I lean my hands on the kitchen island and stare down at the wood grain like it might have answers.
“Connor, I’m your dad.”
Nope.
Too blunt.
Too big.
Sounds like ripping a Band-Aid off a kid’s entire childhood.
I straighten and try again, quietly, like Connor’s already here. “Hey, bud…there’s something important I need to tell you.”
I wince.
Nope.
Too ominous.
I pace to the living room and back, my socked feet silent against the floor. One of my old photo albums sits on the coffee table where I left it earlier after leafing through it, the spine cracked open just a bit. My mom’s handwriting peeks out on a caption—First tournament—and my chest tightens.
I was twelve for my first tournament.
Connor is eleven.
Eleven years old and brilliant and funny and already better on skates than I was at his age, but there’s over ten years of scraped knees and birthday cakes and first goals and bad dreams and mornings I wasn’t there for.
And I hate that more than I could ever explain.
I scrub my hand over my face.
“Connor,” I try again, softer. “I didn’t know about you. But if I had?—”
My voice cracks and I have to stop talking because the thought hits so fast it steals my breath.
Fuck.
What if he looks at me like I’m the guy who didn’t show up? Like my bio-dad did to me? What if I’m just a promise that didn’t stick for him? I picture his face crumpling, his voice asking why I didn’t come, and my stomach twists violently.
“I would’ve been there,” I whisper to the empty room. “Every fucking time.”
But that’s the problem, isn’t it?
I wasn’t there.
Ten years of Connor’s life happened without me in it, and no amount of explanation will change that. I can forgive Harper for her decisions, understand that she thought she was making the best move. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with her.
I walk to the window and stare down at the street, palms braced on the edge. Cars pass as people live whole lives down there totally oblivious to my growing anxiety up here.
What if he thinks I didn’t want him?
The thought is unbearable.
I turn back toward the kitchen and lean against the counter, closing my eyes.
“Okay, new approach,” I murmur to myself. “Maybe I don’t say it first. Maybe I let Harper give him the news and I just…answer his questions as honestly as possible.”
Yes.
