24. CharlieFoxtrot #3
Yes, Flynn is definitely more astute than I give him credit for.
“Thanks, Flynn,” I whisper, not trusting my voice to talk any louder.
He squeezes me tight before letting go. “Anytime.”
Exhausted, I trudge up to my room. As much of a make-over as the house has been through since Jules hog-tied my brother’s heart, my bedroom remains the same. Rodeo trophies, academic plaques, poorly done horse drawings made in crayon.
I pick up a shell-decorated picture frame off my bureau. Inside is one of the only pictures of my parents, brothers, and me together and smiling. It was my second birthday, and we took a day trip to Galveston beach. A trip I don’t even remember but wanted the picture nearby all the same.
Hand on my abdomen, I sit on my twin bed, the pink and white comforter soft and fluffy.
I want my baby to have a lot more than one picture.
Try .
Staring at the picture frame, I think about what Mike said. Nothing worth having is easy.
I toss the picture frame aside and pull my phone out from my jeans pocket.
Try.
Seems like such an easy thing. Just try. Make an attempt. Take a shot. Give it some effort.
Except it’s not easy. Just like Mike said, it’s hard.
Staring at my phone, I think of all the worst-case scenarios. Vance could ignore me. He could not want our baby like my mother made obvious she didn’t want me. He could say yes then change his mind. Show up only to leave again.
He could do a lot of things that would hurt. A lot of things I’ve felt before. But now, they’d be ten times worse because it wouldn’t be done to just me.
Try.
I glance at the picture, face down, but I don’t need to see it to recall every expression, every whisper of hair blowing in the sea breeze, every laugh line around my parents’ eyes.
My hands tighten on my phone.
The easy thing is to not try. To tell myself that if Vance wants to be here for the baby, he will. And if he doesn’t, he doesn’t. It’s up to him. His move. His try.
I fall back on my bed with a huff.
I’ve never been good at letting others have control.
Arms above my head, I bring the calendar up on my phone. I hover over tomorrow’s appointment and copy and paste the information into a text to Vance. Then, just to make it easy, I send the address.
I stare at my text, unhappy. It’s missing something. The calendar link and map impersonal. And considering I’m inviting him to a doctor appointment where a woman is going to stick her hand up my hoo-ha with him right next to me, maybe I should add something.
I write, delete, and rewrite several things.
Please come. No.
I want you to be there. No.
Hope you can make it. No.
I continue until my arms feel weak from losing blood.
Right before I lower them, I send one. You’re welcome to come if you want .
An hour later with no response, I agree with Mike. Trying can really fucking hurt.
Vance
“We need to talk.” Mom, thankfully back to being dressed in normal clothes, drapes her jacket over a chair as Brit and I enter the kitchen. She must have come in through the side door.
When I don’t say anything, Mom pulls out a chair and sits.
Brit does the same. “He was asking about Dad.”
“Well that much was obvious from all the stuff you said to Rose today.”
“Today?” Brit’s interest peaks. “Pole dancing day?”
Mom proceeds to give Brit the lowdown on how I became the worst new baby daddy known to man. How I told Rose I loved her, then wouldn’t commit to kids. How there was mention of my getting a vasectomy or waiting ten years before I could start a family.
Brit’s eyes get wider with each revelation.
“And then Rose said that she was pregnant with my grandbaby!” Mom covers her heart with her hands, eyes closed as if overcome with happiness.
Brit gasps. “Holy shit.”
Mom opens her eyes, the happiness draining when she focuses them on me. “And you left.” She spits the words at me.
Brit chokes on air. “Holy fucking shit.”
Mom smacks her arm with the back of her hand, but Brit doesn’t even register the hit. Instead, she backhands me, like we’re playing a violent game of whisper down the lane. “How could you not tell me right when you got here?”
“I needed to ask you about something else.”
“Oh.” Brit’s glare vanishes. “Oh yeah.”
“What? What did he ask?” Mom straightens in her seat, indignant once more. “Because I’m telling you that if your father was here, he’d be so disappointed.”
Rage slams into me, and I stand, my chair sliding back across the tile. “That would be pretty fucking hypocritical of him then, wouldn’t it?”
Brit and Mom look up, mouths as wide as their eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at them before. I don’t think they’ve ever heard me yell period.
I take a deep breath, trying to get under control. “Do you even remember my last spacewalk this year? The emergency one Jules and I had to make to protect the ISS from impacting space junk? An impact that could’ve potentially killed everyone on board?” I smack my chest. “Including me.”
Mom shudders. “How could I forget?”
“Exactly. I can’t either.” I run a shaky hand through my hair. “And I’m going back in just a few months.” My laugh is hollow. “Hell, I want to go back up.” I shake my head at myself in disgust. “What kind of man does that make me?”
Brit frowns. “What are you talking about? How does that?—”
“How does that relate to Dad?” I ask, annoyed that she still doesn’t get it. That no one gets it.
I look at Mom. “I think we all remember how Dad’s death changed you.”
She flinches.
“Wrecked you even,” I add.
She swallows. “What do you?—”
“I heard you cry yourself to sleep at night.” I sit, the feelings I’ve kept tightly bottled inside draining me as they overflow.
“I… I didn’t know.” Mom’s head drops forward. “I had no idea that you remembered any of that.”
“Like you said, how could I forget?” I turn my gaze to the window, watching the swing of the playset I had delivered to my nephews for Christmas six years ago sway in the breeze.
“And yet still, all these years later, you still live in a house that is basically a shrine to when he was alive. You never dated, you never moved on. Dad left you and never came back, and you still love him despite it.”
“But he was in the military. It was his duty. He didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Mom jerks back at my vehemence.
“He had a choice. It’s not like there was still a draft. He signed up. And he kept making that choice every year he chose not to get out.”
Brit bites her lip.
“How could I take the chance on doing that to someone else? Someone I love.” I swallow.
“And I love Rose, Mom. I love her so much.” I wipe angrily at my eyes.
“I didn’t want to. Because I didn’t want to put her through what you went through when Dad died.
But then, like a selfish jerk, I talked myself into thinking that if Rose still chooses to be with me despite the risks, it would be okay.
” My fingers dig into my thigh under the table.
“But a baby? A baby doesn’t get to make that choice.
They don’t sign up for the gamble of being raised by a grieving, single parent. ”
The swings move back and forth a few times before Mom speaks. “I loved your father. So much. And yes, I still love him. I always will.” She takes a deep breath.
Brit, head down, sniffs.
“You were robbed of having a father at an early age. That’s not fair.
Death itself isn’t fair after all, military or not.
But I also like to think how lucky you were to have your father in your life, even for the briefest of times, than not have had him at all.
He loved you so much. And he showed that love by being the best man he could be.
“It isn’t fair, and maybe it isn’t right, but that’s how it went.
And when you handled his death with far more maturity than a boy your age probably should’ve, I failed you when I didn’t say anything.
Because even though you never complained, and you never cried at the unfairness of it all like you heard me do at night when I thought you were asleep, I should’ve known better.
When you didn’t talk about your father, I thought I was respecting your feelings.
I chose instead to keep the house as your father left it, thinking you would find comfort in its familiarity.
I didn’t know it felt more like a burden, or a cage I locked you into. ”
It seems absurd that such soft-spoken admissions from my mother could have such a profound effect on me, a grown man. That even now, I still needed to hear them.
“I’m so sorry, Vance.” She reaches out and grabs Brit’s hand. “And you too, Brittany.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I understand.” Her voice cracks on the last words, and she stands. “Fuck.” She marches over and grabs a box of tissues and tosses it back on the table before sitting back down. “What happens in the kitchen stays in the kitchen.”
We all grab a tissue.
“And I want to tell you something, Vance, and I want you to look me in the eyes, so you know I’m telling the truth.”
I have to blink a few times, but I do.
“Even knowing what happened. Even knowing that one day your father would fail to come home to me, to us , I’d still marry him all over again.”
I swallow.
“Do you hear me?” She looks back and forth between Brit and me.
We both nod.
“I mean it.” Mom lowers the tissue away from her eyes, her gaze serious and sure. “And I hope that you can feel the same. That even with all the pain you carry, you can both realize what a wonderful father Lonan Bodaway was to you. That you can remember the happiness past the sadness.”
“I do, Mom. I remember.” Brit gets up and bends down to hug her, each of them laughing a little, trying to break the tension.
And when they both look at me with the same question in their eyes, I feel the usual emotions I associate with my father— the anger, regret, and fear—shift inside me. Making room for more. For love. For possibilities.
My eyes sting, and my nostrils flare, but I take a deep breath and forge on. “Remember the time Dad stayed up all night trying to put together our Christmas presents, and we all raced downstairs in the morning to find him sleeping under the tree?”
Brit laughs. “Oh my God, yes. I’d almost forgotten about that.” She blows out a happy but shaky breath.
I ball up the tissue in my hand, tossing it in the trashcan by the wall. “He said he was trying to catch Santa and we got mad that he didn’t include us in his plan.”
“Or what about the time he took us to Clear Lake Park and those geese started to chase him?” Brit asks, her smile growing. “I never saw him run so fast in my life.”
I laugh, the act enough to release the rest of pressure bottled inside.
“Or the time he surprised us all, coming home a week early.” Mom’s eyes get misty again, but I can tell it’s from happiness this time. She nods at me. “Just in time to welcome you back at the bus stop on your last day of kindergarten.”
“My friends were so in awe of him in his fatigues.” I recall the look of worship on their faces as they stared out the bus window at my dad, who was standing tall and proud in his camo and boots. “He looked like a giant.”
“He did, didn’t he?” Brit asks, mostly to herself. “He could hold his arm straight out, and I’d swing on it, my feet not touching the ground.”
The side door swings open, and Matt files through with the boys.
“Hey, Uncle Vance!” Jacob’s smile lights up the kitchen.
“Uncle Vance is here?” Jase’s head pops around the side of his dad, his hands laden with a foam finger and a Big Gulp.
“Hey guys.” I hug them a little tighter than normal.
Right before they can start giving us a play by play of the game, my phone vibrates.
Rose: Dr. Barrios, tomorrow at 3:30pm
She follows it with an address for an OBGYN office.
I stare at it, shocked as my nephews talk a mile a minute about the game and all the junk food their dad let them have.
“Thanks for that,” Brit says to her husband.
My phone vibrates again.
Rose: You’re welcome to come if you want .
I stand, this time the chair beneath me topples over. “I got to go.”
“Yeah ya do.” My sister’s mocking tone is firmly reinstated.
“Yes, it’s about time,” Mom adds. “Don’t forget to ask Rosie when my grandbaby is due.”
“Aunt Rose?” Jacob asks. He and his brother perk up at the mention of their Fortnite cohort.
“Wait.” Matt looks from his wife to his mother-in-law to me. “Rose is pregnant?”
“A cousin!” Jase’s foam finger shoots in the air.
Jacob looks at me, confused. “But you’re not married.”
“Idiot.” Jase nudges him. “Women don’t need to get married if they don’t want to, remember?” He straightens, tipping his chin up. “Marriage is an archaic form of ownership that was originally used to claim a woman as property.”
The adults all stare wide-eyed.
Brit turns to me, all seriousness. “Please, for the love of God, go marry that woman.”