I don’t force it. We head back down the hall the way we came, and push through the doors to the gym. At our seat in the bleachers, Jordan’s face is a pained mixture of concern and confusion. She holds it down well. We cheer civilly when the trophies come out, and Tali is presented with hers. I’d like more than anything to tell Charlotte how much it matters that Tali has people in her life who will stick around for the journey, not just for the trophy, but I keep my mouth shut.
When it’s time for her photo, Tali grins up at us, totally oblivious to the tension in that naïve child way, and we make our way down the stairs. Trophy in hand, she runs right to me and hugs me tight as I lift her into my arms with an exaggerated grunt. ‘Forty-something pounds of lean muscle.’
It’s then that Tali sees both her mother and Jordan and, with an outstretched arm, reaches out and calls, ‘Jordan!’
A bolt of something unexpected flashes across Charlotte’s face. My heart wrenches for her. At the end of the day, it’s her daughter. But Tali makes it clear. She beams at Jordan, her eyes drifting to her mom for just a moment with a chirpy, ‘Hi!’
Jordan looks as uncomfortable as I feel, but for Tali’s sake, she slaps on a big smile and comes forward so Tali can pull her into the hug. ‘You did so good, sugar.’
Tali’s grin gets that much bigger. Jordan’s Southern-isms are one of her favourite things. I can tell because no kid from New England would walk around ‘y’all’-ing her way to high heaven unless there was someone she was trying to be just like.
The hug disbanded, Tali hops down, looks up at her mother once more. The connection in her eyes is superficial.
‘You were excellent, baby,’ Charlotte says, her voice wavering.
‘Thank you!’ replies Tali, and then she’s back to yapping all about her trophy and her sparring match, as if that’s that. Nothing more.
That’s kind of the thing with kids. They usually tell the truth as it is. And it usually isn’t pleasant.
Explaining the entire mess to Jordan is made a lot easier by the fact that I find her outside that evening. Outside, for some reason, feels easier than inside right now.
She sits by the bonfire we’d lit up the Friday night of the championship game, a glass of whiskey in her hands. She’s curled up in one of the three lawn chairs. A horseshoe-patterned blanket is draped across her shoulders. The dogs, who seem to follow her every move these days, lie by the legs of the chair and, as I approach, they both look up at me with protective glares in their eyes.
I’ve never loved bringing up the subject of Charlotte. I like to think I left everything well in the past when I decided I was going to raise Tali alone – when Charlotte stopped showing up every month and started showing up once a year – but I know it is never that simple.
‘Can I sit?’ I ask quietly as I near the fire, beer in hand. It’s one of Jordan’s Redbridge stash. I didn’t really expect to develop a taste for them, but here we are.
She gives me a nod, patting the chair next to hers. I sit down, and she throws me the right side of her blanket. I’m not really too cold, considering the T-shirt and sweats I’m wearing. I accept it anyway.
‘Jordan …’
‘You can tell me as much or as little as you choose,’ she says, still not meeting my eye. I didn’t put her in an easy situation. Sure, I had no idea that Charlotte would show up, but no context. Maybe she was under the impression that Tali’s mother had left our lives completely. It’s definitely not her fault she had to deal with any of that. She has every right to be upset, though what’s scarier is I don’t think she is. Just confused and uneasy.
‘I think I owe you more than a little after that.’
She doesn’t reply, just takes a sip of her whiskey. I take that as my cue.
‘Charlotte and I got together sophomore year of high school. By senior year, we were endgame. I was playing lacrosse for Whittaker-Joyce. She was a cheerleader. We had our eyes on Mass State, together. At which point Tali happened.
‘We were nineteen, first year at Mass. Definitely not something we’d planned on, but Charlotte came to me, and she was really excited, actually. We were both pretty unprepared. We were confident we’d spend the rest of our lives together, and we knew we wanted a kid, so – even though it was way sooner than we’d expected – we got ourselves ready. It wouldn’t be easy, but we’d do it.
‘That was when it all went to hell.’ I swallow hard. I don’t know how much my word will mean to Jordan after the events of this morning, but I have to believe she still trusts me. ‘It wasn’t really anyone’s fault. It kind of just … happened. AfterTali was born, Charlotte became distant. I was worried, I asked the doctors, and for a while, we thought it was postpartum depression. But every passing day, she withdrew, and eventually, I realized it was because our paths had divided. Charlotte wanted more out of her twenties. She felt stuck, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her. I still don’t, and I never will. Nothing about mixing college and pregnancy had been easy. We talked. I agreed to take Tali. And we split up, amicably.’
Jordan leans forward. A curl of her hair falls to the side of her face as her eyebrows furrow.
‘After that, it just got … bad.’ The thought of recounting everything claws pieces out of my heart. The best and worst years of my life. I feel a strange mixture of guilt and fear. ‘I’d taken on too much. Eventually I got help. I even got on meds, but I’d still find myself listless, staring off into fucking space while Tali cried in my arms. I didn’t know where to start. Ma was worried. Dad was disappointed, which was worse than pissed, and any time he was over, he’d start on this shit about my lacrosse career being over before it’d even begun. I took a break from it all for a year. College altogether. I went on and off my SSRIs. I did everything I could for Tali, but some part of me still felt like I wasn’t enough, like I was failing her. Once she could walk, she’d run around the house calling out for her mom, and I didn’t know what to say. She didn’t realize it was just me, and it felt like I was breaking it to her ages after it happened.
‘And two years later, Char was at my doorstep.’ I blink back tears I don’t expect to start pricking my eyes. ‘Smiling like nothing had ever happened. Asking to see her daughter. I was … overjoyed. I mean, I thought this was it, and we’d mend things. She came back to Whittaker for a month, then two months. Sheeven moved in with us for the summer. I was hopeful. Tali was little, but I think she understood it, too. Man, I thought things wouldfinallywork out, that I’d found the bridge between Charlotte’s universe and mine.
‘Then we got into this blowout argument over dinner. She’d seen my away game schedule for the next season at Mass State. The matches I’d be on the road for. She didn’t want anything to do with it.’ I laugh humourlessly. The words we exchanged might have been from years back, but they still sting just the same. ‘We were the skeleton of what we’d built in high school. It was never gonna hold. I understood that she was pissed at me: that was okay. I was pissed at myself. But the person who had to shoulder all of it was Tali.
‘That kid grew up on the road with me, with my team. She’s probably seen more US states at seven than most people see in their entire life. And yeah, it’s all fun and games until she hasn’t had any stability. Because since then …’ I shrug, taking a swig of my beer. ‘It’s been this. Annual visits without warning. Staking claim.’
I don’t want or expect pity from Jordan. I feel like that’s the reason everything’s been so easy with her. She’s a sounding board, not a sympathy greeting card. Right now, she sets her whiskey glass in the cup-holder of her chair and looks at me with a sort of weight in her gaze that I know means she has really heard me. ‘God,’ she says.
‘Yeah.’
‘You’ve both had a tough go of it.’ She leans back with a sigh. ‘First off, if you’d failed when you were raising Tali, she wouldn’t run straight to you whenever you’re in a room the way she does. I want you to really let that one sink in, Rod.’
