by K. L. Kreig
“Daddy?”
I turn my head toward her. She does the same so now I’m staring into my own eyes, my own image. “Yeah, sweetie?”
“I’m glad we moved to Chicago,” she tells me.
I swallow the knot in my throat. To think that I almost didn’t get to meet this wonderful little beauty who is so much like me is uncanny. “Me, too, Hazel.”
Then she slams me with a doozie. Probably my first of many. “Do you love my mommy?”
Jesus. So much it’s fucking excruciating. But how do I answer that loaded question without giving our daughter hope there’s a future for the three of us when I don’t know if there is? With everything else I’m feeling for Nora at the moment, without a doubt I love her just as much as I hate her, so I answer honestly, I guess.
“Very much, but sometimes love isn’t enough, Hazel.”
A soft smile turns her mouth up. “But sometimes it is,” she says with such maturity and wisdom it fucking astounds me. Then she turns her attention back to the sky, leaving me to replay what she said over and over and over.
As we lie quietly next to each other, I have to wonder if the very thing that drove us apart—her—could also be the very thing that pulls us back together. At this point, it’s a toss-up.
Chapter 29
Nora
“How’s everything going?” my sister tentatively asks.
I’m not sure how she wants me to answer. There’s thick tension between Connelly and me. We’ve avoided each other as much as possible these past few weeks. Well, I should say he’s avoided me. He’s still very angry and hurt. Rightfully so. I wish we could talk and clear the air, but his body language is pretty clear. Stay the fuck away. Zel senses it, too. Every time we’re in the same room she tries to lighten the mood, bless her big heart.
The arrangement we have for sharing our daughter is working right now, but pretty soon I know it won’t be enough for Connelly. There are no overnights yet, no discussion of holiday sharing, and no plans about what we’ll do come summertime.
That’s when I wonder what he’ll do, what sort of legal action he’ll take. I try to put myself in his place. I’m sure I’d want to do the same thing. Protect myself legally. I just hope when that time comes, it can be amicable. One day, he briefly mentioned child support, but I brushed him off. I told him if he wanted to buy Zel things, he certainly could, but that we’ve managed fine without his money all this time and don’t need it now. I could tell it angered him, but he let it go. At least for now. I know that won’t last.
“Honestly, I’m feeling like my future balances on the edge of an unevenly sharpened knife. I never know if the next step will slice me apart or grant me another reprieve,” I reply at last.
“I’m sorry, Nora. I know all of this is hard. For everyone. I want you to know I don’t judge you. And I’m not taking sides.”
Tears well. “Thanks, Mira.”
Last Saturday, when Connelly had Zel, Mira and I had lunch, which led into dinner, and I ended up having to rush home by eight o’clock to be sure I was here when Connelly dropped her off. I told Mira things only my mother knew. She listened, she supported. One of the pluses of moving here is that I finally feel as though I have a family again outside of Carl. I wish I’d had her as a confidant growing up.
“Have you…have you talked to him?” I hate asking but I’m dying to know.
At the other end of the line, I hear her take a swallow of something before answering. “Just once. He called and asked where he should take Hazel for their first outing.”
Ouch. That pricks.
“I think he’s been avoiding me. Probably the whole sister thing and all.”
“I’m sorry. I know you two are close.” I’m insanely jealous, but I’d never tell Mira she couldn’t be friends with Connelly. Besides, you don’t tell Mira anything. She’d do whatever you told her not to just to spite you anyway.
“Nah. He’ll come around. He just needs some time, Nora. It was a big shock. Let him absorb it for a bit, okay?”
“I know.” I swallow my tears. “God, Mira, I miss him so much. I know we weren’t back together very long, but I felt whole like I never had and I…I just miss him so damn much. I miss the way he looked at me with so much heat and love and devotion. I feel lost. I feel like I’ll never have that again and I know I don’t deserve it, but I still want it.”
“Have you tried to talk to him? Tell him how you’re feeling?”
“No,” I sniffle, dabbing my eyes with a tissue. “I’m trying to give him some space.”
My phone beeps indicating I have an incoming call.
Carl.
“Hey, I gotta go. I’ll call you later this week to work out a time to take Hazel.”
“Can’t wait. I love that little girl. Call me if you need me. Anytime.”
“Will do. Thanks, Mira. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I click over to answer Carl’s call just in time.
“Hey,” I say, stretching my sweater tighter against the wind that’s picked up. It’s definitely fall in the heartland. I take a quick look through the glass patio doors into the kitchen and note that Zel will be home within the half hour from her night with Connelly. Tonight, she had quite a bit of math homework to do, so Connelly’s getting exposed to all parts of parenting. Math is not Hazel’s strong suit, hence her tutor.
“Hey, Ladybug. How are you?”
On the edge of despair trying not to look down.
“I’m good,” I reply on autopilot, but he must hear the tears in my voice.
“Nora. What’s the matter, sweetheart? Everything going okay at Wynn?”
This is one conversation I’ve avoided for the past three weeks. I know I need to tell Carl about Connelly, about our past, about the fact he’s Hazel’s father. I also know it won’t be an easy one because it will hurt him that I’ve not confided in him before this. The biggest reason, though, is that I just don’t want him to be disappointed in me.
“Nora? Do you need me to get on a plane? Beat the shit out of someone?”
My laugh is watery. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Damn straight I would. I’ll ruin anyone who has hurt my girl.” He laughs. I don’t. I’m afraid in this case, I’m the one who’s done all the hurting.
“I have something I need to tell you.”
“Sounds big.”
I swear if I hadn’t heard loving encouragement in his tone, I would have chickened out. Again. But it’s exactly what I need in order to tell the only other man I love what I’ve done.
“It is,” I whisper.
Then I fill my lungs with bravery and begin.
Chapter 30
Conn
If you had to pin me down, make me give you one word that would best describe how I’ve felt without Nora all these years, that word would be: yearning. She’s a hunger I could never fill. A thirst I could never quench. An ache I could never soothe. As full as my life has always been, I’ve still had this shadowy hollowness inside of me that only her light has ever been able to penetrate.
When I saw Nora for the first time, she stirred something in me I’d never felt before. I was downright besotted and I fell in love so damn fast it would make your head spin. Every cell in my body was inextricably drawn to her, screaming for her. I never even tried to fight it because I knew I’d already lost. I was hers.
I remember in AP Psych, the one class we had together in our senior year, I’d watch in fascination as she’d repeatedly tuck her hair behind her ear, even though it hadn’t fallen out. And when she was concentrating hard on something, she’d unconsciously trace her lips with her index finger. Around and around. It was hypnotic and sexy as hell.
During those months when I was young and cocky and I tried to get her to talk to me, to pay attention to me, hell, simply to acknowledge my very fucking existence, I yearned. I ached. I craved everything about her. Her smile. Her light. Her devotion. I wanted it all. It drove me mad that I coul
dn’t have her.
I asked myself repeatedly…was it the chase, the game, the win? What was it that made me want her like nothing I’d wanted before? But every time I came back to the same answer.
Nora was my kismet. She was my destiny. She was mine.
I’ve done little else over the last few weeks but think. My mind is at war with my heart. Hell, my heart is at war with itself. It’s exhausting. I’m not sure you could find a man on earth more conflicted than I am right now.
On one hand, the time I’ve spent with my daughter has been incredible. Surreal, actually. I’m completely and totally in love with her already. She has me wrapped tightly and she knows it.
The day after we told Hazel about me, Nora and I worked out a schedule where I take her for a few hours two nights during the week and one day on the weekend. I spent all day with her last Sunday at the Children’s Museum. We had an absolute blast in the tinkering lab, but Hazel was naturally drawn to the Artabounds Studio so we spent most of our day there. Before we left, I bought a season pass so we could go back as many times as she wants.
We’ve been taking it slow. I agreed to those terms, but damn if it’s not enough for me. I want and need more. I want to spend every free minute with Hazel.
Which brings me to the other hand.
I’m in emotional agony over what to do about Nora. I love her madly and deeply. I feel dead inside without her…without her laugh or her touch or her challenging mouth. I need her to feel alive again, but I’m still so fucking hurt it’s difficult to even breathe. Pain stabs me fresh each time I see her, knowing everything I’ve lost and everything that’s been taken away from me.
The question I’ve been wrestling with for weeks now is how can I possibly overcome her betrayal? How can I trust her again? How can we build a future together? I want to. Jesus, I want to with everything in me. I just don’t know how.
Which is why I’m here. In Detroit. Sitting in my mom’s kitchen at eleven thirty at night. I drove up on the spur of the moment tonight right after work. I didn’t even bother to stop for a change of clothes. I always keep a few extra things here anyway.
“Sorry to just show up unannounced.” Maxwell, our eleven-year-old golden cockerdoodle, sets his head expectantly in my lap. Upon his silent command, I rub the perm-like curly hair between his ears, watching his chocolate eyes drift shut.
“You don’t have to apologize for needing your mother, Connelly.” She reaches across the table and takes my hand.
I’ve known I had a daughter for over a month now, but I haven’t yet talked to my mom about her. I know, I know. I’m close to my mother, all of us boys are, but telling her over the phone just didn’t seem right and I was too fucked in the head most of the time to get my jumbled thoughts out anyway.
“So you heard, huh?” Guess I couldn’t expect my brothers to keep their mouths shut. The danger of having such a close-knit family is that you don’t get a lot of privacy.
Her smile is sad and weary. “It accidentally slipped.”
“Who told you?”
“Now, Connelly, you know I’d never tell you that.”
“Asher and his big fu— mouth.” I almost swear but catch myself just in time to halt Barb Colloway’s verbal lashing for cussing. She just chuckles. I know I’m right.
“Your brothers mean well. They love you very much.”
“Yeah.” I know. “I’m sorry, Mom. I just…it’s been a lot to deal with.”
“I can only imagine. But you don’t have to deal with it alone. Lean on the people who love you, Connelly.”
“I’m trying.”
“So, want to tell me about it?”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“The beginning’s always a good place.” Her reply is soothing and full of encouraging love.
When I raise my gaze to my mother’s, I immediately know I should have made this trip weeks ago. I haven’t even said a word and I already feel better, the burden a little less to handle on my own. Maybe by the time I leave here I’ll have more clarity.
“Well, you remember Nora.” She nods, and during the next hour, I launch into my story. Every sordid, dirty detail of it, including my own betrayal of Nora back when I was nineteen. The cheating, the pregnancy scare, the loss of that life, and how relieved I was. She prompted me with questions along the way, but for the most part, I just talked. She just listened. It was cathartic.
When I was done, my mom sat there in silence, pondering all I’d told her. Staring out the window into the night sky. I was blown away when she finally spoke.
“I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told another soul, Connelly, some of it not even to your father, and I’d appreciate it if you kept this between us. It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“Okay,” I reply slowly, stretching out the word. I’m not at all sure I want to hear what she has to say. I have a feeling it’s very personal and I don’t know if can handle being saddled with someone else’s secrets right now. I already feel like a two-ton truckload of them sits on my own chest, weighing me down.
“A few months before I met your father I dated this man named Brent for a few months. I thought I knew what love was, but I was clueless until I met your father. Anyway, Brent and I broke up, and three weeks later, I met Frank Colloway.” The stars in my mom’s eyes shine brightly when she talks about my father. They were every couple’s barometer for a perfect marriage. But as they dim when she continues purging her secret, now I’m certain I don’t want to hear it. “You already know your father asked me to marry him just a few months after we started dating. What you don’t know is that we broke up for a short time because…I’m ashamed to admit I cheated on him. With Brent.”
“Mom,” I groan. “I do not need to hear this.”
“No. You do. It’s relevant, I promise.” Inhaling a lungful of air, she continues. I can feel how hard this is for her. “Your dad and I got back together and shortly afterward I found out I was pregnant.”
What. The. Actual. Fuck? My mother? Saint Barb? Cheated? Pregnant? Did I fall through a black hole in the universe? What does a son even say to that?
“What—”
“I lost the baby. At ten weeks I had a miscarriage. Your father knew about the baby, of course, and I told him I was certain it was his, but even I couldn’t be sure. And he knew it. I always thought my penance for that great sin I committed against your father was the loss of that child. I mourned for months. It took almost two years before I’d try again and then it was almost a year before we got pregnant with Gray and Luke.”
I’m speechless. This is not something you need to hear about your parents.
“Why are you telling me this, Mom?”
Except I already know.
Everybody makes mistakes, even those close to sainthood.
Everybody deserves redemption, no sin too great.
Even my mother.
And where would my family be if my father hadn’t forgiven my mother? We wouldn’t. I scrub my face in complete disbelief, my mind racing.
“Do you love her? Nora, I mean?” she adds, unnecessarily clarifying her question, ignoring mine.
Do I love Nora?
No. It’s so much more than a simple four-letter word. It’s a shared connection, a twining of our marrow, our cells, our very essences. It’s concrete and rooted and unbreakable. But is it enough?
“To my very bones. I am her. She is me.”
“Then get off your ass and get her back.”
Once again, I stare at my mom in utter shock. Secret revelations? Cursing? It takes me a while to get my bearings back to respond.
“I’m so mad, Mom. I’m not sure I can forgive her,” I confess almost in a whisper. “I’m not sure there’s a future for us anymore. I think it’s too late.”
She nods, turning down her mouth like she’s disappointed in me. “Do you know why I put my own sins on this very table for you to judge?”
“I…” This feels like a trick ques
tion. Even your own mother tries to trip you up sometimes. I think for a minute on what she’s trying to tell me. “It’s a story about Dad, not you. It’s about forgiveness.”
“Yes.” She beams just as she did when I came home with the first-place ribbon in the sixth-grade science fair. “Had he chosen not to forgive me, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you now, because there wouldn’t be a you. Instead of letting that mistake tear us apart, we let it drive us closer together. He was it for me like I was for him.”
She pauses, taking my hand between hers and makes sure I’m listening to each and every word. “Holding on to resentment is like wearing cement shoes, Connelly. It weighs down your entire being. Body, mind, and spirit. It will drag you down into the bowels of bitterness, and that’s a lonely place to spend your life. Everyone makes missteps, son. Everyone deserves forgiveness, a second chance. Even Nora. You have every right to be mad at her for what she’s done and I’m not telling you that you don’t. What I’m telling you is it’s time to start getting over it. Forgive her and free your heart to love her. You are full of so much love, Connelly, just like your father. If that love belongs to Nora, then you owe it to yourselves, and your daughter, to try.”
I reach out and tug her to me so she doesn’t see the moisture fogging my vision.
“Time is not guaranteed to us, Connelly,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t waste any more of it holding on to needless resentments. It’s never too late. You both made mistakes. Don’t make any more.”
We both made mistakes. She couldn’t be more right.
“Thanks, Mom.” I squeeze her tight as my throat works to swallow my racing emotions.
“Anytime. Now it’s time for this old woman to hit the hay. I have a breakfast date in the morning.”
I laugh, kissing her forehead as we stand. “And would that date be with one Bob Monroe?” Bob Monroe, Luke’s fiancée’s father, and my mother have been “dating” for months now. I think they’re both past the point of trying to say it’s anything but that.