fifty-five times. “Who cares?”
“Well, for one, I care. And for two, your mother is going to care. Change it.”
“Whatever,” he huffs out, walking down the stairs, and I look up at the ceiling.
Out of the three of them, he’s the one who understands what is happening the most. He also overheard his mother on the phone talking about it.
So that was a nice surprise when he came over to the new house I bought two weeks after walking in on her banging Jeremy.
He waited to ask me when it was just the two of us.
I did my best to tell him that sometimes two people just fall out of love.
Needless to say, he’s resentful of his mother, which in turn is all my fault, according to her.
I walk down the steps and put Nora’s bag at the door before walking back into the kitchen. The three of them are sitting on the stools around the kitchen island. “I don’t want cereal,” Vincent informs me. “Can I have a bagel instead?”
“Yeah,” I agree, walking over to the pantry and grabbing the bagels.
“I want one too,” Westley adds and I look over at Nora, who is already eating the bagel she asked for last night when she went to bed. I’m plating the bagels when the doorbell rings, and I look over to see she’s five minutes early.
“I’ll get it,” I tell them. “You guys finish your breakfast.”
I walk to the front door, and Josephine stands there wearing a short white skirt and a tank top, her smile goes bigger when she sees it’s me. “Knox,” she says my name.
“The kids are just finishing breakfast,” I tell her; usually, I let the kids answer the door and we don’t talk to each other at all. Not a word. “Can you give them five or do you want me to pack up their things to go?”
“No,” she says, “it’s fine, I can come in and wait.”
I laugh at her. “No,” I counter, “you can wait in your car.” I shut the door in her face, but she pushes it back open.
“We have mediation today.”
I roll my eyes. “Don’t remind me,” I tell her. “You can just sign the papers, there really is no reason to go through mediation. My lawyer has already told you the terms I want.”
“Well.” She folds her arms over her chest. “My lawyer has advised me it would be better to go to mediation.”
“It’s wasting everyone’s time,” I retort. She’s about to say something else when I hear Nora yell from behind me.
“Mommy,” she calls her name. “I missed you!”
She runs to Josephine, who bends to pick her up. “Vincent, Westley,” I call their names, not caring they still are eating. They can get a snack at her house. “Your mother is here.”
I hear the stools scrape across the floor, before the sound of them running to the door. “Where are your bags?” she asks the boys who slip their Crocs onto their feet.
“It’s just clothes,” Vincent says. “I have enough at your house.”
“Yeah,” Westley adds, coming to me. “Bye, Dad,” he says, and I squat down in front of him and hold out my hands to hug him. “I’m going to miss you.”
“You call me tonight,” I tell him, “and I’ll be at your hockey practice tomorrow.
” He nods and then Vincent comes to kiss me.
“Be good, buddy,” I whisper to him. “Call me tonight, yeah?” He nods and then turns to walk away, when Nora holds out an arm for me to go to her at the same time she is holding onto Josephine, something she’s done countless times.
“Come over here,” I tell her. “I want my own hug.”
She squirms away from Josephine and then hops to me, and I take her mid-hop, making her laugh out loud. “Daddy,” she says breathlessly after I kiss her neck, “that tickles.”
“Okay, baby, see you guys tomorrow.” I put her down and watch them walk toward the SUV I paid for. I hold up my hand as they drive away and only then do I let my shoulders fall.
Out of everything that happened, the worst thing is having to lose time with the kids.
Especially since I wasn’t even the one who created any of this situation.
I wasn’t the one who cheated on her, who threw away our family and blew up our whole world.
Now instead of seeing my kids every single day, it’s every other week and I hate it.
My phone rings from my bedroom and I take the stairs two at a time to get it. I see it’s my father calling. “Hey,” I say, “you just missed the kids.”
“That’s okay,” he replies. “I was calling to talk to you, actually.” I sit on my unmade bed and look down at my feet.
“What’s up?” I ask worriedly. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Listen, what I have to tell you, I’m going to need for you to take it in and process it, and then you can do what you want with it.”
“This doesn’t sound good.” I fall onto the bed and look up at the ceiling.
“Your sister came over to talk to me,” he starts nervously.
After I found Jeremy in bed with Josephine, I left the both of them and went straight to my sister’s house.
She had just had their son three weeks before and they also share a two-year-old.
I sat her down and told her what I found, and she was beside herself.
I had just finished telling her what I just walked into when he came running into the house, probably shocked that my first stop was my sister and not my parents.
She then turned it on me and blamed me for this, since I asked him to watch out for her and the kids.
It was my fault for asking him to check on things at my house when I was out of town.
Needless to say, my sister and I are currently not on speaking terms.
“Yeah,” I say, thinking he’s going to guilt me into calling her and apologizing. The strain this has put on my parents is also starting to show. My father lost weight, my mother looks like she spends all day crying. “What is it?”
I’m waiting for him to tell me to call her and waiting to interrupt him.
I don’t know what he’s going to say but I can tell you, it’s not what I hope he’s going to say.
“She and Jeremy are going to stay together.” I shoot back up to a sitting position.
“She has been in counseling with him and has decided she is going to give him another chance.”
“The fuck?” That’s the only thing I can say.
“We’re going to respect her and her decision.”
“So you are going to be okay with that cocksucker, who cheated on your daughter with your son’s wife, sitting at your table.”
“If your sister is going to forgive him and move past it, I think we should also.” I don’t even think he believes the words that are coming out of his mouth.
“Yeah. No.” I shake my head. “It’s safe to say if he’s at the table, I’m not going to be at said table,” I make it clear, “and neither are my kids.”
The last part shocks him and he gasps, “You would take your kids away from us?”
“No,” I quickly say, “I didn’t say that. What I said is if he is there, my children and I will not be. You can see them when they are here. You can see them when they have their sports events. You can see them when he’s not in the house.”
“Knox,” he says my name, “it’s like you are asking us to choose. What is going to happen for Christmas or the holidays?”
“I guess it means I’ll see you when they aren’t there.
Listen, Dad, she’s your daughter so I know that you are torn.
But I was the one who walked in and saw them fucking in my bed with my own two eyes,” I hiss the last words, “no one else. Me. I had to move out of my house. I had to buy another one. My children now live in two homes because of her husband.”
“She shouldn’t be blamed for his actions,” he replies softly, and I laugh.
“Dad, she blamed me for it,” I remind him. “She called you on the phone while I was there and blamed me for it.”
“Your mother is going to make herself sick over this,” he snaps at me.
“That again is not my fault. I did nothing wrong but show up to my”—my house goes louder—“house and catch them, again, fucking in my bed. How would you handle that, Dad, if the roles were reversed, and it was you who caught Mom in bed with someone else?”
“Okay,” he finally gives in, “I get it.”
“No, you don’t,” I say, frustrated. “I don’t think anyone gets it.” I take a deep breath in. “Listen, I have to go. I have a meeting with my lawyer this morning and then we have to go to mediation.”
“Think about what I said,” he urges, and I close my eyes.
“Dad, I love you. Love you to the moon. Wouldn’t want another father except you. Made sure everything I did in my life I did to make you proud.” I trail off. “But I can think on what you said until the cows come home, and it’ll be the same answer.” I exhale. “I’m sorry.”
“Call me later, let me know how things go at the lawyer’s,” he says, his voice filled with sadness.
“I will,” I tell him and I hang up the phone.
The minute I do, I see two texts have come in while I was on the phone; the first one was from Josephine.
Josephine:
I’ll see you later, at one. Do you want to have coffee after?
I think about answering her “fuck no” but if the kids see it then it’ll look bad on me, so instead I ignore it.
The next text is a thread I have going with Jaxon and Kirby.
The two of them have been the saving grace in all of this.
They have messaged me every single day since it happened, making sure I was okay.
I’ve even been added to the off-ice workouts they do.
I’m in the best shape of my life, but that’s because I’m always in the gym, trying not to think of the clusterfuck my life has become.
Jaxon:
Back to work tomorrow, boys, bring your A game.
Kirby:
The A game is always brought.
Me:
I’ll send you a couple of plays you fucked up this summer.
Kirby:
Go fuck yourself.
I can’t help but laugh at his last parting line. I toss the phone to the side and then get up and get my ass in gear. “Hopefully, this is the last time we have to do this mediation bullshit.”