Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lina
The principal’s office smelled like industrial cleaner and disappointment, with a faint undertone of stale coffee that had been sitting in the pot since early morning.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting a harsh, unflattering glow on everything below as I sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair across from Mrs. Henderson’s desk, my hands folded in my lap, my posture perfect, my expression carefully neutral while she explained—in excruciating detail—how my daughter had gotten into a fight with another student during morning recess.
She used words like “concerning behavior,” and “inappropriate response,” and “troubling pattern,” each phrase landing like a small stone thrown at my chest. “Ms. Wilcox, I understand Tatum is adjusting to a new school,” Mrs. Henderson said, her tone dripping with condescension, as if she were explaining basic math to a particularly slow kindergartener.
“But we have a zero-tolerance policy for violence. Zero tolerance. It’s in the student handbook you signed when you enrolled her. ”
I nodded, my jaw tight, teeth clenched so hard I could feel the tension radiating up into my temples. “I understand.”
“She’ll be suspended for three days. Starting tomorrow.”
Three days. Three days of missed schoolwork, of scrambling to find childcare, of falling further behind.
I wanted to argue, wanted to explain that Tatum had been defending herself, that my daughter would never willingly start a fight, but Tatum had thrown the first punch, and in the eyes of the school, that made her the aggressor.
That made her the problem that needed to be removed.
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” I said, my voice calm and professional, betraying none of the frustration and exhaustion churning inside me.
Mrs. Henderson’s smile was tight; her lips pressed into a thin line that didn’t reach her eyes. “I hope so. For Tatum’s sake.”
I stood, smoothing down my skirt with trembling hands, and walked out of the office.
The principal’s disappointed gaze followed me as I left, but I didn’t look back.
Tatum was sitting on the bench outside, her legs swinging restlessly, her arms crossed tight over her chest in a posture I knew all too well.
She was a complete mess—her shirt torn at the shoulder, exposing a scraped elbow beneath, mud streaked across her jeans and face like war paint, her knuckles scraped raw and bleeding.
Her lower lip was split and swollen, jutting out in pure, stubborn defiance.
A purple bruise was already forming along her jaw.
She looked so much like me at that age it physically hurt. The same fire in her eyes. The same refusal to back down. The same inability to walk away from a fight.
“Let’s go,” I whispered, keeping my voice steady.
She hopped off the bench without a word and followed me down the hallway, her sneakers squeaking loudly against the freshly waxed linoleum floor.
I could feel the weight of the secretary’s stare boring into our backs.
Neither of us spoke until we were in the car, the doors closed and locked, the engine running and filling the silence with its low rumble.
The school building loomed in the rearview mirror.
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and took a deep, steadying breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions churning inside me. “Tatum.”
“She started it,” she said immediately, her voice sharp and defensive, almost aggressive. Her chin lifted higher.
“I don’t care who started it,” I said firmly, turning in my seat to look at her directly. “You do not hit people. Ever. You keep your hands to yourself, and you use your words. We’ve talked about this.”
“She said—” Her voice cracked suddenly, all that bravado crumbling in an instant, and I saw the tears welling up in her bright eyes, threatening to spill over.
“She said her daddy is the president of a big, bad motorcycle club and that he’s important and strong and rides everywhere and—and that my daddy is dead.
That he’s gone, and he’s never coming back, and that makes me a loser. ”
My heart broke into a thousand pieces.
“Baby.”
“My daddy wasn’t a loser! My daddy was in a motorcycle club too. You said so. You told me stories about him. Why did my daddy die and hers got to live? Why did my daddy have to leave us?” Her tears streamed down her dirty cheeks now, cutting clean lines through the mud.
God, this was killing me. The weight of it sat heavy on my chest, pressing down like a physical burden, making it hard to breathe sometimes, especially in moments like this when the past came rushing back with brutal clarity.
I never lied to Tatum about who her dad was.
From the very beginning, I had always been honest with her, even when the truth was painful and complicated, even when I had to explain things that no child should have to understand about loss and absence and the cruel randomness of fate.
She knew he rode a motorcycle, that the rumble of the engine was like a second heartbeat to him, a sound that called to something wild and free in his soul.
She knew he was part of a club, that he wore the leather cut like it was a part of his skin, like it was woven into his very identity, and that the brotherhood meant everything to him.
Sometimes, if I were being honest, it meant more than anything else in his life.
And she knew he died before he ever knew she existed, before I could tell him about the tiny life we created together on one perfect, reckless night, before he could hold her in his arms or see her smile for the first time or know that he had left something beautiful and lasting behind in this world.
The unfairness of it all still gutted me, even after all these years. John never knew what he was missing and Tatum would never know what she lost.
“She was bragging about him,” Tatum continued, her voice trembling with anger and grief, that volatile mixture of emotions that kids her age didn’t quite know how to process or control yet.
“She said I don’t have a daddy, and she does and—and I got so mad, Mom.
I just—I wanted her to stop talking. I wanted her to shut up and stop rubbing it in my face. ”
I reached over and cupped her muddy, tear-streaked face in my hands, feeling the grit of dirt and the wetness of tears against my palms. “I know, sweetheart. I know it hurts. I know those words cut deep.”
“It’s not fair,” she whispered, her chin trembling, her blue-gray eyes—his eyes, God, they were so much like his—filled with fresh tears. “Why does she get to have a daddy and I don’t? What did I do wrong?”
My heart cracked right down the middle hearing that question, the one I had been dreading since she was old enough to understand what she was missing.
I wanted so much to tell her that I was terribly wrong.
That I made a mistake thinking the worst, that her dad was alive and well.
But then I remembered John’s face when he saw Tatum standing outside the barn.
The anger, the hurt, the pain emanating from his eyes as he thought the worst, then his anger overriding all common sense, thinking I betrayed him, before he rode off in a fit of madness.
“I know it’s not fair,” I said softly, my own throat tightening with emotion, fighting back my own tears because I needed to be strong for her right now, even though inside I was falling apart.
“And I know it hurts when people say things that make you feel bad about it, when they make you feel different or less than. But hitting someone doesn’t make it better.
It won’t bring your dad back or change what that girl said. ”
She shook her head slowly, a tear sliding down her cheek, cutting a clean line through the dirt and mud that covered her face.
“When someone says something that hurts you, you tell a teacher. You tell me. You use your words to stand up for yourself, to tell them how you feel and why what they said was hurtful. But you do not use your fists. Violence doesn’t solve problems, baby. It just creates new ones. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice small and defeated, barely audible above the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
I reached over and wiped the tear from her cheek, smearing the mud slightly.
“You’re strong, Tatum. You’re so strong, just like your daddy.
But being strong doesn’t mean hurting people.
It means knowing when to walk away. Even when it’s hard.
Even when you’re angry and sad and it feels like your heart is breaking. ”
She nodded, sniffling.
I pulled her into a hug, holding her tight, breathing in the scent of her strawberry shampoo mixed with dirt and sweat. “I love you,” I whispered. “So much. And your daddy—he would have loved you too. So, so much.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
I pulled back and buckled her seatbelt, then put the car in drive and pulled out of the school parking lot.
The drive through town was quiet.
Tatum stared out the window, her face still blotchy from crying, her hands folded in her lap. I kept my eyes on the road, my mind racing with everything I needed to do today—call the moving company, follow up with the law firms I had contacted, check in with my dad about the farm’s finances.
I was exhausted. Bone-deep, soul-crushing exhausted, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t slow down. Not when there was so much at stake.
I pulled up to a red light on Main Street, my fingers drumming against the steering wheel. The sun was bright, the sky a clear, endless blue. It was the kind of day that should have felt hopeful.
Instead, it just felt heavy.
And then I saw him.
John.
He rode past on his motorcycle, the engine roaring, his cut flapping in the wind. He didn’t see me. Didn’t even glance in my direction. He was focused on the road ahead, his jaw tight, his shoulders tense.
My breath caught in my throat and my hands tightened on the steering wheel, my knuckles going white.
I wanted to follow him. I wanted to pull a U-turn, chase him down, force him to stop and listen.
I wanted to tell him the truth, that Tatum was his, that I hadn’t betrayed him, that I spent seven years believing he was dead and mourning the life we could have had.
I wanted to scream at him for walking away from me in that barn.
For not listening. For assuming the worst.
But I didn’t. Because I wasn’t going to be one of those women. The kind who chased after a man who didn’t want to hear what she had to say. The kind who begged and pleaded and made herself small just to be heard.
I had too much pride for that and, more importantly, I didn’t have time.
The light turned green, and I pressed down on the gas, driving forward, leaving him behind.
I made my decision.
Two weeks ago, after learning just how bad the farm’s finances were, I had called my boss in San Francisco and resigned.
He had been shocked, tried to talk me out of it, offered me a raise, more flexibility—anything to keep me.
But I said no, because this wasn’t about money or career advancement or building a life in a city that had never really felt like home.
This was about family. About my family’s legacy, about Tatum’s legacy. About refusing to let some jackass developer from New Jersey buy my family’s farm and turn it into a casino.
I hired a moving company to pack up my apartment and ship everything to Oklahoma.
I had gotten Tatum registered at her new school, the one she had just gotten suspended from.
I started putting out feelers at local law firms, reaching out to contacts, sending résumés, and setting up interviews.
All while helping my dad manage the farm, going over the books, meeting with creditors, trying to figure out how the hell we were going to keep this place afloat.
I was spreading myself thin.
I knew it, but I didn’t care. Because my family farm had been in my family for four generations.
My great-grandfather had built it from nothing, worked the land with his bare hands, raised cattle and horses and children on this soil.
My grandfather had expanded it, modernized it, and turned it into something sustainable.
My father had poured his heart and soul into it, sacrificing everything to keep it running, and I’d be damned if I let it die on my watch.
As I pulled into the driveway, the gravel crunched under the tires. Tatum unbuckled her seatbelt and hopped out, running toward the house. I sat in the car for a moment, my hands still gripping the steering wheel, my eyes staring at the farmhouse ahead.
It needed a new coat of paint. The porch steps were sagging. The barn’s roof was leaking.
There was so much work to do. So much to fix, and I was going to do it.
All of it.
I took a deep breath, opened the car door, and stepped out into the Oklahoma heat.
John was a complication I didn’t have time for right now, no matter how much I still felt for him. No matter how much it hurt to see him and not be able to reach him.
I had a farm to save.
A daughter to raise.
A life to build, and I was going to do it on my own terms.
Just like I always had.