Her bottom lip wobbles despite her efforts to be brave, and she nods when I know she wants to cry instead. I wrap her in my arms, letting her cling to my neck as long as she needs to. A wave of emotion surfaces when she pulls away to plant her lips on my forehead.
“Otay.”
I stand and hold out Todd’s business card to Summer. “I need to turn off my phone tomorrow in preparation for the concert. My best chance of this going well is not to have any distractions. If there’s an emergency or you need anything at all, you can call my manager. He’ll get the message to me.”
Summer slips the card from my fingertips. “I will.”
I tug her toward my chest, filling my lungs with the citrusy scent of her hair. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” she says.
I take a step back and offer them both a weak smile, and then do what I have to do and turn for the Uber.
I’m ten steps away when Quinn cries out.
“Daddy! Don’t doe!”
I freeze, and time stills.
She said my name. All five letters of it, clear as day.
She said my name.
So many seemingly insignificant tries have all stacked up to meet this hard-earned milestone.
I wasn’t prepared for the gravity of it. Didn’t anticipate the pounding in my chest. The weight it would free. The walls that would tumble in its wake. The space it would unlock. All of it belonging to her.
For the first time I see myself as more than a son, a brother, a friend, a lover. More than an auditory processing disorder or even a country music star. I’m herdad, and there’s nothing I want more than that.
I turn around to her bottom lip bubbled out, her eyes glassy. She’s squeezing Summer’s thigh in a tight embrace as if she has to tether herself to something to keep from running to me. The moment I hold out my arms she’s clomping over in her rain boots and tumbling into them.
I stroke her hair and squeeze her tight. “Quinn, I’ll never leave you. I’ll be back, I promise. I love you so much.”
Before now she had her mom, and then my parents. She didn’t need me. Now I’m leaving a giant portion of my heart here with her. When she loosens her tight grip around my neck, tears form in my own eyes. She lets go and bravely holds Summer’s hand.
I stand once more. “Are you sure I’m doing the right thing?”
Summer cups my cheek. “Touch the world with your music, Rhett Dawson. We’ll be here waiting for you when you get back.”
All I can muster is a nod.
“Wuv you, Daddy.”
“I love you too.”
This time I give her a quick wave before I turn away so that the tear can slide down my cheek without her seeing it.I’mdoing this for usis something I find myself repeating for the next hour and a half until we land on Colorado soil. Warm sun, bright lights—the idea of touring again feels so much less like home than it did before.
For the first time in my life, I miss Harrison Boulevard.
30
SUMMER
“How’s that cereal?”
Quinn’s lost in the opening credits of her show. A soggy swamp of Cheerios float in the bowl in front of her.
“Do you want pancakes?” I offer instead. She ate fine for me after Everett left yesterday, but I don’t want her to go to school hungry this morning.
