60 EVIE
E VIE
The next evening, Carter and the others were off to another show in another city, and I thought of them there, far away once again, just as the car door slammed outside, startling me.
I went to the porch to greet the kids just as they bounded in.
They took turns calling out hello before running toward the backyard in a blur.
“Hey, guys! Did you have fun at the pizza—” But they were off. I looked up to see Steve standing on the sidewalk.
He shrugged. “Oh, to have their energy,” he said, chuckling. He held a wilting handful of daisies with the dirt still clinging to them and a greasy box of pizza leftovers.
I eyed them curiously. “What do you have there?”
“Lainey picked them for you on the way to the car.” As he handed them to me, particles of dirt dropped along with a few petals.
I smiled at the pitiful little bunch of stems, thinking that they were exactly what I needed at that moment. “I love them. Thank you. I’ll just put them in some water.” I took them from his hand, along with the slightly misshapen box, barely managing to meet Steve’s eyes.
“Did you have fun at the show last night? How was it?” he asked.
“It was good.” Visions of my night with Carter, his kiss, my fingers running through his hair flashed through my mind, and I looked away.
“Glad to hear it.” He took the kids’ bags from the car and set them on the porch. “All right, I’m off,” he said, walking away. “Tell the kids I said bye.”
“Wait. Steve ...”
I told him then that I needed to talk to him and that it was important.
I asked him to stay. I remember the concern on his face and my heart breaking at the thought of everything I was about to tell him.
After making sure that the kids were likely to be occupied at the neighbors’ house awhile, we sat on the sofa in the home that had once been ours together while he listened to what I had to tell him.
“Carter Wills.” He raised his head from his hands and gave an acidic laugh, filled with disbelief. It was the second time he’d said the name, and I could tell it was hard for him to process. “Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to compete with that.”
“Steve.”
“You should’ve told me that’s who he was.”
“You were clear. When you decided to raise her as your own, you told me you never wanted to know anything about him,” I said defensively. “So I didn’t think I should tell you.”
“Are you kidding me? You didn’t think it was important to mention that her father was Carter fucking Wills?”
“I thought about telling you a million times. But you didn’t seem to want to know much about him, and I didn’t think it mattered since he wasn’t in her life.” As soon as I said it, I realized at once that things had changed. “Or at least, it didn’t seem to matter before,” I added.
“It mattered, and you knew it. Otherwise, you would’ve said something.”
I didn’t respond. Perhaps he was right.
“I always knew that you were broken when we got together back then.” I winced at the uncharacteristic cruelty in his words.
“You only mentioned him briefly here and there—the mysterious ex-boyfriend who’d done a number on you in New York.
I didn’t push you, because I respected your decisions.
I respected that there must have been some good reason that you left the way you did, pregnant.
I knew he was some musician and figured it had been a fling that ended badly.
You got pregnant, and he took off. I figured it was in the past and we were together.
She would be our daughter. And here, all this time you were pining away over him—all these years. ” His words cut like shards of glass.
“Steve, we had a good life, and you’ve been an incredible father. What you did back then for me, for both of us, was something I’ll always be grateful for. I’ve never for a day taken it for granted. I did love you. It’s just that—”
“That you loved him more. I get it, Evie.” There was nothing I could say to him that hadn’t already been said in conversations leading up to the decision to end our marriage, so I stayed quiet.
We both had hurt one another enough. But at least, the truth was out there.
“So now what? I guess you guys are back together? Planning a happy little family reunion?”
“I don’t know. We’re just going to spend some time together.”
Emotion filled his face, and he looked away, trying to stifle it. “She’s my daughter.” The words came out choked, defensive, and I ached for him.
“Steve ...”
“From the first time I saw her, the first moment I held her, she was my little girl. I’m her father, dammit.
Not him. It’s my name on the birth certificate.
I was the one with you the day she was born.
I was the one up with you in the night when she had colic and the 104 fever.
She’s my daughter, Evie.” A shudder went through his shoulders.
My mind went back to the look on Steve’s face the day that Lainey was born, his heart instantly belonging to her.
“You will always be her father, Steve. I’ll always love you for that. When we decided to divorce, we agreed then that we’d keep the relationships with the kids as normal as possible. No matter what, you’ll always be her father.”
“So what’s that make him, then?” He straightened and regained the look of pragmatic composure that I knew so well.
I swallowed. “He doesn’t know. Not yet, anyway.”
He looked up sharply, his eyes widening. “What?”
“I haven’t told him.”
“What do you mean, he doesn’t know? Do you mean he never ...”
“He ... he never knew about her. About any of it. He never even knew I was pregnant. We broke up before I told him.”
“But he knows you have kids now, obviously.”
“He just assumed that you and I had the kids together. He never had any reason to think otherwise. But I was wrong. Steve, I was wrong not to tell him back then. I thought I was doing what was best for Lainey. And for him. For all of us. But I’m not so sure now.
Seeing him again—it’s making me question everything. They deserve to know each other.”
He pleaded with me. “Don’t tell him.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I can keep it from him anymore.”
“Evie. Listen to me.” He stood suddenly. “There’s no reason. Don’t tell him.”
“It’s not right, Steve. And you know it.”
“I’m not going to have her whole world turned upside down like this. And what about Lucas? Where’s he in all this? He’s our son, too, remember. Our son.”
“We always said we’d explain it to her one day. To both of them.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea anymore. Evie, so help me ... don’t tell him. Run off with him. Hell, screw him to your heart’s content; I don’t give a damn. But don’t take her with you in all this.”
Steve was panicking. I could see his head turning in all the directions that mine had over the years. But that was then. “He’s a good man, Steve.”
He threw his head back with a sardonic laugh. “Oh, sure, great.”
“He’s not what you think. Not at all.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me. What’s he like, then?”
“She’s ... she’s a lot like him, Steve,” I said. “I see him in her more and more every day.”
A wave of fresh hurt dulled his blue eyes. “Ah. I see.” He shook his head. “So? What’s your grand plan?”
“I’m not sure, really.”
“Just give it some time, will you? Don’t rush into anything. Once it’s out there, it’s out there. Nothing will be the same.”
“I know that.”
“He might not even want anything to do with her. Have you even thought of that? Or he might decide later that it’s too much. Have you thought of what that would do to her?”
“I have.” More than he knew.
He sighed heavily, suddenly looking five years older. “If this is what you need to do, I guess there’s not a whole lot I can say.”
“Thank you.”
He looked at me then, sadly resigned. “And what about you? How do you feel about all of this? Your big reunion after all these years?”
I didn’t need to respond. Steve could see it all in my face. How deeply I loved Carter.
“I see. Well, I guess that’s that, then.” The room fell silent, the mantel clock ticking. Neither of us sure what to say next. He looked weary as he turned to leave but stopped. “You know, Ev, it makes more sense now, at least.”
“What does?”
He shook his head. “I never could quite get it. What it was that was always off with us. I tried. I did. Evie, I have loved you every day since you were twelve years old. I know I wasn’t perfect. I took you for granted. And I know you thought there was someone else at the office ...”
“Steve, I didn’t—”
“You didn’t say it. But I know you did think that. And I don’t blame you. Hell, I even let you think it. I figured maybe it would spark something in you to want to fight for me. But it didn’t. You weren’t happy, and I couldn’t figure out why.”
I went to him. Took his hand. “You have to know that I have loved you too. Truly. I have.”
“I know you did. But you loved him more.”
“It was just different.”
“Right. Obviously.” And then he walked out of the room and slammed the front door.
Your dad was so worried about you that day. He loved you so much, and he just wanted to hold on to you. So before I tell you more about Carter, you should know a little more about the man you’ve called Dad. And what a good man he was.