‘God.’ I just manage a laugh. ‘More power to you, girlfriend.’
We exchange a tired chuckle before turning our attention back to the kids still making their way through the rings, all kinds of events continuing on the mats. Eventually, I scope out Rod, walking back with – bless his heart – two Red Bulls in hand. My saviour.
He makes his way up the steps, and reaches us in the bleachers with a spritely, ‘And they had the best flavour …’
His sentence cuts out like a broken tape. I raise an eyebrow, but he’s gone white as a sheet. His eyes cut from me to my newest corporate BFF, and back again.
Which is when two plus two make four in my head.
Oh, shit.
Corporate BFF looks about as horrified as I do, and then it’s just all three of us trying to make sense of things, looking from one to the other to the other. She’s the first one to cut the incredibly awkward silence.
‘Rodney,’ she begins curtly, ‘it’s good to see you again.’
‘Charlotte,’ Rod chokes out.
My stomach is in limbo state, deciding whether it wants to climb up my throat or plummet into my shoes. Charlotte turns to me, still about as confused as I am, yet with a hint of sting to her gaze that definitely wasn’t there when we were exchanging pleasantries, and says, ‘And you are?’
Into my throat it is. I think I’m going to puke. ‘Jordan.’
‘My girlfriend.’ The words should be sweet, but instead, they sound as grating as sandpaper when Rod forces them out. I can’t blame him. I feel like I’m operating at gunpoint right now. Thrown into an ambush; zero context, a trace of knowledge.
Charlotte takes a deep breath. ‘It’s nice to meet you.’ Her tone tells me it is not very nice to meet me. ‘I’m Talise’s mother.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Family Reunion
Rod
If Big Lacrosse wasn’t bad enough, Charlotte Harris can put Carl and company to shame on a dime. It’s not the way I remembered her, but when the yearly visits began around Tali’s third birthday, I started to notice the change. It was here to stay.
‘I’m going to need a little more than that, Rodney,’ Charlotte says to me now.
‘More than what?’ I sound terrified, which I honestly am. ‘Charlotte, when you gave me custody of Tali, nowhere was there a deal where you get to decide who enters her life.’
‘But I am her mother.’ Charlotte’s firm statement echoes off the narrow hall of the gymnasium. ‘And that deal is implicit in all of this. When was that ever unclear?’
‘What, that you get to vet my girlfriends?’ I practically spit.
‘Oh, but I sure do get to vet who goes near my daughter,Rodney.’ She’s using her cutthroat meeting voice on me. Great. ‘One Google search, and seriously? You’ve found a pro athlete? Two of you, so you can both ruin Talise’s childhood together?’
‘She is incredible with and for Tali—’
‘Let’s …’ She holds out a hand, shaking her head. ‘Let’s put a pin in that now. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. I ought to give her the benefit of the doubt. It’s you I’m disappointed in.’
I hear applause go up through the walls, the tournament still ploughing on in the gymnasium. This is the last place I wanted to have this conversation. I might not have done everything right with Tali, I might have done most of my learning in that rocky first two years, but I have always lived by the principle that I will never, ever let Tali see us fight. It’s not as if we do much of anything else. We haven’t, really, since Charlotte came back after Tali turned three and stayed the summer in Whittaker, a visit that had ended in an explosive rage-fest over dinner one night. It has frankly been raging on from then, ever since we agreed on visitation on paper. We’re fortunate that Charlotte and I have always been quiet fighters – snapping at each other in hushed tones, wrapping it up quickly. Except I could say a whole lot about this ‘disappointment’. The time Charlotte insisted she wanted to be a constant presence in her daughter’s life and that turned into yearly drop-ins, maybe. Disappointing? I’d say so.
‘How did this happen?’ Charlotte says around a sigh, as if she’s assessing the damage left behind by a teenage rave held in her house while she was out of town.
‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’
‘I have yet to call it a good or a bad thing, Rodney.’
‘Just …’ I groan. ‘We worked together this summer. It wasn’tserious at first, but then we realized we had a lot in common. Good for each other. Good for Tali. She gets me, Charlotte. She waits, she understands, she cares about Tali, and she doesn’t try to change me. She just gets it. Do you know how hard that’s been?’
Charlotte is quiet for more than a few moments, arms crossed. Then she says, ‘Let’s just go back inside. I don’t want to miss the trophy.’
