The Love Line

Chapter 9

NINE

Noah called me over because a rail on the crib is loose, which means he could have fixed it himself in ten minutes but wanted the company instead. I didn’t say so. I grabbed the toolbox and came.

Peyton lets me in, sleeves shoved to the elbows, a baby smell coming off her. “Nursery,” she says, already heading back the way she came. “I’ve got Jace and Juniper playing bumper cars in the kitchen. Noah’s with Maverick and a screwdriver. Go help him.”

I take the stairs two at a time and find Noah on the floor with Maverick on one knee, a hex key in his free hand, scowling at the rail.

Two of the screws have backed themselves halfway out.

It’s Jace’s bed, and I don’t remember exactly when Josie said the boys stopped sharing, but this one definitely has more wear and tear than Maverick’s.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey,” I say, as I drop down across from him and open the toolbox. The boys’ room is a nice size although I think they’ll outgrow it by the time they’re in middle school. Through the bathroom, Junie has her own princess palace.

Instead of building a brand new house, which I expected them to do, they remodeled a craftsman. When the house next door went on the market, Noah and Peyton purchased that as well, had property lines adjusted, and turned the other house into a rental.

“Hand me the long one,” I say.

He passes me the screwdriver and holds the rail steady with two fingers while holding a squirming Maverick against his shoulder.

“How come you don’t buy a new crib?”

“We did,” he says. “Peyton ordered it but it’s on backorder for six months. She wants their cribs to match.”

I nod and figure it’s a twin thing since Juniper’s crib doesn’t match the boys’.

“How did this one break?”

“Uh . . .”

I hold the screwdriver to the screw and look at my son. He smiles sheepishly. I shake my head and go back to work. I don’t really need to know what my son was doing while putting his son’s crib together. At least he was there to do it.

“Mom says the show’s getting bigger.” Noah changes the subject quickly.

“You haven’t been listening?” I glance at him again. He looks down at the floor as his cheeks turn red.

“By the time it comes on, it’s bath time, bedtime, Peyton time,” he says.

I put the screwdriver down and pat him on the shoulder. “As it should be. I don’t care if you listen. What I do care about is you taking care of your family and being there for Peyton.”

Noah beams, his grin spreading from ear-to-ear. He’s doing the right thing by putting the kids and Peyton first.

“Yes, the show took off faster than I ever thought. Bex knew what she was talking about when she pitched the idea.”

“Mom’s really proud of you.” Noah holds another bracket up. “If she hasn’t told you, it’s because she doesn’t want it to go to your head.”

“It’s already gone to my head. The callers saw to that.” I never expected to get one call, let alone have my board fill up for the duration of my show.

Peyton comes in with Jace and Juniper. She sets them in Maverick’s crib and goes into the bathroom. Water starts running. Along with the water are the cries of my grandchildren. I stop what I’m doing and scoop them both up and bring them to where Noah and I are working.

“I know that wasn’t fair was it,” I say to Jace as I wipe his tears. “Mav’s with us but you were in your cage.”

“It’s for his own good,” Peyton yells from the adjoining bathroom.

“Are you giving mama a hard time?”

Junie sniffles and then uses me to stand. She starts bouncing and babbling—like she’s telling me all her woes—just like the people who call-in. I nod, take it all in, and then hug her tightly.

“Whatever you’re doing to my granddaughter, knock it off.”

Noah tsks and shakes his head. “I fear she will never lift a finger to do anything on her own.”

While I agree, I know this won’t be the case.

“Juniper is going to grow up surrounded by strong, independent women. She’ll want to forge her own path, regardless of every man in her in life laying down the proverbial red carpet for her.

You and Peyton are doing a stand-up job raising her and the boys. Give yourself some credit.”

“Thank you, Liam,” Peyton says as she comes in, arms outstretched for Juniper. She goes to her mama and squeals when they get into the bathroom. Noah takes both boys in and stays in there to help with bathtime.

I finish with the crib and help put the babies to bed, rocking Junie until she’s asleep. I remember doing this with Paige and thought it was hard with one baby. I can’t imagine how Noah and Peyton do this with three.

After putting Juniper in her bed, I creep downstairs and find Noah sitting on the couch. He turns the television off as I sit across from him.

“Half the coaching staff started asking me about you. The show. Some of these kids don’t even know you ever sang, they just know the radio guy. That’s new.”

“That bother you?”

He shakes his head and then shrugs. “I don’t know. It did in high school, but in college no one really cared except for the few moms in the stands. I never paid attention when I was playing pro, but now there’s this new wave of fans, and so much on the internet about you . . .”

“I can stop if you want me to.”

“You’d do that?”

“Son, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, your mom or Paige. Even the triplets. I missed your first ten years and will continue to make up for it until I die. So, if this radio thing is causing you stress at work, I’ll quit.”

Noah stares at me for a long moment and then slowly shakes his head. “No, I can deal with it.”

“What about Mack?”

“Would you quit for him?”

I think about it for a moment and then shake my head. “I love the kid, but no, I don’t think I would.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to do that. If it becomes an issue, I’ll take care of it.”

“Or . . .” I start to say but wonder if I should shut my mouth.

“What?”

I lift my shoulder and grin. “Or we tell Elle and the next time she’s at a game, we unleash her.”

Noah laughs hard. “I love her, but man, she scares me sometimes.”

“She’s the best.”

Bex has the board lit when I come in. Paige is in her corner with her headphones on. She lifts two fingers without looking up, telling me what Bex is about to do.

The light goes red.

“Thank you for being here with me. Before I sat down, I stopped at my son’s house and helped him with a small project.

It was probably something he could’ve done himself, but he called and asked me to come over.

It was nice to pretend I was needed.” I laugh and look at Bex who points at me and then the board.

“Good evening, you’re on The Love Line with Liam.”

“Hey, Liam. I’m a first-time caller and not really a listener of your music.”

“No worries, my man. What can I do for you tonight?”

“Ugh . . .” he groans into the phone. “I’m getting married in three weeks, but I just found out that my best man—the man who has been my best friend since elementary school—slept with my fiancée.

“There’s no wedding,” I tell him, “Which means there’s no problem I can fix for you tonight. That man showed you who he was while you still had time to not marry her in front of everyone you know. Be furious. Then, when you can stand it, be grateful.”

I disconnect the call and take a deep breath. There was no right answer for that one. I glance at Bex, who gives me a thumbs up.

My next call is a couple fighting over whose mother gets them at Christmas, both of them on the line, both certain they’re right. I make them trade. “His mother this year, hers next, and whoever complains first does the dishes at both.” The wife laughs. That’s the one I was after.

“You’re on The Love Line with Liam.”

“Hi, my wife wants a dog and I don’t,” the man says.

“I get it,” I tell him. “I had a cat when I married my wife. The cat hated me but loved our son. Now, my son has a dog, and I love the dog. That doesn’t help you, now does it?

But here’s the thing, when I go to their house or they come to mine, the dog is the first one to greet me.

Her tail is always wagging and she needs ear scratches.

So, this really isn’t about the dog,” I tell him.

“It’s never about the dog. She wants something in that house that’s glad to see her every single time she walks in the door. Be that or get the dog.”

“You’re right,” he says. “I can’t remember the last time I met her at the door. I’ll try that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck.”

A teenager calls on the sly, voice low, and wants to know if it’s normal or common that her parents fight every night.

Bex flags it and I take it slow. “Common and normal aren’t the same word,” I tell her.

“Here’s what I need you to hear. This isn’t yours to fix, and it isn’t yours to carry.

Is there a grown-up you trust? A grandma, a teacher, somebody’s mom?

” She says yes. “Then talk to them. Tonight, if you can. You don’t have to hold this by yourself. ”

Then the night turns.

Bex signals at another line. A man, middle of his life, the words coming slow and heavy. “Liam, I haven’t spoken to my brother in fifteen years. We went into business together. It went bad. We both said things you can’t take back. Fifteen years. Our kids have never met their cousins.”

“Who was right?”

“…I was.”

“You sure?”

“Mostly.”

“Fifteen years is a long time to be right.” I let those words linger between us before I continue. “At some point you have to pick one. Do you want to win, or do you want your brother back? Because you don’t get both, and you’ve had fifteen years of winning. How’s that going?”

“Not good.”

“Then call him. Not to argue it out again. To tell him you miss him. That’s the whole call. ‘I miss you, and the rest doesn’t matter to me anymore.’ Then you hush up and let him answer.”

Bex lines up the next one. A woman, younger, her voice worn down to the thread. “My daughter won’t talk to me. She’s fifteen. Since the divorce, she barely looks at me. One-word answers, if I get that much. I feel like I’m losing her.”

“She’s not punishing you,” I tell her. “It feels like punishment. It’s grief. Her family changed shape and she didn’t get a vote, and those one-word answers are her holding it together the only way she’s got.”

“So what do I do?”

“You stay. You keep showing up with no expectations. You don’t force the talk.

You make the dinners and the car rides ordinary, you let the quiet be okay, and you wait, so the day she’s ready the door’s already standing open.

Give her space. Just don’t vanish into it.

Stay present in her life. Ask her how her day was and take that ‘fine’ and run with it. ”

Bex slides me another. A young woman who hasn’t spoken to her mother since the wedding her mother skipped. “She said she couldn’t afford the flight. I found out later she took a cruise that same week.”

“Oh, that’s a tough one,” I tell her. “That’s a choice she made and let you find out the worst way.

You’re allowed to be done. But before you shut the door for good, ask her why.

You don’t have to forgive her or even accept her excuse.

Try to understand it. Sometimes the why is uglier than the act.

Either way you’ll know and knowing beats wondering for the next forty years. ”

The next line’s blinking before the last one’s cold. I press the button.

“Hello.” A man. Older. There’s gravel in the voice, and something working underneath the gravel to stay down. “I need advice. About making amends.”

“I’m listening.”

“I wronged someone. Years back. My son,” he pauses.

“I wasn’t the father he needed. I told myself I was doing the best I could.

The truth is I didn’t try very hard, and by the time I understood that, he was grown and gone.

I don’t know if it’s too late to fix it.

I don’t know that I’ve got the right to try. ”

I don’t answer right away. Through the glass, Bex looks up from her board and finds me. I lift two fingers off the desk. I’ve got it.

“It’s never too late to try,” I say. “But I’m going to be straight with you, because somebody should be. Reaching out isn’t about you. It’s not your guilt, it’s not feeling better, it’s not getting forgiveness.”

“Then what is it about?”

“The choice. Giving him the one you never gave him. You show up, you tell him the truth, you don’t reach for a single excuse, and then you let him decide what he wants to do with it.

He might say no. You have to be able to hear and accept no.

If you can’t hear no, you’re not doing it for him. You’re still doing it for yourself.”

The line stays quiet. When he comes back his voice has gone thin. “And if he says no?”

“Then you gave him something he didn’t have before. The truth, and the choice. That’s not nothing. Some nights that’s the whole job of being a father. Even late. Maybe especially late.”

“He’s a good man,” the caller says, almost to himself. “My son. Better than I had any business raising. I don’t know how he turned out like that with what he had to work with.”

“Kids are stubborn that way. They’ll turn out decent in spite of you if they have to.” I don’t know why I say it with such certainty. Maybe because I lived it.

“Maybe,” he says.

“Thank you,” he says. The word shakes coming out of him. “Thank you, Liam.”

The call stays with me, it hits home more than any of the others.

I clear my throat. “I’ve got a father,” I say.

“Present tense, technically. We haven’t spoken in longer than some of you have been alive.

I’m not getting into it tonight. But I’ll give you the one thing I’ve picked up, standing about where some of you are standing right now.

Some things look broken in a way that can’t be mended.

They look that way for years. And ‘looks’ isn’t the same as ‘is.’ I don’t know yet whether mine can be fixed.

I know I used to be sure it couldn’t. I’m less sure than I was an hour ago. ”

Every line on the board goes red. I work them down until Bex draws a finger across her throat, then take the last one soft and bring the show in easy.

Bex runs the outro. The light goes dark.

My phone buzzes on the desk.

Jojo: Heard the show. Come home.

I keep hearing him. The older one. My son, and that small catch before he could get it out. I’ve taken a few hundred calls now, and most of them are gone by the time I’m in the truck. This one won’t go.

It’s an old man’s voice. Tired. Slow. He weighed every word before he let it go, especially the one about his son. I’ve heard somebody carry a word like that before. I just can’t put a face to it.

I sit in the dark until the hum is the only thing left in the room. Then I kill the board, lock the front of FMG Records behind me, and drive home to my wife with the window down, chasing a voice I can almost put a name to and can’t.