“Okay.”
“Pat’s right here. Want me to move to the porch?”
“No, it’s fine. I know you’ll tell him anyway.”
She scoffed like she didn’t know what I was talking about. “I’m all ears, Jack.”
Everything poured out. The babies, the extra shifts, the stupid marathon team, the flowers Miranda threw from the window, the conversations Miranda and I had, and my conclusion. I talked for forty straight minutes.
She sniffled off and on.
“What I did is unforgivable. I’m starting to think it would be better for her…if I let her go. Let her and Kacey have their own lives and I’ll just be—every other weekend dad, I guess.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Of course not. But at some point, I need to do what’s best for her and stop pushing to get what I want.”
She hummed in understanding.
“What should I do, Jules? We sign papers to receive the lake house in the morning. It won’t be long before she has everything she needs to walk away.”
Pat murmured in the background.
“Pat has something to say.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, man. Don’t settle for every other weekend dad. Kacey needs you as an active part of his life.”
“We’ve talked about co-parenting. But that requires me seeing Miranda all the time, knowing I can’t be more. I—I don’t think I’m strong enough to do that.”
Pat said, “Life has a funny way of making you use what you know. You’ve learned a lot about Miranda, about yourself and how you messed up. Co-parent. Embrace the suck of that.You’ll have an opportunity day after day to prove how far you’ve come.”
I groaned in frustration. “That’s going to be so hard.”
Jules tried to encourage me. “But Kacey deserves that. Regardless of how things work out between you and Miranda, your son needs his dad.”
“I want to be there for him.”
“Time can change things. You never know.”
Two beats of silence passed before I changed direction. “Sis?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you…do you ever think about mom?”
“This is going to sound horrible, but not really. We were nine. It’s been twenty-five years.”
“Do you think Dad handled her death well?”
Her sigh said it all. “No, I don’t.”
“What do you remember?”
“Mostly the weird stuff he did. Like take her pictures down. He immediately packed all her things away. He’d get really frustrated and overwhelmed when we had a hard time. He couldn’t handle his pain and ours. I think that’s why he shut her memory out. It was easier for him to cope that way.”
She continued, “I’ve talked to Dr. Hannel about this. I think the dysfunctional way Dad dealt with Mom has played a part in why I had such a hard time after Cameron died. I was not able to process my pain. Like, at all. Dad wanted us to pretend we were fine so we did. Oddly enough, pretending is still my go-to way of coping.”
