6. Cam
six
Cam
I let myself in through the front door and cross through the house to the back porch, where I find my Mom knitting a series of complicated-looking shapes, needles clacking away in her hands. Dad is reading something about muscle cars, reading glasses balanced low on his nose. I flop into the third chair at the table, slouched with my legs splayed out in front of me, and sigh heavily.
“Morning, son.” Dad lowers the magazine and peers over the top of his glasses to look at me. I offer a grunt in response.
“So, you and this girl… you like her,” Mom begins. She’s focused on her knitting, needles twitching as she twists and knots the yarn around them. I’m not sure what it’s going to be, but it’s a pretty shade of sunshine yellow. She’s been needling me for information since I shared the news, desperate to see me settled and happy. I’ve declined every one of her matchmaking attempts for the last few years. Since that night in Singapore, I haven’t been able to see a world beyond the one Amie showed me. I haven’t thought about another woman. I haven’t even wanted to.
“I like her. But I don’t know if she likes me. She’s young, Mom.” I throw an arm up over my eyes and peek out beneath it .
“Maisy or her mom?” Dad sets his magazine down, looking pleased with himself.
“How young is young , Camden?” Mom’s eyes narrow slightly.
I shrink into my seat. “She’s thirty-one.”
Dad lets out a bark. “Thirty-one ain’t all that young, son, not compared to you.”
“She’s just… we’re in such different places.”
“Of course you are, honey.” Mom soothes, never taking her eyes off her yarn. “She’s been busy being a mom for the last three years, and you’ve been living it up in your dream job without a care in the world beyond where you’re flying to next. That’s okay. But things change… and so can you, if you want to. Do you want to?”
That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?
Do I want to change? It’s not like I’ve spent the last three and a half years as a playboy, chasing tail around the world and refusing to settle down. That’s never been me. Commitment-shy, sure, but my hesitancy has always come from a place of uncertainty, not a desire to play the field. If Amie had called, if I’d seen her, if she hadn’t walked out of that hotel room—I would’ve made her mine a long time ago. But she didn’t, and I didn’t, and so as of right now, I’m a single man with few responsibilities and a job that routinely takes me all over the world. Except, responsibility looms now.
I have a daughter.
Do I want to change? Do I want to settle down? Do I want to be a dad to that beautiful little girl?
I think of that big smile with tiny teeth, eyes that crinkle at the corners, a button nose that scrunches when she grins.
Yeah. Yeah, I do.
“You ready for this, man?” Despite his off-grid warning, Graham has been in touch almost daily since I surprised him with the news about Maisy. It’s been business as usual. He’s tossing some kind of marinated meat into a wok with his phone propped at a Dutch angle, giving me a unique perspective of his kitchen. His wife Lina walks into the background of the frame, wrangling a laughing redheaded boy. She waves towards the camera with her fingers before disappearing into the rest of the house.
“I think so,” I say, kicking my feet up on my bed. It’s been a long week of flying, and I landed back into Phoenix this morning, only to find my SUV sitting in the parking lot with a flat tyre. That led to a couple of hours in the baking heat, trying to unwrench the flat and replace it with the spare before I could drive myself home. “No. I don’t know. Honestly, Gray, I’m kinda fucked.”
“Oh, you’re totally fucked,” he says, and I hear Lina protest his language in the background. “Sorry, baby,” he says, turning away from me. And then: “But are you gonna put on your big boy pants?”
“I’m gonna go meet her, if that’s what you mean.” I take a long drink of beer, rolling the cool bottle against my cheek.
“Never really imagined you as a dad,” Gray says, effortlessly julienning vegetables. If he hadn’t joined the army straight out of high school, my best friend would’ve made one hell of a chef. “Not that you’d be bad at it—for fucks sake, you’ve never been bad at anything in your life. ”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I have,” I chuckle wryly. “Remember that volleyball game in tenth grade?” I suck down another mouthful of beer as Gray laughs heartily.
“Point is…” He gestures towards his phone with the knife in his hand. “That little girl is gonna be lucky to have you as a dad.”
“Thanks, Gray,” I say quietly. “I wanna be there… I’ve never really cared about having kids before, but Amie’s the first—the only woman I’ve ever seen a future with. And I want it.”
“Amie, huh? Cute.” Gray tosses an onion in the air and catches it before slicing into it. Show off.
“Yeah,” I sigh. She is cute. She’s fucking beautiful. “I just wish I’d known sooner, that’s all.”
“Not like you gave her your number though, am I right?” A handful of onion slices are thrown into the hot pan, sizzling and popping beside the phone.
“Not like she gave me much of a chance,” I mutter. “But no, she didn’t even know my full name.”
“So quit bellyaching about it,” Gray insists. “Go to London, see the girl, meet your kid, make them both fall hopelessly in love with you, and have a hell of a story to tell the grandkids.”
“Yeah, my folks said the same thing. I guess you’re right.” I point my bottle at the phone. “As always.”
Gray smirks into the phone as he sprinkles something brightly-coloured into the frying pans. He lifts the phone from the counter and brings it right in, giving me a close-up of his face.
“Of course I’m right. Gotta run. Fajita time.”
“Say hi to Lina and the boys for me,” I say, offering a quick salute .
“Wilco,” he says with a small salute, and then his face disappears from the screen. I barely have time to put my phone down before the screen lights up again, Maisy’s face grinning at me from a carousel horse. Amie’s name flashes up on the screen with three new photographs in our message thread. Today’s selection features Maisy riding piggyback on a blonde woman, a pair of wide grins on both of their faces. I’m not sure who the woman is, but Maisy seems to be having the time of her life. Another message comes in to explain everything.
Amie
Maisy & my best friend Katy. This was last week when I was in Toronto.
Every time Amie texts me a new photo of Maisy, I find myself juggling my screensavers, torn between wanting to have the newest ones on display and loving the older, established favourites of my daughter cheesing for the camera.
My daughter .
It still feels like such a foreign concept, and I wonder if it will ever feel normal.
I tried to play it cool with my parents. I let Gray in on some of my apprehension. But truth be told, I’m fucking terrified . I’m terrified I’ll hurt her, or I won’t understand her, that we won’t bond. I’m scared we’ll bond too much, that I’ll get too close, and I won’t be able to leave. I’m scared that once I see Amie again, I won’t be able to walk away.
But I have to.
Amie invited me to London to meet Maisy, nothing more. She made it perfectly clear in Santiago that she sees nothing between us but our little girl, a business arrangement of sorts. We’ll co-parent her, and maybe—hopefully—we can become friends. But that’s all it’ll ever be.
She’s too young for me. She’s too far away. She’s too sweet, too pure, too good for me. She’ll never love an aging bachelor who can’t quite bring himself to put down roots and let himself be loved, and however much that hurts, it’s probably for the best.
So I’ll go to London. I’ll meet Maisy, and I’ll love her, and Amie and I will spend the rest of our lives bound together by that sweet little girl. And I’ll spend the rest of my life missing the one that got away.