3. Michael
“We made a bunch of these bracelets in arts and crafts today. So I made us matching ones.”
We’re stopped at a red light as Rachel lifts her hand from the backseat and shakes it, her grin wide. Twisting in my seat to take the bracelet she made for me, I smile a goofy, proud smile.
My fingers run over the bracelet’s bright beads before stretching it over my hand, letting it snap against my wrist. It’s a snug fit, but I don’t tell her that.
“It’s beautiful, kid. Thank you.” The light turns green, and my eyes turn back to the road. “I’m glad you enjoyed your first day of camp.”
Since jumping into my truck at pick-up, she hasn’t stopped talking about it. About how much fun she had, about all the friends she made. About the ones she reconnected with, apparently (i.e. that woman Diana’s daughters).
Despite that last tidbit, I think Thank god.
Because as a relatively new parent, I struggle with this internal battle of wondering whether I’m doing right by her 24/7.
For so long, I was nothing more than a glorified sperm donor.
But things are different now. I want to be here for her.
I want to make sure she’s getting all the love and support she needs in life. And I want to be the one doing it.
I grin down at my new bracelet. “I love it. I’m never taking it off.” And I mean it. I’ll wear it ’til the elastic snaps.
I glance at her beaming face, so much like her mother it hurts.
Her large crystal blue eyes, round and wide in excitement as she tells me about her day, long blonde hair a mess, remind me of what Jessie looked like when she was exactly her age.
But when my scan of her face leads me to notice her ski-jump nose looking more red than pink, I frown.
“Did you reapply sunscreen throughout the day?”
“I… I don’t remember. Maybe?”
I frown, narrowing my eyes at the road ahead of me. “Might need to talk to the camp counselors. Remind them they should be taking better care of you. That they should be doing their job. Especially with all the time you guys spend in the pool.”
I grunt in frustration because deep down, I know it’s my fault.
Here I go again, fucking up this whole parenting thing.
“I’m sorry. I promise I’ll remember tomorrow.” Her voice is low and small, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach.
“It isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”
“But you’re mad.”
“At myself,” I admit with a sigh.
“Why?”
I shake my head, trying to find the words to make a nine-year-old understand something I’m only now beginning to learn.
“Because I didn’t stop and talk to the people in charge.
Because we were late, and I didn’t think…
” I sigh again. Because I’m a fucking dumbass who prioritized work over taking five fucking seconds to make sure his daughter was taken care of.
Working out which dishes would best go on the menu to my restaurant shouldn’t have ever come first. “I just didn’t think. But it’s fine. I’ll fix it tomorrow.”
She groans. “Michael.”
I wince again. It’s not like I expected her to call me Dad overnight.
How could I when she didn’t even know that’s who I really was until nine months ago, when her mother died.
But, despite taking on the parental role after Jessie’s death, I’ve somehow been demoted from Uncle Michael—her favorite, her pal, her mother’s best friend—to just plain and simple Michael.
My heart twists in my chest and I wince, trying not to think about last year or how devastated Rachel was.
How, at thirty-four, I suddenly found myself the parent and sole guardian of a nine-year-old.
The confusing time we both went through as we tried to navigate our new dynamic, as she had to process the truth: I was her father and she was coming to live with me.
That Jessie had left her in my care, and care for her I would.
“I don’t want you whining, Rach. I need to make sure you’re safe. If they can’t manage to remember to do something as simple as put sunblock on my kid, then we’ll have to pull you out and find you somewhere new for the summer.”
“What? No! I’ve only been there for a day and already made new friends!”
Part of me deflates in relief, so fucking happy she’s happy, that she’s having a good time.
But another part of me remembers that having a good time doesn’t always mean you’re being safe.
I would know, after all those years of long nights at work, compensating for the stress with copious amounts of alcohol, drugs, and random sex.
Sure, comparing my debauchery to a day camp for kids is a stretch, but the principle remains the same, doesn’t it? At least when it comes to my daughter.
“I’m happy you’ve made some friends, but I still want to make sure you’re okay,” I tell her in as comforting a voice as I can manage.
Rachel huffs and looks out the window, argument settled.
Neither one of us breaks the silence as we make the drive to my farm.
She ices me out, while I fight the urge to break down and capitulate, to apologize on my knees.
For what, exactly? I’m not sure. I only know that seeing her upset is like a knife in the chest, and I’d do anything to make her happy.
It’s only when I turn onto the farm’s gravel road that I speak up: “Do you want Lexi to make you lunch while I work?”
Gaze still focused out the window, Rach lifts her small shoulders in feigned indifference.
She barely waits for the truck to come to a full stop before jumping out and running into the main building, backpack bouncing as she does, small feet kicking up enough dirt to leave a cloud of dust in her wake.
“Jesus,” I mutter to myself, following at a more reasonable pace. I’ve got a future sprint olympian on my hands, here.
When I make it to the kitchen, Rachel and Lexi are already deeply engrossed in camp talk: “…And, oh my gosh, Lexi, I made you a bracelet!” Rachel squeals, searching manically through her backpack.
I look down at mine and frown, ignoring the sting of my disappointment. I guess I’m not as special as I thought I was.
But there are no hard feelings when it comes to Lexi. On top of being my cousin and business partner, she and her wife are some of my closest friends. They’ve both been an invaluable support during this hectic time.
“Hey, Lex.” I greet my favorite sous-chef with a kiss on the cheek.
“Hey, cus.” She looks up, her dirty-blonde hair tucked into her overalls. “How was pick-up?”
I glance at Rachel, who steadily avoids my gaze. “Eventful. Apparently I can be a bit overprotective.”
“I’m going to play outside,” Rachel says, voice clipped.
Without another word, my kid leaves us alone in the kitchen.
Lexi puffs out a laugh. “Oh, man. What’d you do?”
“What did I do? You know, I’m starting to think there’s no winning in parenting. As a kid, I had the least involved parents in the world and hated them. And I feel like now that I’m the parent and I’m trying to be the complete opposite of my own, I’m still hated.”
“What happened?”
“I made the mistake of giving a shit and telling her about it, apparently.”
Lexi laughs. “She doesn’t hate you, then.”
I exhale deeply, squeezing my eyes shut while pinching the bridge of my nose. “It sure feels that way sometimes.”
“I know you don’t know this because you never had a stable home life—”
“Understatement of the century,” I mutter.
“—but all kids will eventually find their parents annoying, embarrassing, or frustrating on a regular basis. When you’re a kid at that age, you don’t get that caring comes with growing pains. You don’t realize that your parents are trying to protect you by setting boundaries.”
“Not all parents,” I clarify.
She purses her lips and frowns. “No. Not all. Certainly not yours.”
“So what do I do?” I ask, not wanting to think about my childhood. “Because sometimes it feels like I’m doing the right thing. But then other times I lie awake in bed in a panic, praying she doesn’t hate or resent me the way I do my own parents.”
“You know what you have to do. What you’ve been doing so far.”
I shake my head with a grunt. “Today, two different people at Rach’s camp told me I suck as a dad.”
Lexi sighs. “Well, I don’t know the context, but I’m sure they were wrong in saying that. I’ve seen bad parenting and you aren’t it.”
“I didn’t want this in the beginning, though,” I say, the guilt of it all almost knocking me breathless.
“That was before. Almost ten years ago.”
“Still. Maybe those women were right.”
“What the hell do they know, anyhow?”
“Uh, they were both mothers? Granted, one of them was a super snooty-looking mom, but the other seemed more down to earth. Normal.” Hot, too, I think, remembering her angular face, the smooth skin of her exposed thighs in denim cutoff shorts.
The large freckle on the right corner of her lip, every single curve of her body.
And that sexy accent… Just subtle enough to go by almost unnoticed, but pronounced enough that it made me want to know more about her. But that’s beside the point.
“It was rough,” I grumble.
“Whatever. I’m a mother of two demons and I’m telling you you’re not a bad dad.”
I take a seat on one of the stools by the counter, looking out onto the field. “The normal one was Barbara’s friend. The one I met at the wedding? The one who’s staying at her place.”
“How do you know she’s the one?”
“Educated guess.” I shrug. “But I just think it’s too much of a coincidence to have seen her at the wedding and then at the camp. I told you Barb had asked for recommendations for her guest’s kids. So, yeah, I think it’s her friend.”
“Small world.”
“Hmm.” I nod. “It’s going to be an uncomfortable summer.”
“Well, it’s not like you’ll be forced into social situations with this new woman. Barbara is away for most of the summer, and you can just avoid this woman at camp drop-offs and pick-ups. Pretend like you don’t see her. Chances are, she’ll do the same.”
“Yeah,” I mumble, thinking back to the look in Diana’s dark brown eyes as she transitioned into protective mode.
Fierce. Strong. The perfect cherry red lip pout as she stared at me in slight derision.
Deadly, but beautiful. The determined expression on her face; making sure her girls were being taken care of.
So much fucking passion.
“Listen.” Lexi comes to stand beside me, placing both hands on my shoulders, her dark blonde bob shaking as she shakes me.
“Snap out of it. The fact that you’re stressing about what kind of parent you are already makes you a better parent than most. It means you care enough to try as hard as you can to not mess up your kids.
You need to stop thinking you’re this shitty dad.
You are far from it. You gave up your life to take care of this kid.
You could’ve kept on being Uncle Michael, passed on the responsibility to her grandparents or something.
But you chose to follow Jessie’s request and take Rach in.
You gave up your restaurant and your life and moved back here just so she could stay in her hometown.
Amid all the trauma and all the grief, you’re opening up a new business venture in the hopes of giving her a more stable life.
You’re providing for her. In more ways than one.
That’s not being selfish or a bad parent.
” She pats me on the back and lets me go. “That’s being an honorable person.”
“Yes, sure, now. Now that’s what I’m doing. But I can’t help feeling things would be easier if we had just told her from the beginning who I was, if she knew I was her dad, and I had treated her like a daughter from the get-go.”
Lexi takes a deep breath. “I’m gonna say something that you’re not going to like. But… you would’ve made a horrible father ten years ago.”
I balk at her.
“It’s true. You were selfish and career-centered and an immature ass who thought he was hot shit.
But even though you were all those things, you were still self-aware enough to know you would’ve been the worst. Because you didn’t want to be a father, and you would’ve resented that kid.
Luckily, Jessie was a saint, and offered to have you be as involved as you wanted to be—which was not at all.
But trust me—it would’ve been a nightmare.
You would’ve been a nightmare. And then you’d definitely have made for a terrible father.
Now you’re more mature, and already have a name for yourself, and—”
“But I missed so much. I missed everything, it feels like.” I hunch over the bar, letting my forehead rest on the cool marble.
Lexi pauses for a moment, considering her words carefully before speaking again. “You were there in the best way you could have been.”
No matter what Lexi says, this sense of guilt will never disappear.
“Cut yourself some slack, Michael. Look at everything you’ve accomplished. And what we’re about to accomplish together.”
I snort, shooting her a desperate look. “I’m starting to lose faith there, too. We’re ten weeks away from opening, out of money, and I haven’t been able to come up with a single fucking creative dish in months.”
“Yeah, it’s no secret we gotta get it together, but we can do it. We just need to find another investor and get you inspired. I’ll work on finding us more catering clients to get us out of the water for the time being. And you need to get back to testing new dishes.”
“I’m creatively constipated, Lexi. Like, all backed up and nothing’s coming out,” I nearly moan, miserable.
She bursts out laughing and slaps me on the shoulder. “Is that why you’re looking a little rounder these days?”
I glare at her. “No. I think that’s just my dad bod kicking in.” I look down at my stomach, and while we both know she’s exaggerating, I can’t help but be a little vain about it.
“Michael. You need to relax. Every single dish you’ve created has been a hit with our testers. You’re overthinking this.”
She’s not wrong. Still, though. I shake my head, digging my fingers in my hair. “You don’t get it.” And the fact that she doesn’t, sends shivers down my spine. I need my Number 2 to Get. It. “Perfection, Lexi. We need perfection.”
She frowns and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Perfection is the enemy of the good, Michael. So how about you take some creative Miralax or something and develop some kick ass recipes, huh?”
I grunt.
Lexi rolls her eyes and heaves a big sigh. “It’ll work. The restaurant. Rachel. It will all work out. I promise.”
“It has to.” I look out the window again, my eyes landing on the one person who’s become the center of my universe in such a short amount of time. “For her, it has to.”