“Nothing I do for you bothers me, Hannah,” I tell her, trying my best not to sound robotic.
“Why are you doing this for me, though? I don’t even like going.” I have speculated as much but didn’t want to assume. Hannah is old enough to understand what Kristy did to her by leaving the state.
“Well, you want to see Mom, don’t you?”
Hannah doesn’t respond right away. I glance in the rearview mirror, finding her staring out the window, looking like she is lost in thought. “Not really, and I can’t stand Brian.”
“What does Brian do that bothers you?” The normal uptick in my pulse triggers at the mention of the guy’s name. I hate the thought of him being around Hannah. I don’t have an exact reason aside from him being half the reason Kristy had the affair in the first place, but he never seems to want to show his face when Kristy and I exchange Hannah. I’d like to know who my daughter is spending time around, but it isn’t a requirement per our divorce decree.
“He calls Mom babe like four hundred times a day and he acts like a child who needs to breakfast, lunch, and dinner served to him. His gym schedule ruins any plans we try to make, and he thinks he owns the TV, so no one else can watch anything, ever. Plus, he calls me Hae-Hae, and it’s really dumb.”
My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. I wish Kristy would focus on Hannah when she’s there and send her man child home for thirty-six hours, but that would be asking too much of her.
“He sounds like a—” I choose my words wisely. I must be an adult and set a good example, and it’s challenging for me to do so. “A guy who doesn’t have kids or understand the meaning of quality time.”
I sound like an old man.
“I guess,” she says. “I don’t know. When do I get to choose when and how often I see Mom?”
I feel like this is a trick question I shouldn’t know the answer to, but at any point after the age of twelve, I know Hannah can express her feelings to a judge if she wants there to be a change in the custody orders. It doesn’t mean it will go through the way she wants, but there’s a chance she could have things shifted to benefit her lifestyle more. “It’s something we can talk about in a couple of years, okay?”
Hannah doesn’t respond. She doesn’t like the answer, and I can’t say I blame her, but laws are laws and life is life.
We pull into the rest stop where we meet Kristy and park toward the back where there are typically empty spaces. It’s no surprise that she isn’t here yet. Being on time was never her best quality, which doesn’t say much since I can’t think of one good quality I ever saw in her now.
Thirty minutes late, Kristy pulls around the corner in her white Land Rover Daddy bought for her as a divorce gift. People get rewarded when they cheat on their husbands and destroy families. It’s incredible, really. Kristy can do no wrong in her parents’ eyes. They probably blame me for her having an affair too. Hannah shuffles around the back of the seat, gathering her belongings, huffing and puffing along the way. “Do you have your phone charger?”
I hear the plug slip out of the back console, followed by the crumple of papers as she closes the cord into her bag. “Got it.”
“If you need anything, just call or text me, okay?”
I twist around in my seat, finding her staring at me with an unintentional pout. “Okay,” she says.
Kristy steps out of her car to greet Hannah, but Hannah leans forward and gives me a kiss on the cheek before opening her door. “Love you, daddy.”
Daddy. I only get to hear that when I drop her off here once every few weeks.
I roll my window down to exchange my civil hello and goodbye to Kristy. “Oh good, you have your backpack,” Kristy says to Hannah. That shouldn’t be the first thing that a mother says to her daughter that she hasn’t seen in three weeks. And no hug or any warm words to tell Hannah that she’s missed her? Kristy’s lack of phone calls doesn’t exactly scream the meaning of love to Hannah.
“Brody,” Kristy addresses me. I love the way she speaks to me, as if I’m the one who decided the fate of our marriage.
“Love you, kiddo,” I say again, just to show Kristy how a parent should act.
“You too, Daddy.”
Hannah climbs into the back of Kristy’s Landrover, leaving the two of us in a stare down. Her tongue in cheek and jingling of keys dangling from her hand says more than I need to hear out of her mouth. “Anything I need to know?” she asks.
“Nothing you shouldn’t already know from talking to her this week,” I reply, knowing Kristy hasn’t spoken to Hannah this week.
Kristy rolls her eyes and shifts her weight from one heel to the other. I love how she’s dressed as if she spent a day in an office when she works as a trainer at a gym—a trainer who never trained once in her life before six months ago. Her hair is even in some weird twist thing, like she’s trying to make her facial structure more rigid. No need to try harder there. “Thanks,” she says.
“You’re welcome, Kristy.” If it was acceptable to vocally gag on my own words, I would, but I’ve learned to refrain. “I’ll be back here in thirty-six hours on the dot.”
“Great,” she says, pivoting on her heels and leaving me to my peace. I wave through the darkened back window and blow Hannah a kiss. Poor kid.
By the time I pull out onto the highway, the sun is dipping below the horizon. Ideally, I wouldn’t make this drive at night, but I refuse to pull Hannah out of school early on Fridays. I’m beat to hell after a week at the warehouse though, and exhaustion always finds me halfway home through the never-ending maze of tree-lined roads.
I grab my phone and tell Siri to call Journey, then drop my phone back down to the passenger seat. My phone is usually connected to Bluetooth, but the ring comes from the device for some reason. I hate when the truck does this. I won’t be able to reconnect unless I restart the engine. I blindly reach for the speaker button, but when I see Journey’s face light up on the display, I realize I hit FaceTime by mistake.
