by Kennedy Ryan
“Soon.” I smile, even though it hurts to even hear her name. “I think really soon.”
“That’s what I like to hear. You guys deserve it.” August daps me up and turns to go. “Okay. I promised Iris I’d be home right after practice, so I’mma roll out. See you on the plane.”
Tomorrow’s game is the first of a pretty brutal road trip. Four games before we return to San Diego. That means a week away from home. I’ll have some quality time with Simone, though, when I drive her up to this dance camp in Laguna Beach today. At least she’ll be gone for a good part of my time away and will feel the impact less.
I’m clicking “the tank” unlocked when a guy with a mic approaches me. I haven’t had to worry about tabloids for a while, but I know a reporter when I see one.
“Glad, hey!” he yells, his phone thrust toward me to record. “You excited the Baller Bae season is ending?”
“I don’t discuss my personal life,” I auto reply. “You got a question about basketball, get a media credential and show up at a press conference after the game. Otherwise, no comment.”
I climb into the car and start the engine.
“And what about Lotus?” he yells right as my foot hovers over the accelerator. “That girl you were dating this summer?”
I grit my teeth and try to talk myself out of engaging, but it’s a battle lost. I roll down my window and try to ignore the satisfaction in the creep’s eyes.
“What about her?”
“Well, rumor is that she’s dating that photographer again,” he says in a rush. “Bridget claimed she was cheating on you with him. What do you have to—”
I roll up my window and pull off.
Son of a bitch. That’s what I get for giving him the time of day.
My finger twitches over the button on my steering wheel that would dial her. We’ve talked some. It wouldn’t be completely out of the norm for me to call. We’ve kept each other abreast of our lives.
“Fuck it.”
I hit the button.
“Kenan?”
Her voice in my car makes me want to blow off my road trip and go get her. Fly to New York and bring her home with me.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Obviously, it’s you, dumbass. “Uh, how you doing?”
“Good.” She pauses, clears her throat. “I got your card yesterday. So you a poet now?”
My own laughter almost catches me off guard. This summer, I forgot how much time I spend alone. How little I actually talk to people most of the time because I laughed, I talked, I felt more freely myself with Lotus than I ever have with anyone else.
“Not a poet exactly,” I say when our laughter trails off. “A little something I had on my mind.”
“I liked it,” she says, her voice husky.
There’s so much I want to say to her. So much she’s missed, even though we’ve talked occasionally. But mostly I just want to know . . . “Um, so this reporter approached me after practice.”
“Okay.”
“He mentioned something about the girl I was seeing this summer dating that photographer again.” I leave the unspoken question suspended over the thousands of miles separating us.
“Oh.” She’s quiet for a moment. “I have no idea where he got that.”
I need to focus and make sure I’m clear on what she’s saying. I pull over to the parking lot of a gas station and lean back in my seat, waiting for her to elaborate. She doesn’t.
“Yeah, I don’t know either,” I finally say. “Because you know we said . . .”
I don’t say what we said, but she knows we aren’t dating other people. I trust her. It hadn’t even occurred to me until that reporter planted his poison.
“Yeah, we said . . .” She huffs a quick laugh. “You didn’t think . . . I wouldn’t. Kenan, I haven’t.”
I release a relieved exhale and nod, even though she can’t see me. Why can’t she see me? I should have FaceTimed. God, I want to see her.
“You haven’t . . .” She starts, stops. “Well, we said . . .”
“Yeah, we said—no,” I rush to assure her. “I’m living like a monk.”
She laughs, and I hear relief in her voice, too. “My monk.”
“Your monk. Completely.”
Her breath catches, and she sighs. I want to taste that sigh. If I could kiss her, I’d know what she was thinking. I’d know what was in her heart just from the press of our lips.
“I miss you, Kenan,” she says, her voice breaking. “So bad.”
I clench the steering wheel and clamp my teeth together until my jaw aches. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Lotus. I think we can . . . Simone’s so much better. We have her diagnosis. She’s on the right meds. My mom is holding it down for me during the season.” A rough chuckle rumbles from my chest. “Mama’s even got Simone’s hair looking good.”
“That’s awesome,” Lotus says, a smile in her voice.
“I told my mom about you.”
A short pause. “You did? What’d you tell her?”
“That I’m in love with you.”
Her breath hitches again, so I must be doing something right.
“I told her I want to marry you one day.”
She didn’t let me say it the last time I saw her—that I wanted her to be my wife—but I say it now before she sees it coming, before she can stop me.
“You told her that?” Her voice wavers and squeaks sweetly at the end.
“Yeah, and you know what she asked me?”
“What?”
“When she could expect more grandkids. With only one, she claims to need a back-up.”
Lotus’s laugh cracks open and a sob spills out. “I love you, Kenan Ross, and I will gladly marry you and have all the grandkids your mama can babysit when the time is right.”
When the time is right.
Right.
“What I’m saying is that the time is soon, Lotus.”
“Talk to Dr. Packer, and we’ll go from there. We don’t want to undo all the things we sacrificed already.”
“She thinks you’re amazing, by the way,” I tell her, an unstoppable grin on my face.
“Why?”
“Because she thinks you did the right thing,” I say, sobering. “In our case, she thinks it was best for Simone. All of it. Not everyone is that committed to putting their kids’ needs before their own.”
“But you were.”
“No, you were. I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t forced the issue.”
“Well, like I said, I know what it’s like to feel that everyone else is more important.”
Voices in the background break the spell this conversation has woven over me.
“My meeting’s starting,” she says. “I gotta go.”
“Yeah, me, too. I have to drive Simone to this dance camp thing.”
“Okay.” She pauses for a second before whispering, “I love you.”
“You have no idea,” I reply immediately. “But I’m going to show you real soon.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“So do I. Love you, Button.”
I’m on the proverbial cloud, feeling like some lovesick fool, but not really giving a damn.
My high crashes when my dashboard displays an incoming call from Bridget. We’ve been civil the few times we’ve spoken. With her in New York, there have been thankfully few visits to coordinate, and those happened while I was on the road. Dr. Packer believes the harmony between Bridget and me is just as much a stabilizing force as me waiting to be with Lotus or my mom moving in with us.
I answer the phone and brace myself for any drama she may have in store. “Bridge, hey,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Kenan,” she says, her voice filling the car interior. “How are you?”
Oh, manners. I remember these. “I’m good. What’s up?” I repeat.
“The cast has an appearance in LA today,” she says, her tone slightly hesitant. “I, um, thought I might swing b
y to see Simone.”
“You know she has that dance camp in Laguna Beach,” I remind her. “I’m on my way home to take her now.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. Um . . . maybe next time.”
“Well LA is even closer to Laguna Beach. Pop in and see her before you go back. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“You think so?” she asks, brightening.
“Yeah. I start a stretch of road games tomorrow and will be gone for the week, so seeing one of us will probably be good for her.”
“Okay. I’ll text her to make arrangements.” She goes quiet for a second. “She’s better, right?”
The same cold-sweat fear I have—that I’ll find Simone barely breathing on my bed again—resides in Bridget’s voice. I find myself in my daughter’s room when she’s asleep and watching her breathe, like I did when she was a baby. It reassures me. Right now, Bridget doesn’t even have that.
“Yeah, Bridge. She’s better.”
“I think we all are,” she says, a smile in her voice.
“Yeah.”
“She told me you’re not seeing Lotus anymore,” Bridget says, the tiniest flicker of hope in the words. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”
“They’re actually working out fine,” I reply carefully. “Lotus and I wanted to give Simone some time to recover, and for me to focus on her as much as possible while the season is still so demanding.”
“Very thoughtful of you.” An edge blunts her words.
“Lotus’s idea actually.”
Several drops of quiet form a shallow puddle of silence that starts becoming uncomfortable just when she speaks again.
“I saw you with her a few times, you know,” Bridget says, exhaling a breathy, bitter laugh. “There were a few shots of you this summer out doing things together. Laughing. Having fun. I barely recognized you.”
“Searching hashtags again?” I ask, unable to staunch that familiar irritation.
“How else would I know what was going on in your life?”
“Why would you want to know?” I demand, exasperated. “I don’t get you, Bridget. You have an affair with one of my friends. You throw our marriage out the window—”
“Our marriage?” she asks, a double-edged sword of scorn and bitterness. “Is that what you called it?”
My mother, as angry as she was with Bridget, expressed sympathy for her because we were ill-matched.
Bridget tried to crack you like a nut. For the woman you love, though, really love, it’s not hard work. I didn’t have to crack your father. He spilled himself with me.
God, my mother was right. I don’t know that I did anything wrong, but there must have been some things with Bridget I didn’t do right. And now I see clearly that I couldn’t, would never have trusted myself, the real me, my inner self, with the person Bridget has proven herself to be. I don’t think I was capable of it with her.
“Look, Bridge, we’ve been at war with each other for years, and if what happened with Simone showed me anything, it’s the value of a second chance. We have a chance to clean the slate. I’m tired of fighting. It’s destructive, and we both have to move on.”
“With Lotus, you mean,” she says, her voice subdued. “You’re moving on with Lotus.”
“Yeah.” I meet the disappointment in her voice head-on. “With Lotus.”
I ignore her sharp breath and continue.
“I’ve been angry with you,” I admit. “For years, angry that our family, our life was ripped apart.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Bridget whispers.
“I’ve been angry,” I continue. “But I could never understand why you were angry, too. You’ve been angry with me for not being what you thought I would be. For not letting you in, for abandoning you in our marriage.”
“It doesn’t excuse what I did,” she says faintly. “I never meant to cheat on you. It just . . .”
I’m grateful she doesn’t say it just “happened.” Those things don’t just happen.
“It wasn’t all you,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “It was me, too. You used to talk about the wall that came up during the season, but it wasn’t only when I was playing ball. It was all the time. I’m a hard man to know, to reach.”
“But not for her.” Her words come out on a light breath, but land with a thud.
“No, not for her.” A wry half-smile crooks my mouth. “I don’t regret us, Bridge, because we have Simone, and she’s the best thing.”
“She is.” She chuckles softly on the other end, hesitating before rushing on. “Can you ever . . . could you forgive me, Kenan?”
I’ve simmered in resentment for years, and in this moment, all the pain and humiliation and awful things Bridget’s affair caused me rush to my mind.
Then other memories slowly start to sift in. Bridget, young and alone in a strange city with a newborn while I was on the road. So many missed birthdays, anniversaries, milestones, and times I knew there was something she needed, and had no clue how to give it to her.
Bridget and I haven’t been on the best terms the last few years, but I’ve known her half my life, was married to her for more than a decade. She gave me my daughter. There may not ever have been a time when I loved her the way she needed to be loved, and there may not ever have been a time when she truly saw me, understood me, knew the real me, but there was a time when we were friends. There was a girl I met in college who walked with me through the challenging transition into the NBA, through being a father when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Through my greatest accomplishments. I wish we could have focused on those things more instead of all the ways we failed each other, and now we have that chance.
“I’ll forgive you,” I say with a half-pained smile, “if you can forgive me.”
I don’t have to explain why I’m asking forgiveness. It’s fueled her own anger and frustration and hung over us for years.
“I can do that,” she says, the words tremulous. “Thank you, Kenan.”
It won’t be easy, and I have no doubt our anger and past hurts will resurface sometimes when we least expect it. Maybe it took this wake-up call for us to gain perspective on what’s most important—that it really is about Simone, and that maybe for her, we can set the past aside and focus on her future. Maybe for her, we can be friends again.
“Got everything?” I ask one more time before I leave Simone at the lush beach retreat where the dance camp is being held.
“Yeah.” She shifts the gym bag on her shoulder. “Grandma double-checked the list they gave us to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything.”
“Good. I’ll call you from the road. Our first game is Toronto and then Chicago and then San Antonio and then the Lakers. I’ll be back Saturday.”
When I look down at my daughter, a wave of gratitude overwhelms me. The “what ifs” have tortured me ever since the night we found her unconscious on my bed. My nightmares are made from dark alternate endings, and I’ve jerked awake more than once to rush down the hall and make sure she is real, not some grief-induced hallucination.
She’s beautiful and growing up fast. She’ll be fifteen soon, and won’t be thinking about her old man anymore. I’ve missed so much. Basketball has given me a lot, but it’s taken its money’s worth.
“I love you more than everything, Moni.” I kiss her forehead and press her head to my chest. “You know that, right?”
She glances up at me, her brows crinkling over her pretty blue eyes, and then nods.
“What?” I frown down at her. “What is it?”
“What happened to Lotus?”
I wish Dr. Packer were here right now. I’m not sure how to handle this. Simone knows I’m not seeing Lotus anymore, and I haven’t talked about her at all, so I’m not sure what prompted the question.
“Uh, she still lives in New York. Why do you ask, baby?”
“You seemed, I don’t know.” Simone shrugs her narrow shoulders. “You seemed happier when she was around.”
Dam
n, I miss her.
Isolation hits me with crushing force. My life is so much brighter with Lotus in it. I don’t speak. I’m still formulating the best answer—one that won’t unravel all that we’ve worked so hard to put together.
“It’s okay if you love her, too,” Simone says quietly.
I pull back and peer down into her face. Her eyes, when they meet mine, are sober. They’ve seen too much, know too much already.
“It is?” I ask tentatively.
“I want you to be happy.” She swallows, and looks down at the ground. “I want Mommy to be happy, too, but I know you don’t make each other happy anymore.”
“But we’ll always love you,” I say, cupping her face, “and always put you first, okay?”
She nods and offers a small smile. She’s a good kid. In spite of all the shit she’s been through. She’s the only good thing to come out of my marriage.
“Simone,” a tall, elegant woman calls. I remember meeting her at one of Moni’s recitals. “The other girls are all inside. Say goodbye and join us, please.”
“Coming, Madam Petrov,” Simone replies before turning back to me. “Gotta go.”
“Okay. Love you, Moni.” I swipe my hand down her face, our familiar expression of love. She smiles, looks happy. God, let it be real. Knowing your child is hurting in a way you can’t make stop or make better is the most helpless feeling in the world. You watch for any distress signal, strain to catch each sign of progress or hint of joy, with your breath held. With bated hope.
“Love you, Daddy.”
We’re gonna be okay.
It’s a refrain playing on repeat in my head as I drive back to San Diego. I loved talking with Simone on the way up, hearing about how well things are going at school and with dance. Giving her space to tell me how the meds make her feel better. Allowing her to tell me about the days when they don’t. Every word she shared, even those that were hard to hear, reassured me, because she’s sharing it. She’s not hiding it or keeping it to herself. She’s so much like me in a lot of ways, naturally burying her emotions and hoarding her thoughts.
But as much as I enjoyed our talk driving up to Laguna Beach, I revel in the silence on my drive home. It’s hard to describe to someone who doesn’t need it how refreshing being alone can be—not lonely at all, but alone. On this scenic stretch of highway, I have the breathtaking view of the ocean all to myself. The moon glimmers off dark blue water as I negotiate the twists of the Pacific Coast Highway. I put on my favorite song: “It Never Entered My Mind.” The opening strains of piano blend seamlessly, flawlessly with Davis’s trumpet. He sandpapered every note until it was smooth, dulcet tonal perfection.