“Of course.” She shook her head. “I knew that.”
“Saturday then.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again before nodding. “Saturday works.”
“Thank fuck for that,” I muttered, and Gracie laughed, hitting my shoulder.
“No swearing in my classroom!” Then her eyes widened as she looked around, as if only just remembering where she was.
“I should get going,” I told her, even though I wasn’t due at practice for another hour. I just wanted to make things easier on her—I didn’t want to be the asshole stressing her out at the beginning of her work day. “But I’ll talk to you later?”
She gave me a soft smile. “Later.”
With an hour to kill, I figured I’d stop off for a bagel and some coffee. But before I could park my car at the closest Starbucks, my phone rang. Chloe.
A surge of rage shot through me. Evelyn had talked to her the day Josie ran away, explaining what had happened, and Chloe had tried to call me twice since then. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her. What was I supposed to say to the person who caused my kid so much pain?
But I knew I couldn’t avoid her forever, so I parked and answered the call. “Chloe.”
“Oh my God, Liam!” she cried, breathless. “How’s our baby? Why haven’t you answered my calls? Is she?—”
“Josie is fine, for the most part,” I cut in, voice tight. “She was pretty shaken up about the whole thing, but she seemed to be doing better today.”
“Oh, thank, God. I couldn’t believe it when my mother called and?—”
I interrupted her again. “What do you want, Chloe?”
She was quiet for a beat. “She’s my daughter too, Liam,” she finally said, voice sharp. “I have every right to know how she is.”
“Funny, you haven’t been very concerned about how she’s been the last six months.” The second the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back. Resorting to school yard taunts was not going to help anything. Like it or not, this was themother of my child. And Josie didn’t need me to attack her. She needed me to make this better.
“Listen, Chlo,” I said, voice more gentle. “I know that you love her.”
“I do,” she said, and I was surprised to hear the tremor in her voice. “I’ve been worried sick, Liam. And…and my mom said that she ran away because she was upset about my going to Houston. I just…I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.”
Well, damn. I was pretty sure Chloe actually sounded guilty. I didn’t think I had ever heard that particular emotion in her voice before.
“Josie misses you,” I said bluntly. “She has for a long time. She needs you to do better.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Finally, I heard her sniff. “I’m no good at this, Liam. We both know that. I’ve been a shitty mother since day one. I just…it doesn’t come naturally to me. It never has.”
Understatement of the year, right there.
“Nothing is turning out the way I thought it would,” she continued. “I thought once I had time for myself, I’d be able to figure out what I wanted to do, you know? That I’d finally find some passion of my own. But that didn’t happen.”
It was hard to keep an even temper with the whining note in her voice. We were supposed to be talking about our kid and instead she was bitching that life hadn’t turned out the way she wanted.
When Chloe and I first got together, she seemed over the moon about it. She’d clearly been interested in me throughout high school, though I shut her down again and again. It wasn’t until our senior year of college that anything had happened. One drunken night at a house party had changed my entire life.
Chloe found out she was pregnant a few weeks later. It had been stunning and terrifying but I’d been determined to do the right thing. At the very least, I was committed to dating, to really getting to know each other and giving it a shot for our kid’s sake. And Chloe had been right on board. When I proposed, she told me it was the happiest she had ever been.
I think it was the image she was excited about, not the marriage. She loved the idea of being married to a pro athlete. The money, the perks, the lifestyle—those were the things Chloe envisioned when we got married. It didn’t take long for reality to settle on her. I didn’t get called up to the big league right away, and being the wife of a minor league player did not seem quite as glamorous to her. During the season, I was on the road as many nights as I was at home. Days when I was in town were spent on long practices and grueling home games. She was alone more often than not. Alone with a needy infant she had no desire to dedicate her life to.
It was easy to cast her as the selfish, shallow villain in my story. But Chloe had been young when we’d gotten married. And being married to a pro athlete really was difficult, even for the most committed individuals.
At least she’d had the balls to end things. I would have let our unhappy marriage limp along indefinitely, thinking it was my duty, that it was the right thing for our kid.
Suddenly, I felt exhausted by all of it. I was tired of being angry at her, tired of constantly questioning whether I could have done more, if I could have made things turn out differently. I was justtired.
