I want to pick things up and throw them across the room. I want to scream up at the heavens and offer myself up—to take my sister’s place, my ashes floating away into oblivion. The only thing that stops me is when I look up and see the little girl who is clutching my sister’s favorite childhood stuffy and looking at me like she’s terrified of the man she sees in front of her.
And honestly? I’m terrified of him too.
Chapter One
Present day
“Dad! Have you seen my softball cleats?!” Morgan hollers from her bedroom.
“If the smell in my car is any indication, I’d say you left them in my trunk,” I snark back while sitting at the kitchen table, pouring over the numbers for this year's camp season. It’s going to be tight, but I think we’ll still make it.
“Not any worse than your swim trunks you left in your shower. The whole upstairs reeks like mildew,” she huffs with all the sass of a sixteen-year-old as she plods down the stairs in those expensive Birkenstocks she justhadto have.
Lord, she looks affright in one of her mother’s old hand-me-down Nirvana shirts—one I think was handed down from Ryann to me first—and her cut-off jean shorts. Shorts we’ve had many discussions regarding modesty over, since they’retooshort for my liking.
Guess who won that debate, however, since they’re still an active part of her wardrobe? That stubbornness definitely got handed down to her from Ryann. Though, I will say, they are her ‘around the house’ shorts now, so there’s that. Small wins, I’ll take ‘em… even if it makes what everyone has always told me true: I lack a backbone.
Also, has anyone ever told you how much work it is being a single parent to a teenager who’s been a teenager sincebeforeshe was officially a teenager? Not to mention the activities. Lord, the activities. Right now, we’re currently trying to balance dance recitals with softball. Today, she’s hunting for her cleats, tomorrow, it’ll be her ballet slippers. It’s never-ending.
When she comes back inside the house, she makes sure to waggle them in a show for me to see that I was indeed right. I snort, and then I snort again when a clod of dried-up mud from said cleats hits the tile floor, because, of course. She just shrugs at it nonchalantly and heads back up to her teenaged girl cave.
“Don’t forget to sweep sometime today, so you can check it off on your chore list!” I holler back up the stairs.
Wait for it… waaait for it: “Ugh, yes! After practice!”
There it is. I smirk. “Looove yooou, Morgan Marie!” I tease.
She pokes her head out from behind the doorframe and sticks her tongue out at me. “Love you too, Dad.”
I’ll never grow tired of her calling me ‘Dad.’ I know I’m her uncle; she knows I’m her uncle, but right around the time I signed over the adoption paperwork, she made the switch from calling me ‘Uncle B’ to ‘Daddy.’ Then, when it became uncool for me to drop her off at middle school while still calling me ‘Daddy,’ she made the switch to just ‘Dad.’ And as much as I give her crap about being a typical sixteen-year-old, I really have come to love being all three titles to her and the transition it’s taken to get to where we are today.
Doting on her may consume my life, but it’s also my greatest achievement, in my opinion. In a way, she’s helped heal me from grieving the loss of my sister, just as much as I’ve helped her process the loss of her mother. Caring for her is what pulled me out of a deep depression. She gave me purpose I so desperately needed.
The first eight years of her life were just plain hard for her, and it’s taken years of therapy and stability, but she’s grown up to be a wonderful young woman. She’s excelling in school; she got her first part-time job in the camp off-season earlier this year. She’s saving up for her first car, and she’s active in sports and other extracurriculars. She’s such a well-rounded kid. I wish I could take all the credit, but Ma and Mom have been super supportive in helping me raise her as well.
Camp takes over everything in the summer, but in the off-seasons, I’m still a busy telehealth therapist. Her grandmothers take turns shuttling Morgan around when I am busy with my own work. That, and they have all the ‘woman-to-woman’ talks with her that I simply cannot.
Periods. I know nothing about them. Heck, I had to sit in for that talk, and I believe I even had a steno-pad there to take notes on. At the store later, I got a lot of gooey looks from the women in the feminine care aisle who ‘wished their husbands knew as much as I did about tampons.’
Take note, spouses and partners: It’s the little things.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, while most teenagers would take for granted having a tribe of people in their corner, Morgs loves and appreciates her tribe.
“Ugh! My friggin!” I hear her frustrated growl from upstairs.
“Your uncle just texted and said your catcher's mitt must have fallen out in his car, he’s on his way here now,” I intuit.
And I can’t forget Uncle Kai being in that tribe too, I suppose. While he and I didn’t pan out as a couple, we are still pretty close as, ahem,friends. However, over the years, he’s made himself a part of Morgs’ life as well, but only ever as an uncle to her.
He loves her, just in his own special way. Like how he’s currently driving forty-five minutes out of his way to drop off a lost item to her. Or even how the item came to be lost in his car in the first place, because he made time in his busy schedule to attend her last two games and hasn’t missed a single one of her dance recitals.
As much as our split hurt at the time, I’m glad he stood his ground and walked away the night he did. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had guilted him into staying. I truly don’t think he will ever change his mind and want kids or to ever feel domesticated, and that’s not something I ever should have thrust upon him.
Regardless, I’m glad we’ve buried the hatchet, so to speak.
“Speaking of the devil…” I murmur to myself, as the infuriatingly handsome man strolls right in, like he owns the place. “Were your ears ringing?”
His lips tip up into a sly grin, as he plucks his aviators off his nose and tucks them up into his wavy, black hair—hair he spends hours coiffing to perfection. “Talking shit about me again, Gallagher?”
