I draw the zipper of my bag shut and sling it over one shoulder. The kids will hang around, enjoy the carnival rides that are set up a ten-minute walk away, bury their faces in funnel cake, and then come back out to watch the fireworks once the sun dips below the horizon. They’ll wave sparklers and stomp on Pop-Its to see whose will make the loudest noise. Rod will carry on doing all those things with Tali, and maybe Charlotte will do them, too, which will be good for Tali in any case. And instead of living my life in the same chaos I’ve always enjoyed, I’ll finally choose to pull myself away from it all and sit in the dull, droning white noise of an airplane until I’m far enough away that I don’t have to pretend leaving isn’t tearing me apart fibre by fibre.
‘Jordan?’
I’m about halfway to my car, at the gates, when I hear the voice, unusually quiet for its owner. Backpack still over one shoulder, I sink to my knees so that I’m eye to eye with Tali.
‘What’s up, honey?’
Her hair, still in the two little space buns her dad has done for her, quivers as she finds the words. She fidgets with her tiny hands, and then, tongue in cheek, she says, ‘Please don’t leave.’
What do you even say to that? What do you say when a kid begs you not to leave, all puppy-dog and this close to crying?
I can still see my dad’s truck rumbling down the road, still hear Mom wailing behind him, all kinds of curses andmaledictions. Remember how hopeless it felt to pray that he’d come back before I went to bed, remember when I stopped doing it. Praying and hoping and everything. Yet here I am, no less than Benjamin Hawkins, leaving everything and everyone behind without a care in the world. Leaving a kid behind.
‘Tali.’ I take a deep breath to steady myself. ‘I … I think that I need to leave. It was going to happen eventually, wasn’t it?’
‘He’s never really been happy.’ Tali’s lower lip quivers. She wrings her hands harder. Her freckled nose scrunches. ‘Daddy had a really hard time. Sometimes he looks happy, but I know that’s not true. Auntie Bia would talk to him, but he would still be sad. And I wouldn’t miss my mommy. Not really. But I wanted one so bad, and …’ She bats at her eyes with the palm of her hand, shaking her head. ‘I don’t want you to go, Jordan.’
Tali may do her darnedest to convince me she’s grown, but this is a baby. She’s a baby who’s had to deal with so much more than any child should, who’s watched her dad juggle all the things, all her life. In a way, sheisgrown: she had to grow up too quickly. She found constants, but there was just the one part to the puzzle that was always missing.
I watch her space buns turn into twin braids, a small brown cowboy hat embroidered with roses atop her head. Her cross-camp shirt becomes a dusty white top, her shorts become jeans, her sandals become worn boots. But her eyes stay the same. They’re still lost, still looking for that one puzzle piece.
I take her hands in mine, and squeeze gently. ‘Don’t cry, baby girl.’
She does, though. The tears are a cascade, flooding her face as she buries it in my shoulder and I hold her tight. Her little back shudders under my hands, and she sniffles against myshirt. I bite back the same emotions that had overtaken me with Theo, but this time, I fail. Am I denying her the same thing I have been searching for all my life? Maybe. Maybe I am perpetuating this cycle, but I can’t do it. I finally gave my heart away, to feel so unsteady, so broken all over again. As if everything I built – the understanding I share with this child, an understanding like nothing else – was tainted from the start. Maybe I should turn back and talk to Rod. Some parting words, some bandage to smooth over how we’re leaving things. But any attempt to dull the damage will only make it worse. And I can’t feel like I’m the one doing something wrong any more. I just can’t.
‘I’ll miss you.’ Tali’s words eventually come out through sobs. They shred at my heart. To ‘miss’ is suddenly an understatement.
‘I’ll miss you, too, honey.’
Letting go is the hardest thing. I stand up, and Tali seems so much smaller than she actually is as I walk to my car. I feel so much smaller. I wipe the tears from my own cheeks, and I turn around to look back. I watch her retreat to the gates. Once I’m sure she can’t see, I slip into the driver’s seat of my car, put my head between my knees, and scream.
Chapter Forty-Three
All Roads Lead to Her
Rod
Throngs of kids conveniently block the way to my duffel bag, lifting the big plastic trophy coated in gold paint high above their heads. I’m in no rush to leave, though. For the first time in days, I let myself smile and join their celebrations, dance around, chant with them. It feels like the return of some semblance of normal. I welcome it.
Eventually, as the chaos clears, I get to my bag, left a couple of bleachers away from where Jordan’s was. Beside it sits Tali. My stomach plummets when I see the tears on her face. I’m straight into crisis mode, hurrying over, kneeling down in front of her, checking for anything, any bruises, scrapes, anything. Prepared to move heaven and earth to fix whatever has made her this upset. I take her face in my hands, wiping the tears from her freckled cheeks. ‘What happened? What’s up, champ?’
She just sniffles quietly, and when I wrap an arm around her, she lets me. I stroke her hair, and she says, ‘Jordan left.’
What?
‘She did what?’ My own voice sounds distant, incomprehensible.
Tali doesn’t respond, and that’s all the answer I need. She’s disappeared. Gone home before the season starts.
It’s easy to think to myself that this was what I’d been afraid of. The connection Tali had formed with Jordan, the way they bonded, and then: leaving. Exactly what I felt was inevitable. Breaking Tali’s heart all over again. Except it’s not as simple as that, because as Tali cries silently, I realize that I can’t blame Jordan for any of this. It’s on me.
When the fireworks begin that evening, we settle down to watch them, Genny’s family sitting with us on our massive picnic blanket. The show is beautiful, but Tali seems detached from the spectacle, and as it goes on, I realize that so am I. My daughter doesn’t smile as a bigboomsounds and reds and blues and silvers light up the park. It occurs to me that these kinds of things are only really pretty when you have the people you love next to you.
The next day, the first thing I do is text Colt. I’m still in bed – I haven’t even gotten up yet – but the guilt is weighing too heavily. I can’t feel empty, not now, not when I’ve possibly screwed it all up.
Me: Is Jordan over there?
Colt: Over where?
