Chapter Forty-Three
All Roads Lead to Her
Rod
Throngs of kids conveniently block the way to my duffel bag, lifting the big plastic trophy coated in gold paint high above their heads.
I’m in no rush to leave, though. For the first time in days, I let myself smile and join their celebrations, dance around, chant with them.
It feels like the return of some semblance of normal. I welcome it.
Eventually, as the chaos clears, I get to my bag, left a couple of bleachers away from where Jordan’s was.
Beside it sits Tali. My stomach plummets when I see the tears on her face.
I’m straight into crisis mode, hurrying over, kneeling down in front of her, checking for anything, any bruises, scrapes, anything.
Prepared to move heaven and earth to fix whatever has made her this upset.
I take her face in my hands, wiping the tears from her freckled cheeks. ‘What happened? What’s up, champ?’
She just sniffles quietly, and when I wrap an arm around her, she lets me. I stroke her hair, and she says, ‘Jordan left.’
What?
‘She did what?’ My own voice sounds distant, incomprehensible.
Tali doesn’t respond, and that’s all the answer I need. She’s disappeared. Gone home before the season starts.
It’s easy to think to myself that this was what I’d been afraid of.
The connection Tali had formed with Jordan, the way they bonded, and then: leaving.
Exactly what I felt was inevitable. Breaking Tali’s heart all over again.
Except it’s not as simple as that, because as Tali cries silently, I realize that I can’t blame Jordan for any of this. It’s on me.
When the fireworks begin that evening, we settle down to watch them, Genny’s family sitting with us on our massive picnic blanket.
The show is beautiful, but Tali seems detached from the spectacle, and as it goes on, I realize that so am I.
My daughter doesn’t smile as a big boom sounds and reds and blues and silvers light up the park.
It occurs to me that these kinds of things are only really pretty when you have the people you love next to you.
The next day, the first thing I do is text Colt. I’m still in bed – I haven’t even gotten up yet – but the guilt is weighing too heavily. I can’t feel empty, not now, not when I’ve possibly screwed it all up.
Me: Is Jordan over there?
Colt: Over where?
I roll my eyes. Unbelievable.
Me: You idiot. Oklahoma.
The three dots that indicate he’s typing pop up. I roll over onto a pillow that’s fallen to my side, rubbing my eyes, and finally, the reply comes.
Colt: I thought she was with you??
And my heart fucking sinks.
Me: She’s not there?
Colt: Is she supposed to be?
Me: I’d think so. Camp is over. She didn’t go home?
Colt: I can talk to Montse. But I think we would know if she’d come back.
Shit. I know Montse’s her mom, which reminds me, with a sharp pang to my heart, that this is actually none of my business.
And anyway, I feel awful giving Colt something to chase circles around right now, especially after he just got engaged – something I learned right after Friday’s team dinner, causing another inconvenient pang of guilt. He should be relaxing, celebrating.
It’s not my responsibility, I immediately remind myself.
Jordan is a grown woman. She’ll do what she wants to do, how she wants to do it.
She doesn’t need me pulling out my hair trying to figure out where she’s gone, and she probably doesn’t want me doing that, either, given everything that happened in the past week, the fight on the field.
Maybe we pulled it together in the end, but that didn’t really matter, did it? The damage was done.
Phone still in hand, I pad out of bed and over to the chest of drawers against the wall, tug on a shirt. The photo above the chest of drawers is still noticeably askew. I chuckle humourlessly.
I take a sip of water, fish a pill out of the pack next to the bedside lamp and pop it, washing it down with what’s left in my clear blue bottle. Quietly, knowing Tali will still be sleeping in after the day she had yesterday, I sneak out into the hall.
Her door’s a crack open, the same as it always is.
She can’t sleep with it closed, likes to have a way to run into my room fast in case it rains and starts to thunder badly.
She also firmly believes keeping it open will encourage the dogs to come in.
This is true. I make my way down towards her door, a sparkly pink sign emblazoned with ‘TALISE’ hanging outside, and gently push it open.
The first thing I see is, as expected, Scout and Boo lying at the foot of the bed, all curled up.
They love that kid; I’m not surprised they made their way inside, or that she keeps letting them.
Tali has her pale pink covers pulled up to her chin.
She looks tiny in comparison to the huge mounds of frilly pillows and numerous dog plushies she sleeps with, a sea of fluff.
Eventually, I plod down the stairs, and sit myself down at the island with a bowl of yogurt and granola.
It’s eerily quiet, lonely. Everyone in the house is up there with Tali, as if to remind me I royally screwed up, an unintentional cold shoulder.
My phone’s still in my hand. Some part of me is still unconsciously waiting, hoping, to hear word back from Colt about her.
The worst part is that at the counter, I can still picture Jordan fixing herself that salad, fitting so effortlessly into my house, my life.
Maybe I could say it felt like it was destiny, but that would be an understatement.
At the end of the day, it felt like she was my purpose, that she was my missing piece.
My compass. Where the arrow pointed, I would follow her.
I had been so lost for the longest time. She’d found me.
I look back up toward the staircase. Everyone in the house. Tali and the dogs, my world.
Don’t you want to take a chance, Rodney?
If I had taken that chance, she might still be at that counter. And I wouldn’t feel like my world was far, far away from me in this moment.
I crunch on a spoonful of granola and lean my head against my hand. Jordan would take a chance. She would believe in me, believe that even if it wasn’t possible to restore my world to perfect, I could start to fix it.
The argument between Declan and Jordan at the big game floods back to me. Tali looking back at the gates that Jordan had left through. And Charlotte in the Boston stands.
If Jordan had been right that night – about the fact that there were still good dads left in the world – I can’t keep doing this to Tali.
Maybe I can’t get Jordan back. It might be too late for that.
But I have to fix the root of this problem.
I have to go back to where my fears started, back to what has made me so very scared to take a chance, if I want to show my daughter that I’m that good dad.
That I’ll champion for her, come what may.
I know exactly what I have to do.
Charlotte already has both of her bags and her backpack packed, standing in a neat row along the wall of her room, when I arrive at the little Whittaker bed and breakfast she’s staying at.
It’s probably the first thing I notice when she opens the door.
It’s about eight in the morning. When I’d messaged her asking to meet, she had curtly let me know she would have to leave at nine to catch her flight.
But some odd motivation had entered my body – some part of Jordan’s strength.
I needed this. I promised her I would drag myself out of bed and show up well before she left.
Now, I look like a mess, but she’s totally put together, wearing a high-end sweatset in a dark maroon and sporting a perfect ponytail.
My hair points every which way, there are probably crease lines on my face, and she may well not be able to take me seriously.
I’m a couple of years too late. But I’m here for my daughter.
‘Rodney.’ She clears her throat. ‘What did you need?’
‘Let’s head to the sunroom. Please,’ I add.
Charlotte looks like she really isn’t taking me seriously. She plants a hand on her hip. For a moment, I think I’ve already lost the battle. But then, she nods.
We walk downstairs in dead silence. The sunroom, which is built into the back of the bed and breakfast, has exactly two wicker chairs in it and windows all around.
It’s just sunny enough that the room is illuminated in a faint glow, but not so much that it blinds us.
I take a deep breath before I sit down in one of the chairs, and Charlotte takes a seat across from me.
‘What did you need?’ she repeats. Her face is stony enough that even when I try to read it, I can’t. There was a time when I could tell what she was feeling from a single glance. That time has long since gone.
‘Charlotte … I’m not telling you that you aren’t allowed to spend time with your daughter.’ I swallow hard. ‘Because I don’t get to tell you what you are and aren’t allowed to do with your life.’
She leans back. Her narrowed eyes soften just a hint. Maybe they widen. I’m not sure.
‘But what I am telling you is that when we went our separate ways, we agreed to support one another in whatever we did after that. What we didn’t agree to do is dictate what that would look like.
’ I think of Jordan’s persistence when I speak to her.
I try to echo the conviction in her voice when she talked about facing our fears, together.
‘The last thing I want is for you to leave Tali’s life.
I’ll do what it takes to keep you in it.
But I need the space to begin to rebuild parts of that life.
For myself, and for Tali. I won’t give up on getting over my fears and moving forward.
I want to do that. To do that, I need to know what you want, though.
I want to make sure that you’re treated fairly in all of this.
I’m willing to work with that. If you’re willing to work with me. ’
Charlotte’s eyes have definitely widened. It’s no longer a struggle to read her emotions. Her lower lip quivers faintly. We have, all three of us, been through a lot. Very rarely have I actually been able to see the toll it’s all taken on her.
It takes a moment before she speaks. ‘I haven’t … been fair,’ she finally says. ‘I want immensely different things than you, Rodney, but I want the same thing for Talise.’
‘I’m glad to hear that, Char.’
‘I know you are.’ She raises her gaze to meet mine. ‘I don’t know just what I want for you yet. I think that’s the problem. We left with such resentment after Tali’s birthday, what, four years ago?’
I could almost laugh. ‘Resentment might be an understatement.’
‘That’s accurate.’ Charlotte does ultimately laugh, a small chuckle. ‘Rodney, fear does such strange things to a person.’
I give her a small smile. I might know a thing or two about that.
‘I suppose I want you to know … I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for Tali.
What I want for myself … it’s just that.
’ Charlotte sighs. ‘You’ve allowed me to pursue my own path all these years.
I’ve never given you enough credit for that.
Now, I just want to know that whatever decisions you make, Rod, you’ll make sure that my daughter is cared for.
That’s all.’ She looks up at the ceiling, then back at me. ‘I need to trust you.’
I’m not sure if the last part is more to herself, or to me, but I nod. ‘I’ll make sure of it. I promise you that. And Charlotte … we want you here every year. If I have ever made things feel any other way, that’s my fault, and I’m so sorry.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Rodney. To you, and to Tali.’
‘Charlotte, you made a choice. The choice that would make you the happiest. There’s nothing to be sorry about.’
‘Not that. The bitterness. I’m sorry that I drew a line where it didn’t belong.
That I didn’t have more faith in you.’ Charlotte rolls her eyes, but there’s a tiny smirk on her face.
‘Even though you took Talise on the road with you. God, that kid saw Las Vegas at the age of two. You’re ridiculous. ’
The teasing is so different from our usual spats that it takes me a moment to register and reply to her. ‘It’s what I live to do.’
‘You’ve raised a wonderful child, Rodney.’ Charlotte brushes something from her cheek so quickly that I don’t get the chance to see if it’s a tear or an eyelash. ‘You’re not ridiculous. You’re a fantastic father.’
‘She’s your child, too.’
Now, Charlotte’s laugh is more than just a chuckle. She closes her eyes for a moment before regarding me with the sort of smile I haven’t seen in years. ‘You don’t need my blessing for whatever comes next in your life, Rodney. I hope that’s freeing.’
It would be. It so would be, if Jordan were still here.
Charlotte stands up. I follow her, and then she does something else I haven’t seen in years. She gives me a hug, with those two little businesslike pats of hers that have been ingrained into her over time.
When Charlotte pulls away and heads up to her room to get her bags, I stay in the sunroom for a moment.
My compass, without whom I’m lost. Jordan guided me this far, to do the thing I’d been afraid of doing, to make the room in my heart to move on without fear. She should have come next in my life. And I don’t know how I’ll ever convince myself otherwise.