Cookie smiles at me and shakes her head as she sips her tea again. “Mmm hmm. So whatever you’re hiding from me you’re also hiding from her.”
For the millionth time since meeting Cookie, I feel an urge to tell her about the car crash. But then I picture my mom’s disappointed, devastated face if she found out I told anyone. So I take another gulp of coffee—a big one that burns my throat, which feels deserved—and then I say, “I wish you would just be happy for me. I’ve been single for literally almost five years, and I deserve to be happy, don’t I?”
She cocks one thick eyebrow. “I don’t know Logan, do you? I think you’ve not let yourself be happy because you still feel like you don’t deserve it. Why is that?”
“Cookie…” I say and sigh in frustration. “Can we talk about your life now? How is the wife? Any fun, new dog stories from your business?”
Her smile fades and she presses her lips together in a flat line. “Okay Logan…I’ll give you more time.” She takes a deep breath and then smiles again and starts to tell me about her favorite customer, Fluffy, a Chinese Crested dog.
When we part twenty minutes later, I’m almost frozen from sitting outside, but it was nice to be by the sea. I needed the calm the sound of the ocean brings while Cookie was being her bluntly honest self. Now as we say goodbye, she hugs me hard and looks me straight in the eye when she’s done. “Day or night, Logan.”
It’s what she’s said instead of goodbye every single time I see her. She means I can reach out to her day or night. I have in the past too, when I was struggling in the beginning. But I’ve got this now. “I will take you up on that if I need to, I promise,” I reply and smile. “But honestly, Cookie, I’m good. I’m really good.”
“Okay sweetheart,” she smiles. “Hope to see you at a meeting this week. Feel free to bring me a lobster roll.”
I laugh as I watch her climb into her custom-painted teal blue Mercedes SUV and drive off. Then I jump in my own car and drive to Bethany’s to pick up my son for his first full weekend with me. I’m so excited, it’s hard not to speed. When I finally get there, I’m overjoyed to see River is just as excited as I am. As soon as I open my car door, the front door to Bethany’s tiny rental house swings open and River races out—in socks but no boots—onto the porch. “Did you bring Chewie? Can we go to the beach? Are we gonna see Grammy and Grampy?”
“Get inside, Riv. You don’t have your coat or boots on,” I say, but as soon as my feet hit the steps, he hurls himself at me. I knew he would, so I’d already started squatting and opening my arms so I could wrap him in a hug. I lift him up and look into his blue eyes. “Chewie is at Auntie Terra’s, and we’ll pick him up on the way home. It’s too cold for the beach, and yes we will see Grammy and Grampy tomorrow morning. Sound good?”
He nods so emphatically I feel like his neck might snap. I carry him in through the open front door and place him on the hardwood. I glance over to Bethany, who is in the living room with her mouth set in a hard, flat line. I turn my eyes back to my son. “Go on and get your stuff, and remember you’re staying overnight.”
“Ma already packed my bag. I’ll go get it!” He runs, full-tilt, up the stairs. I walk slowly toward the living room. “Hey, Beth.”
“Logan,” she says icily and immediately crosses her arms over her chest. I don’t remember what I said the first night I met Bethany. I’d been drinking a milkshake secretly spiked with vodka, but whatever I said, she liked it. We had sex the same night. And again the next night. She became my girlfriend without even talking about it. It felt easy and that felt good. The only thing I worked at back then was staying drunk.
“I fully expect you to have to bring him home tonight,” she says flatly. “I don’t think this will go well.”
“He’ll be fine,” I say confidently, but the fact is, I have no idea how this is going to go. “Any tips you can give me?”
Bethany is a smart girl, and I’d never say she doesn’t love our son. After she found out she was pregnant, she stopped partying immediately, focused on school, and was pushing me to get my life together too. Bethany applied for family housing at school, and I proposed to her…then drank a bottle of Jack all by myself to ‘celebrate’. After Riv was born, I once went to the store to get more diapers but stopped at a bar nearby and got blackout drunk. I woke up six hours later, at three in the morning, asleep in the parking lot of my family’s restaurant, my car parked crookedly across four spots. When I got my drunk ass home, River was wearing one of my t-shirts as a diaper, and Bethany was hysterical thinking I’d had died or something. She kicked me out that night, but I kept seeing her…trying to weasel my drunk ass back into her life by promising her everything under the sun, and she was letting me. Then the accident happened.
When I ended up in rehab, she was devastated that I would miss River’s first birthday. After rehab, we fought all the time. She couldn’t forgive me for the past, and I was drowning in guilt from being involved in the accident, which I wasn’t allowed to tell her about. I broke it off because we were both miserable. But it hardened her toward everything except River.
She frowns. “No tips but the social worker said I could give you reasonable parameters.”
“Did he explain to you what’s considered reasonable?” I ask and instantly regret it because it’s confrontational.
“You can’t leave him with strangers,” she says, ignoring my question and going straight to the rules she’s concocted. “In fact I would prefer it if you didn’t have guests. Outside of family, of course.”
“That doesn’t feel reasonable.”
She glares at me. “Are you spending time with your son, or just keeping him around while you hang with your buddies? Because if you can’t give him your full attention, I can keep him this weekend. And you can bet your ass I’m not going to let some unknown person you’re hanging out with spend time with my son unless I meet them and approve of them.”
I want to argue. I want to scream at her to relax and trust that I would never let bad people near my son, but I swallow it down like a mouth full of bitter acid. Because as much as I am excited for Chloe to meet River, I don’t want this new arrangement to start off like this. So I grit my teeth and remember I am the reason this is where we are and my actions led us here.
“Okay,” I reply, and even I can hear the strain in my voice as I work to keep it calm.
River comes running down the stairs with a backpack that’s almost as large as he is, and all the stress tightening my shoulders from talking with Bethany disintegrates instantly. He’s smiling from ear-to-ear. “Ready, Dad!”
Bethany walks over to the hooks on the wall by the door and pulls down River’s winter coat. She gets him all bundled up with a hat and mitts as well, and then squats down in front of River and pulls him into a hug. “You have a blast with your dad, okay? And call me whenever you want, no matter when. I’m here if you want to talk or come home.”
I say nothing, but fist my hands in my pockets. God, she frustrates the hell out of me. River just nods and looks up at me with eyes sparkling with excitement. “Can we go get Chewie now?”
“Let’s do it, Bub!” I say and open the front door. He darts through it and I give Bethany a reassuring smile. “It’s okay Beth. I swear he’s going to be fine.”
She nods. “I know you’d die for him.”
I nod back. I know, deep down, she has faith in my ability as a dad. She’s just still caught up in the pain I caused her. And maybe, I realize as I walk down the stairs and see River bouncing on his tiny feet with excitement, that I’ll always try and have a soft spot for the woman who gave me him.
