She's in the passenger seat now, a thermos of coffee in her lap and a paper bag of breakfast sandwiches at her feet.
She insisted on coming, said someone needed to make sure I didn't drive off the road.
She's not wrong.
My mind keeps drifting—to the baby, to Vanna, to the conversation with Rick.
I have to keep pulling myself back to the road, to the white lines disappearing under my wheels, to the simple act of staying between the guardrails.
"You're quiet," Aunt Ellie observes as we cross into Pennsylvania. "Even for you."
"Got a lot on my mind."
"The baby? Or the prison visit?"
I glance at her, surprised.
I didn't tell anyone I was going to see Rick.
Left before dawn, drove the two hours to Mount Olive, sat with her father for forty-five minutes, and drove back without saying a word to anyone.
She catches my look and smiles. "I've known you since you were nine years old, Garrett. You think I don't notice when you disappear for half a day and come back looking like you've seen a ghost?"
"It wasn't a ghost. It was her father."
Aunt Ellie is quiet for a moment, processing this.
The trees blur past outside, their bare branches reaching toward a gray November sky.
Winter's coming.
By the time Vanna gets out of rehab, there might be snow on the ground.
"And?" Ellie finally asks. "How is he?"
"Clean. Almost twelve years clean." I keep my eyes on the road, watching the mile markers tick by. "He wants to reconnect with Vanna. When she's ready."
"That's a big ask."
"I know."
"But it might be good for her. Having someone who understands what she's going through. Someone who's been there." She pauses. "Lord knows I've seen enough addicts in my time. Worked with them at the hospital, back when I wasnursing. Some of them never made it. But the ones who did—they always had someone in their corner. Someone who believed in them when they couldn't believe in themselves."
"That's what I'm trying to be."
"I know, baby. And you're doing a hell of a job." She reaches over and pats my knee. "You're a good man, Garrett. A good husband. That girl is lucky to have you."
I don't feel like a good man.
I feel like a man who's barely holding it together, who's terrified of losing the only person he's ever loved, who's about to become a father when he doesn't know the first thing about being one.
My own father died when I was nine.
Everything I know about parenting, I learned from watching other people—from Ellie, from Ruger's parents before they passed, from the brothers at the club who have kids of their own.
Is that enough?
Can you learn to be a father by watching other people do it?
