“Maddox, hey. Thanks for calling me back.”
“No problem. It’s good to hear from you.”
“Yeah, it’s been a minute.” I sighed.
“It’s been twenty years worth of them,” Maddox joked.
“Yeah.”
Maddox Cruz was always a good kid. It had been twenty years since I’d spoken to him, but I couldn’t see anything changing that in any amount of time. He was just one of those people who were good, to their core. He was younger than me. I’d worked as a basketball coach at an after-school program he was in from the ages of four to ten for foster kids. He reached out to me after he graduated college to thank me for looking out for him and having his back when he was younger, he was a small kid without a lot of friends. We’d kept in touch through social media since then, so it wasn’t as if we’d had zero contact.
“Congrats on your wedding, man,” I said. “I wish I could have made it out.”
Maddox had recently reconnected with his high school sweetheart, and they got married.
“No worries. You back in town yet?”
I mentioned in my message that I was moving back. “Not quite yet, still driving. Hey, I hate to ask, but I have a favor.”
“Sure. Anything.”
“I have twin girls, they’re five, and I was wondering if I could drop them by your house while I move my stuff in. I don’t want them getting in the way and getting hurt. I can’t watch them and move, and I don’t have anyone else to ask. I don’t really keep in touch with?—”
“Sure man. I’ve got Hannah this weekend, and she’s six. She’d love the company. Her older sister was supposed to hang out, but something came up.”
“Older sister?” I echoed, my brain slow to switch from logistics to the subtle subplot that had just been dropped.
“Lina, my and Peyton’s daughter.”
“Oh.” I was confused. I hadn’t realized Maddox and Peyton had a child together.
“Long story,” he addressed my silent question.
“Right.”
“We can grab a beer to catch up once you get settled.”
“Yeah, that sounds great.”
“What time?”
“Pending traffic, I should be getting into town around ten tomorrow.”
“Ten’s great. I’ll drop you the address.”
“Thanks, man.” I sighed, genuinely relieved and grateful. There was no margin for error with my current bandwidth, and the idea of the girls making an instant friend—even for a morning—felt like a break in the thunderclouds.
They’d been through so much and had so much change in their short little lives. First, they lost their mom when they were three. Then their grandma got sick and was gone within a couple of weeks. Which is the only reason she contacted me with the Maury news that I am their father.
“Glad we’re doing this, Knight. Looking forward to seeing you.”
“You too.”
The call ended, and for a minute the only sounds in the car were Idina Menzel’s relentless optimism and the low purr of the engine. I glanced up at the mirror again. The girls were still conked out, cheeks flushed with exhaustion, their identical chins tucked to their chests like a set of Russian nesting dolls. Their tiny angelic faces were surrounded by a halo of long, wavy light blonde hair.
I tried to picture tomorrow, the chaos of boxes, and the echo of my father’s voice in the empty house filled with memories I’d buried for decades. I hadn’t been home since the day before Ileft for boot camp. The thought of walking through those doors made my stomach clench.
My phone was on the charging station, and I picked it up and scrolled to Genesis.
