32. Jack
Chapter thirty-two
Jack
A s soon as I got home and put Neva back into her stall, I rushed inside to call my dad.
I didn’t know what it was, but something about those little girls just hit me in the gut.
I wasn’t ready to be a fucking father. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could be a good husband.
Not with this gut-wrenching fear that Maggie was going to leave me.
I saw the twinkle in her eye when she watched the girls’ faces light up.
She wanted this so bad. Despite how unprepared and stressed she felt when she first found out about the pregnancy, she was more ready than most mothers I had ever seen—specifically, my own.
Fear rushed through me at the idea that I was going to turn out like my mother.
At whether or not I would become like her or fall victim to being forgotten again.
Like the idea of parenting was too grounding, and I might flee without a backward glance.
I had to think, was she happy? Did she love this life of going wherever, whenever she pleased? Did she regret leaving her son behind? Her husband? Was I going to end up the same way?
I couldn’t. Not with Maggie. I loved her too much to leave her alone, especially with our baby. Our little fruit.
“Hello. Jack?” My dad’s muffled voice floated through the speaker. It sounded like he was riding a horse.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, boy!” Enthusiasm filled his tone. “How’s my favorite father-to-be?” I internally groaned. My dad had found out about the baby only a few months ago, and ever since, he had raved about it nonstop during our phone calls.
I cut straight to the point. “Have you heard from Mom?”
The line went silent. Almost a minute passed before he spoke. I knew this was a sore subject for him. It hurt me too. But I needed answers. Speaking to my mother wouldn’t be the best idea…she might even encourage me to go my own direction, since it had worked out so well for her.
“Dad?”
“No, son.” He sounded somber, an emotion he seldom revealed. My stomach still fell to my gut. How the hell did none of us know where she was? How had she not called? Had she forgotten our phone numbers—the ones she promised to recite before leaving? Had she forgotten us?
“Oh,” was my only reply. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I knew he didn’t have the answers. I knew he couldn’t tell me why she left and why she wasn’t coming back. Anxiety started to crawl up my chest without my consent.
Dad let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know, boy. She’s probably off in the jungle, saving some monkeys or something. Leah’s a wild child. I’m glad I could reel you in before you went that far.”
Shit. Now the guilt washed over me like a bucket of cold, sticky liquid that I couldn’t brush off my skin no matter how hard I tried. “Could you?”
“Could I, what, reel you in?”
“Yes. How do you know I’m not like her?”
I could almost hear my dad shaking his head from a few thousand miles away.
“I know it sounds bizarre, but–”
“Jack, let me lay a few things out for you. Okay?” I had no idea how he kept himself in check during these conversations. I could only hope I would obtain the trait for my own kids.
I breathed deeply. No anxiety here. “Okay.”
“You got Maggie, your neighbor slash employee, pregnant while having no romantic relationship with her. Correct?”
Hesitating to answer, I let the memory run through my head. Of course, there were romantic feelings. Whether or not Maggie reciprocated those feelings for the majority of our fake relationship, I would never know. But there was no doubt I had felt things for her since the beginning.
“Correct.”
“And you invited her to move across the country with you and pretended to marry her to keep your family together. Correct?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“Do you love her?”
I choked on my breath. Way to be straight to the point, Lenz. His mischievous grin from the other end of the line emanated through the silence on the phone speaker. “So, you do.”
I only managed a strangled, “Uh-huh.”
“So, what are you so worried about?”
I leaped. “Didn’t Mom love us?”
It was a heartbreaking question to ask. Someone who marries you and claims to love you and promises you forever should mean something.
It shouldn’t constitute worry or fear of abandonment.
It shouldn’t initiate trust issues. So why was I having trust issues with the woman I swore I wouldn’t leave?
Why didn’t I trust that Maggie would stay right where she was with me?
“Of course, she did. She loved us both, Jack. But only loving someone isn’t enough. Does it really count when you don’t make an effort to show it?”
He had a point.
“Loving someone is one thing, but giving that person the love you have for them is entirely different. I love you, boy, and I’ve worked my ass off to give it to you, to show you, to never let you doubt that I did. Did I do a good job of that?”
God damn . This was some next-level philosophy I never heard growing up. “Without a doubt.”
“Did your mother?”
My mouth dried. The right answer was, Well, she did until she decided that going on some African safari was more fun than watching your kid look up to you for everything and smile whenever he saw you.
But I couldn’t bash his wife in front of him. That was my business with her, not his. “I don’t think she did.”
“You’re right. But you still love her, right?”
My answer was pathetic.
“I know you do,” my dad went on. “And I know you love Maggie. Difference is, you dropped your entire life to show her you love her. Leah dropped her entire life to pursue what she loved more.” More than us.
His words were a punch in the gut.
“You’re not your mother. You don’t need her to believe you can be a good father to your family.”
Well, shit. I hadn’t even told him how I was feeling. He just read me like a book. The way a father should. “Thanks, Dad. I needed that.”
“I’m always here for you, son. Wyoming or Pennsylvania, I’m only a phone call away.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“Have you spoken to Maggie about your concerns?”
I scoffed, which turned into a chuckle. “God, when did you become such a therapist?”
Dad laughed. “You play with enough anxious players, and you learn how they’re feeling before they’re even out of the truck. You’re not different, boy.”
His wisdom made my lips turn up. “Glad to know I’m at the same mental level as your sponsors. But no, I haven’t talked to her about this.”
“Does she know you love her?”
The memory caught me by surprise. I remembered the night we babysat the two little girls I helped today, how I held her in my arms and almost told her I loved her.
Then it was the morning her dad called to tell her he was coming to visit.
The morning I told her I loved her. When I told her I couldn't give in when she didn’t love me the way I loved her.
Then, the night she told me she loved me.
Indirectly, of course—how could I ever expect the expected with Maggie?
But when she held my face in her hands in the bathroom, after cleaning the blood and broken glass from my face, she told me for real.
I love you, Jack.
The words were so simple, and yet, I wasn’t sure I could breathe the rest of my life without them.
“She knows,” the unwelcome grin on my face gave away my tone.
“And what does she think about that?”
God, I felt like a little kid whose crush told him she liked him back. “She agrees.”
A boisterous laugh left his mouth. “She agrees ? Were those her words?”
“Okay. Sorry. She loves me too.” The jump in my voice didn’t help me keep my cool. Dad knew I wasn’t like this—that I didn’t fall at the feet of anyone.
“I know, son. She’s loved you for longer than you think.”
His words caught me by surprise, and my lack of response must have encouraged him to go on.
“I remember, a long, long time ago, when Richard and I were playing together full-time and left you two together to play, that girl’s eyes lit up when she saw you.
Of course, you were a pretty stupid boy when it came to understanding women…
at least until high school…” He trailed off into a laugh, insinuating my playboy phase.
I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile. “But let me tell you, Jack, that girl had some gleam in her eye looking at you back then.”
I paused. Hesitated. Or maybe I stopped altogether.
Maggie couldn’t have loved me for so long.
Wouldn’t I have noticed if she did? His words should have made me feel better.
And maybe they healed part of me. But what if she didn’t love me enough to stay?
Our parallel abandonment issues surely set us up for failure…
right? But it only strengthened my worry that I would never be good enough for this woman to stay with me.
That I wasn’t sure if I could keep her happy for the rest of her life in the way she deserved.
“Anyway, I’m taking a set out at the moment, so I can call you back later this evening if you need. Or we can talk tomorrow.” A few muffled noises from the other line told me he was nearing the track and ponying at least five or six horses.
“Yeah, sure. Thanks for your help, Dad. See you tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait, son. This surprise thing you have planned will be perfect proof of your love for that woman.”
And with that, he hung up.
I hurried into the house to dig up something deep in the closet I hadn’t looked at in years.
I pulled out a box full of letters and read the messy handwriting.
The words that had instilled the lifelong fear in me that I would never be a good enough partner because of who I came from.
The secrets. The woman I thought loved my dad.
I read until my eyes blurred and my chest turned to stone.
I needed to see her. I needed to see for myself that my father was right.
That I wasn’t Leah Hennicke. I wasn’t my mother.
I couldn’t be, because if I were, that would mean I wasn’t the man my future wife deserved.
She deserved a man who would stay through it all.
Not someone with the potential to fuck it up and leave her more abandoned than I found her.
Fuck it. I needed a flight to Africa and the reassurance that I was not who I feared myself to be. Grabbing my phone and searching for a flight, another panic attack took over.
***
“You’re going out?”
My surprise must have knocked something in Maggie’s mind because she gave me a look that said, What’s the big deal? I shrugged and tried to give her an apologetic smile.
I was on edge today. She could tell. And if I had learned anything about Maggie throughout the last few months of living with her, it was that she hated living with uncertainty.
And not knowing where I was at right now was killing her.
There was a tension in the room that I couldn’t bring myself to ease.
Everything was happening in my head all at once.
I may have promised Maggie I would go to her with my concerns, but those concerns would stress her out and the baby.
She didn’t need that. I could deal with them on my own.
“I’m going to Lina’s for a girls’ night. You okay with that?” I couldn’t tell if she was asking sincerely or being sarcastic, but I answered anyway.
“Of course. So long as I can hold you at the end of the night.”
Maybe that was too much. I was trying to pretend everything was normal and, clearly, Maggie could see right through it.
“You sure? You haven’t really done that lately.”
“Lately?”
She nodded. A hint of insecurity hid behind her eyes. I couldn’t bear it.
“I…I did last night, right?”
“Well…yes.” Admittedly, last night was the same ruse I attempted to put on today, and she knew it.
“Jack?”
I broke out of my thoughts. “Yes?”
“Your eyes are really red.”
“I smoked a blunt,” I joked, even though this was not the time to be making one.
“Okay.” She sighed and turned back to picking out an outfit from our closet. She would never have let me say that if she had been in her right mind.
“Maggie, I was kidding.” What the fuck was I trying to do here? My head was everywhere.
“I know,” she said softly, voice muffled since she was still in the closet. “But if something is wrong and you’re not telling me, I am just going to wait for you to be ready to tell me.”
Christ, I didn’t deserve this woman.
“I’m okay,” I said, because I knew what her next question would be.
“Are you sure?” She still hadn’t come out to face me.
“I’m okay,” I repeated. I’m not.
Maggie came out a few minutes later wearing black leggings and an army green crewneck. She was fucking breathtaking.
“You look beautiful.” I walked toward her to kiss her cheek. She froze.
I wanted to pull her into a hug. To hold her, and beg her to tell me everything would be alright. That I was worthy of being the father of her child. I needed this woman so badly that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
But what if she didn’t need me as much as I needed her?