Chapter 17 #2
Lucy remained silent, allowing him to think, sensing a decision being made deep in his subconscious. She watched him closely, noting how he relaxed slightly, how the serious expression on his face faded, and then the unsure smile that tugged at the side of his lips.
He was emotionally caged off to a fault, and that was just his way. But he fought against it. Why, Lucy even suspected that he wanted to break this about himself. That he wanted more.
As if to prove this suspicion as true, Marcus slide down from the chair suddenly sat on the floor across from her and James. He could not have looked more awkward, but that he tried meant the world.
“Can I…” Carefully, he held out his arms. “Can I hold him?”
“You do not need to ask,” she laughed.
“I feel as if I do.”
Lucy beamed with sheer delight. Just as she was starting to reevaluate what she wanted in her life, so too was Marcus. And considering how stubborn she knew her husband to be, this here was as big of a moment as she could imagine.
“Here…” She put James down on the floor so that he faced Marcus. “Let’s see if he goes to you.”
* * *
Why am I so nervous? There is no reason to be. James is one year old, it is not as if he knows what he is doing. It is not as if it matters whether he crawls to me or not….
Marcus repeated these words in his head, trying to make them true. Regardless, his palms started to sweat; a clear sign of how nervous he was. He wanted James to crawl to him. He wanted James to accept him…
“Oh, look,” Lucy gasped with excitement. “Look!”
Slowly, almost as if he was not even sure himself, James started to crawl to where Marcus sat crouched on the floor not five feet away. It started with caution, the little babe looking upon Marcus as if he was a stranger… which, to be fair, he was. But still, he crawled.
Marcus sat frozen, not wanting to move or frighten the child.
“He likes you,” Lucy cooed as James crawled closer.
“He does not know what he likes,” Marcus dismissed, even as his heart raced. “He probably does not even know what he is doing.”
“He does,” she said rightly. “He knows exactly who you are to him.”
James came within one foot, at which point Marcus reached out with a single hand like one might a stray dog that they were trying to calm.
James fell back on his bottom, giggled, and then reached for Marcus’ hand.
He wrapped his little hand around one of Marcus’ fingers and held on tight. His eyes wide, his smile generous.
“And… who am I, exactly?” Marcus asked in a whisper as his heart soared.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Lucy said. “You are his father.”
Those words washed over Marcus like the heat from a fire on a cold night.
He felt them plunge through his body, wrap his bones, and set his inside alight in a way he did not know he needed.
His heart swelled, his smile grew, and he looked upon little James with love and affection that he had not known he felt until right then.
Emotions that he did not even know he was capable of feeling.
His father… is that what I am?
Marcus had never wanted to marry, and he had certainly never wanted a child of his own.
Business was his true love, and this was precisely because of the emotional dissidence one was forced to have if they were to be truly successful.
Business was numbers. It was signatures on bits of paper.
It was a black and white game, no attachment required.
He had been happy with that too. Or rather, he thought that he was happy. For his entire adult life, Marcus had told himself that he was. He had needed to believe it.
However, as James clutched onto his finger, as Lucy laughed with glee, Marcus came to realize that this right here was a different type of happiness, and it far outweighed anything he’d felt before.
He looked at Lucy and laughed with her. She nodded her head and pumped her eyebrows as if she had always known this would happen. The morning sun shone through the window, setting the scene ablaze, while letting them know just how important and real this little moment was.
Is this what I have always been missing? Is this… is this something I want?
Marcus thought that he did. And not just James’ love, but a family of his own. His heart was full in that moment, close to bursting, and for a brief second, he was able to forget everything that he thought he knew of himself.
It was only for a second.
Suddenly, the light vanished behind a cloud, reality forced itself back into the picture, and Marcus’ thoughts returned to his past, his upbringing, and the lessons that had been drilled into him for his entire life.
As this happened, the walls that he hide behind to protect himself rose around him, they suffocated him, and he fell back as if someone had slapped him across the face.
“What happened?” Lucy gasped, just as James started to cry from the suddenness of his movement.
Marcus pushed himself back up. He looked again at the scene, remarkably different now that James was in tears and Lucy was forced to scoop him into her arms and comfort him.
That moment of tranquility, of peace, wasn’t real. And I was an idiot for thinking it might be.
This is who Marcus was. He was not one to care about others. He was not emotionally available. And he certainly was not father material. Nor would he ever be, and nor did he want to be.
“I…” He leaned back, his stomach sinking through the floor. “I must be getting back to work.”
“Already?” Lucy looked at him in surprise.
“Yes.” He stood quickly and dusted off his legs. “I cannot spend all morning entertaining the child, Lucy. That is why I married you.”
Lucy winced at the harshness of his words, and Marcus grimaced with shame. He did not mean for them to come out that way, but he was not the type to apologize for it either. Despite how hard he tried, how much he might have wanted it, this was not a life for someone like him.
“If you need anything…” He put his head down and fled the room, unable to look his wife in the eye, or finish that thought.
It was a case of two steps forward and one step back for Marcus. Only, in this instance, he felt that it was one step forward and two back. Whatever he believed that he wanted, whatever dreams he might have secretly harbored, they were not his reality. Nor would they ever be.
Marcus was broken, and it really was that simple.