11. Garrett
GARRETT
The first summer Kenda and I were a couple, I brought her to my parents’ house, eager for her to meet Mom and Dad. Naturally, they loved her. How could they not?
She spent the next two Christmases staying with me there, because she didn’t want to spend the holidays with her parents.
She hadn’t told me much about them, but I got the idea her father was an asshole.
Of course, Mom had been adamant—even if I was twenty at the time—Kenda and I would sleep in separate rooms. Right—as if that had stopped us from hooking up while under my parents’ roof.
We had snuggled on the porch love seat, our bodies buried under a pile of blankets, talking about our futures.
I would attend law school after the Marines.
She was going to be a great journalist, traveling war-torn countries.
Right, I hadn’t exactly been thrilled with that.
We had argued, heatedly, before I finally understood why she had to pursue her world-changing goal.
The love I felt for Kenda has faded, but the pain in my heart that she’s gone from this world is very real.
And now I have a daughter. A daughter who will grow up without her mother.
Each step toward my childhood home is like trudging through wet mud, my newly appointed single-father status and the looming book deadline sucking me down.
The front door swings open, and Mom’s smiling face meets mine. The once-brown waves of her shoulder-length hair are now gray, but despite that, she still resembles the woman who raised me. And that includes the jeans and light-blue T-shirt dusted with flour.
“Garrett, I wasn’t expecting you today.” She steps back, letting me into the house. “You’re just in time for your favorite double-chocolate cookies. They’re fresh from the oven.”
The smell of chocolate reaches me as I step onto the stoop, and I’m returned to a time when she made them whenever I’d had a bad day. I didn’t have to tell her something was upsetting me. She always knew.
I flash her a wan smile and step inside my childhood home. Memories of Kenda in this house make it difficult to fasten on a more convincing upward curve of my mouth.
A few specific memories sneak in, and a small, silent laugh fills my heart.
Of her making out with me in the old treehouse that used to be in the backyard.
It had been damn cold, but Kenda hadn’t cared.
Of her unabashedly throwing her arms around my neck in front of my family after she opened her Christmas present from me.
I had given her some pretty journals Zara had told me Kenda had been eyeing in a store.
Of her tiptoeing into my room late at night, looking adorably sleep ruffled, after having a bad dream.
I had kissed the memory of it out of her until she fell asleep in my arms.
Worry creases Mom’s brow. “Is something wrong, sweetheart?” She sweeps me into a hug, the top of her head barely meeting my shoulders.
I hug her back, relieved and happy this woman, who’d put up with my dumb ass growing up, is still part of my life.
She has always been there for my brothers and me.
Attended all our hockey games and practices.
Supported all our decisions, including those I’m sure deep down she cringed at.
The only exception was when she had temporarily, last year, disagreed with Troy’s choice of girlfriend, Jess, because of her past.
She releases me, the frown on her face still there. “What’s wrong?”
“Is Dad here? There’s something I need to talk to you both about. ”
“He’s working in his study. Has some numbers he needed to crunch for a client and decided to do that here instead of at the office.”
“I can come back later.” After I attempt to put words on the page.
“No, no. He shouldn’t be much longer. You can sit and have cookies while you wait.”
“Did someone say cookies?” My father’s wide shoulders fill the doorway, and a grin breaks out on his lined face.
“Hey, son. Are you the reason your mom was busy baking cookies this afternoon? And here I thought she was baking them for me.” He’s not wearing the button-up shirt and trousers he would’ve worn to the office.
He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt that reveals arm muscles that only come from hitting the weights.
Mom laughs the familiar sound of my childhood. “Of course I was making them for you, dear. Garrett dropping by to talk to us is an added bonus.”
I follow the pair into the kitchen and sit at the table.
The kitchen cabinets were recently repainted to a gray-blue, but the rest of the room hasn’t changed much since Kenda was last here.
Back when I wouldn’t think twice about scaling the tree outside the guest room, just to spend the night with my girlfriend without Mom being wise to what I was up to.
“You want coffee or milk with your cookies, Garrett?”
After the past twenty-four hours, I need something stronger than coffee or milk, but I doubt Mom would go for that. “Coffee, please.”
While Mom brews it, the three of us make small talk about the upcoming Wilderness Warriors season. She places the mugs and a plate of cookies on the table and sits on her chair.
The late afternoon sunbathes the table in a warm glowing light but does nothing to soothe me like it did when I was a kid. If anything, it just highlights the empty seat Kenda had sat on.
But while that might have been Kenda’s chair, the cookie plate with the hand-painted, cute chubby bird on it was a gift from Zara. Over twenty years ago.
Mom loves that plate.
And I secretly love it too.
“So, what’s up, son?” My father asks once we’re settled.
I pick up my mug and take a sip of the hot drink.
“I…” I put the mug do wn and rake my fingers through my hair.
Rub the back of my neck. “I came home yesterday after my run with Kellan and found a woman and a toddler on my front stoop. I’ve never seen either of them before, but the woman had a letter from Kenda.
The toddler is my daughter. Kenda’s and my daughter. ”
“Your daughter?” Mom says at the same time my father splutters, “What kind of scam does this woman think she’s pulling?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not a scam. She told me Kenda was killed in a mall shooting last week. I looked it up. Kenda was listed as one of the deceased.”
Mom gasps, her shock reverberating throughout the room. Her hand flies to her mouth, shaky fingers pressing against her lips.
“And this woman just showed up out of nowhere to tell you that you have a daughter?” Dad sounds as convinced that Athena is telling the truth as he is the tooth fairy is real.
“That’s right.”
“But if the toddler is your daughter, Kenda would have told you she was pregnant.” The shock on Mom’s face has morphed into a battle of emotions, with hope and longing sitting on top of the pile. “She knows you wouldn’t turn your back on your child. We wouldn’t turn our backs on your child.”
I can only shrug. I have no idea why Kenda thought she couldn’t tell me. Fuck, why had I acted like a sulking asshole and ignored her text?
Yes, she’d left while I was sleeping and hadn’t bothered leaving a note. But we’d both agreed it was only one night. No strings attached.
Had she really believed I’d want nothing to do with my daughter because of that agreement? I hadn’t planned to become a father due to a one-night stand with a former love, but it is what it is.
Of course, I’m not about to tell my parents this. They don’t need to know I was the idiot who never returned her text asking me to call her. And besides…she could have tried again—but she didn’t.
That’s all in the past. I need to focus on the future. With my daughter.
“Are you sure she’s your daughter?” My father leans back in his chair, his expression that of a man who has seen and done things he’s not proud of—which has made him leery of other people’s actions and motives .
“I’ve ordered a paternity test to find out for sure, but Kenda had no reason to lie to me. Or no reason I can think of.” Other than the possibility the father was an asshole and she didn’t want Peony anywhere near him.
But she’d have known I would do a paternity test. I wouldn’t take things at face value.
“Where is she? Your daughter?” Mom’s face is soft with that dreamy look she always gets when talking about her friends’ grandkids.
“I put Peony and her nanny up in a hotel for the next few days.”
“Her name…my granddaughter’s name is Peony?” Mom smiles, her face further softening. Any softer, and it would drip onto the kitchen floor.
Dad takes Mom’s hand. “Jo, maybe you shouldn’t think of her as your granddaughter. Not yet. Not until Garrett sees the paternity results.”
Mom’s shoulders sag. She then pushes them back, her expression taking on a determined tilt. “How long will that take?”
“I ordered the test online yesterday. So about two weeks.”
She huffs out a sigh, tearing her hand from Dad’s. “Two weeks?” She snatches a cookie from the plate. “Please tell me I don’t have to wait two weeks to meet my granddaughter.” She waves the cookie in my face, as if tempting me with a treat will get me to change my mind.
“Jo,” Dad drawls, his tone a sympathetic warning. He picks up his mug, peers inside, and shakes his head at it—though I suspect his reaction has nothing to do with the contents and more to do with Mom’s response to my news.
She snaps the cookie in half and waves his warning aside. Flying crumbs hit Dad in the chest. “Oh, hush. I’m not waiting that long to meet her.”
Dad grunts and straightens his spine, his tell that he’s about to hunker down for a storm with Mom.
“And what if she isn’t your granddaughter?
” His tone is no longer sympathetic. It’s commander stern.
“Are you sure you’re willing to risk that disappointment after getting your hopes up? She could be trying to scam Garrett.”
Mom lifts her chin, unfazed by his tone. “Yes. I am. And if Kenda was positive Peony is Garrett’s daughter, so am I. You’re worried the nanny is scamming Garret. I’m worried about that little girl who has no mother.”
I stare at my parents. I knew they wouldn’t lecture me about not practicing safe sex and getting my ex-girlfriend knocked up. But I also hadn’t expected Mom to accept Peony as her granddaughter so easily—not without proof.
Really? You hadn’t expected the woman who has been dying to have a grandchild for years to get excited at the possibility now?
Mom might be done with the topic, but Dad isn’t.
I can see it in his expression. “How do we know the nanny isn’t actually the girl’s mother?
Or the little girl isn’t someone else’s child who was abducted for this farce?
” He leans forward on his chair, his concerned eyes on Mom. “Your son’s a famous author.”
“I’m not that famous.” Just famous enough to end up with a stalker one time. “And Kellan checked the database to make sure there are no missing children fitting Peony’s description.”
“Okay, she wasn’t kidnapped from another family, but that doesn’t mean she’s Kenda’s child.”
“She looks nothing like the nanny. She does look like Kenda though.” I take a sip of my coffee, wishing it were something stronger.
“Why are Peony and her nanny at the hotel?” Mom asks.
Dad makes a sound that’s somewhere between a grunt and a huff. The sound of surrender. He knows he’s lost this battle. Until the paternity results are in and they prove otherwise, Mom’s stance won’t be swayed.
“My home isn’t toddler proofed, and I didn’t have anything for Peony to sleep on.”
“Didn’t?” Of course Mom would pick up on the past tense.
“I was in Eugene this afternoon and bought a few things. Including, er, furniture for her. It arrives on Tuesday.” Which means I need to empty one of the rooms to use as Peony’s room.
And redecorate it so it’s little-girl friendly. The voice in my head belongs to Zara.
Dad scoffs a laugh. “Sounds to me like you don’t care what the paternity test has to say. You’ve already made up your mind she’s your daughter. ”
“Kenda had her reasons for finally telling me Peony is ours.” I’m glad she did, though I would’ve preferred she hadn’t waited until she died to tell me. “And given I seem to be the only thing she has left in this world, other than the stuffed panda she showed up with?—”
“What do you mean ‘the only thing she has left’?”
“There was a fire at the apartment where Kenda, Peony, and the nanny were living. They lost everything.”
Mom gasps. “The poor dears.”
I explain to them about Kenda’s request in her letter and about Peony and Athena. “As soon as I have Peony’s and Athena’s rooms set up, I’ll move them into the house. And then you can meet your granddaughter.”
Dad looks like he’s going to argue again, but Mom gives him a quelling glance, and he shuts his mouth.
Mom’s lips push out in a pout. “Do I really have to wait till Tuesday? Couldn’t you arrange for Athena to take Peony to a playground, and we meet them there? That way it might not be so overwhelming for Peony, especially if she’s as shy as you say she is.”
Mom makes a valid point. Things might go better if I can ease Peony in when it comes to meeting my parents.
“Alright.” I place my hand over Mom’s. “I’ll see what I can do.”