Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Deacon
Just before I put my key in the lock of the townhouse on Wednesday evening, I check my phone.
Still no message from Aurora.
I really thought she’d agree to dinner. It’s just dinner, and we’ve done that before, even if it was by chance.
The chemistry between us is… Maybe she doesn’t feel it like I do. I just can’t imagine that’s the case. The way she kisses me. Her fingers in my hair. Her hot breath on my neck. I shake my head. It doesn’t make sense that she wouldn’t call.
Willow squealing “Daddy” as I open the door shifts everything, and I shrug off my jacket, just in time to catch her as she jumps into my arms. “I missed you!”
“I missed you,” I say, burying my face in her mass of curls.
“I’m eating dinner. Baked potato and broccoli.”
“Any protein with that?”
She pushes out her bottom lip. “I ate two mouthfuls of steak.”
“Good,” I say, and her face breaks into a smile. Two mouthfuls of steak is better than nothing. I gotta take the wins. “Let’s go and finish dinner. You can tell me about your day.”
With Willow in my arms, we head into the kitchen, where Willow eats.
“Hi, Lucia,” I say to Willow’s nanny.
“Hi, Mr. Black. Willow’s being a very good girl.”
Willow smiles, as if to say, I told you, Daddy.
“Has your mommy left?” I ask. Usually Gabby will stay until I arrive, but maybe she’s busy wedding planning.
“She’s in the loo,” Willow says, and I smile at her English turn of phrase. That’s my girl.
“You sit,” I say, sliding Willow onto a chair.
“But you sit too,” she says.
It’s only ninety minutes until Willow will be tucked up in bed, asleep. If she wants me to sit, I’ll sit. If she wants me to juggle baked potatoes, I’ll do it. I’m just pleased to be here with her.
I slide into the bench next to her and she starts eating her dinner again.
“Tell me about school.”
“It was good,” she replies.
And that’s it. There’s no more meat on the bone. Willow likes to chat. But she’s never particularly forthcoming about what happens at school.
“What did you have for lunch?” I ask.
“Pasta,” she says, which is what she says every day. I wonder if there’s anything else on the menu. The amount I’m paying, they should be serving my kid foie gras and caviar every day.
“And who did you sit next to?” I ask, trying to draw blood from the stone. That’s my daughter.
“Kimberly.”
Kimberly’s a friend I’ve not heard of before.
“Who’s Kimberly?” I ask.
“Kimberly at my school. She’s in my class, Daddy.” Her tone suggests she thinks I’m the biggest idiot who ever lived. She clearly thinks I need to have a handle on everyone in the class. Ironically, that would be easier to do if she ever gave me any information about her day.
“How was Mrs. Walsh today?” I ask.
“Good,” she replies.
I do my best not to eye roll.
“What story’s she reading you at the moment?”
“The same, Daddy.”
“Thirteen Story Treehouse?”
She nods, stuffing a mouthful of baked potato, cheese, and beans in her mouth.
I don’t bother asking her whether she likes the book. She’ll just answer that it’s “good.”
“Tell me the three best things about your day?” I ask.
“You go first,” she says. Willow will be a first-class negotiator when she’s older, if the early signs are any indication. I swear, she’ll probably work for the UN or something.
“Coming home to be with you,” I say, without skipping a beat.
Willow grins and her smile makes my heart soar. Christ, I’m a lucky bastard having a daughter.
“What else?” she asks.
“As I was going to work, I saw a lady carrying a cat on her head.”
Willow starts to giggle. “You did not, Daddy.”
“I did!” I say, in mock outrage that she wouldn’t believe me. “It was curled up around her head. I thought it was a hat when I first saw it. A furry hat with a tail. And then I saw its tail move and I jumped out of my skin.”
Willow scrunches up her nose. “Really?”
“Well, no, I stayed in my skin, but it made me jump.”
“You know, I saw a lady with an elephant on her head today,” Willow says, taking my cat and raising me an elephant.
“You did?” I say, on a gasp. “I bet that was heavy.”
Willow nods. “It was a baby elephant, but even baby elephants are very heavy, Daddy.”
Gabby comes out of the loo, interrupting our conversation. “Hi, Deacon. Can we talk for a second?” she asks.
I press a kiss to the side of Willow’s head, stand, and follow Gabby into the living room.
“I won’t be long,” Gabby says. “I just wanted to say this in person.”
My stomach drops.
Her gaze hits the floor, she takes a breath, then looks me right in the eye. “I think we need to look at changing the arrangement we have here,” she says. “I’m getting married. I can’t be away from Ray for three nights a week. It doesn’t work.”
“You want him to move in three nights a week?” Ray’s okay, but I don’t like the idea of sharing a house with him.
Gabby and I used to live in this place together.
Okay, so we don’t live here at the same time now, but everything’s set up the way it always has been, except I moved out of the primary and I’m in a guest suite.
Another person in the mix will change things.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea for Willow. ”
“Willow loves Ray.”
A wave of jealousy threatens to engulf me. I don’t want my daughter loving another man.
My reaction must be written all over my face, because Gabby turns around and says quickly, “I just mean, they get on well. I don’t think Ray being here overnight would change anything.”
“It’s disruptive. I don’t—”
“I’m not talking about Ray moving in. That’s not what either one of us wants.”
“So, what are you talking about?”
“A more traditional custody arrangement, where Willow stays with you and then with us.”
My stomach curdles as she says the word us, like she’s some kind of unit with Ray and my daughter.
“We both agreed that it would be better for Willow if she stays in the same house and we’re the ones that are inconvenienced by our split.”
“I know,” Gabby says. “But things change. She was little then. Now she’s older, she can understand more.”
“She shouldn’t have to understand more.”
“And I’m getting married to someone else. You can’t expect me to leave my husband three nights a week. Even if Ray came with me, it’s not fair on him.”
“Making our daughter shuttle between houses isn’t fair.”
“Just think about it. We’ve always agreed on everything between us, for the benefit of Willow. I don’t want that to change, but the way things are isn’t sustainable.”
“It is for me. It is for Willow. You’re the only one who wants this to change.”
She looks up at me. “What about for you, Deacon? What if you find someone you’re serious about? Life moves on. For all of us.”
My jaw tenses. “You can’t just make your children bear the brunt of your life choices.” My entire childhood was ruled by the British Army and where they sent my father. There was no thought to what was best for us. I won’t make the same mistake.
Gabby tilts her head and gives me a look that says I’m being unfair. But I’m not. I’m being the opposite. What’s not fair is making Willow move houses twice a week. “Ninety-nine percent of divorced couples do it a different way from us,” she says.
“So? We’ve done it the right way.”
“I agree it’s been the right thing to do because Willow was little. But things are changing.”
“For you,” I say. “Things are changing for you.”
Gabby sighs. “Think about it. We could buy this place from you and we could move in permanently…”
My stomach churns. Now Gabby wants this house?
“This is my house, Gabby.”
“Okay, so you move in here,” she says.
Anger simmers in my stomach. Why did she have to come and upset everything? Everything was working perfectly.
“Or what?” I say. “What if I don’t want to think about it?”
“Please, Deacon. Just think about it. I don’t want to fight with you about this. I know you’re a good guy who wants to do the right thing by his daughter. But this might be better for all of us.”
She doesn’t say it, but the implication is clear—things have to change or she’s going to take me to court. Ray is in this mix too. He’s probably pushing her to change things up.
“You never know,” she says. “If you have a permanent home, some other things in your life might appear.” She shrugs. “You might find someone you want to be with forever. You know what they say—if you build it, they will come.”
“I don’t know anyone who says that,” I snap. The only woman I want in my life forever is my daughter.
“Just tell me you’ll think about it.”
I can’t respond. I feel like a volcano, hot lava about to spew out of me. I’m angry at Gabby for moving on with her life, I’m angry at myself for bringing a daughter into the world that I can’t give a stable home life to.
Growing up, as we moved from base to base, from country to country, I swore I’d never do the same thing to my kid.
I promised myself that my kid would have one of those families that appeared on television—the kind that lived in one house their entire lives and had Sunday lunches every weekend.
Gabby, Willow, and I are nothing like the family I imagined…
but now she’s being offered that traditional family, maybe being with me will be the last place she wants to be.
But there’s nothing I can do to make this right.
Right now, I need to cool off. I have to pretend Gabby didn’t just turn our lives upside down. I want to spend the next hour with my daughter, put her to bed, read her a story, and just enjoy this sacred time I have with her.