Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Once Paisley was dressed again, I picked her up and held her close to my chest, tucking her head beneath my chin. “I’ll never let anything happen to you,” I promised her quietly. “Never.”
But as soon as I uttered the words, I recognized their emptiness. How could I make that promise? What power did I have to protect her? I was no superhero. I was just a guy whose condom had failed. There was no honor or nobility in my journey to fatherhood. I hadn’t even wanted it. What if I deserved to be punished for that? What if losing her was my life sentence?
I kissed the top of her head, letting my lips rest on her soft dark hair. I breathed in her clean baby sent. I squeezed her tighter, so tight she began to squirm and fuss.
I loosened my hold on her a little, but my mind continued to torture me. Staring at the bed where I’d spent so many nights praying and hoping for a miracle, certain that it would be delivered and then broken beyond repair when it wasn’t, I remembered why I had lived my life alone up to this point. It wasn’t only the child you loved who was vulnerable, it was you.
Where Paisley was concerned, I had no choice. I loved her because she was mine. But what about Emme? She was a choice, wasn’t she? She was a wish I had made, a hope I had let break the surface. I’d been blinded by feelings for her, but now I saw my mistake.
What the fuck had I been thinking? Why had I let her in? Why had I given her pieces of me I could never get back? What was going to happen when she got tired of waiting around for me to change my mind about getting married or having a family and left me for someone who wanted the same things she did? It was bound to happen sooner or later. Why was I setting myself up for heartbreak, when I knew better than anyone that wishes don’t come true?
“Hey. You okay?”
I turned to see Emme standing in the doorway. “I don’t know.”
She nodded and entered the room, tucking her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “That was kind of rough.”
“Yeah.”
Emme looked around the room. “Was this yours?”
“Once upon a time. But the walls were dark blue back then.”
She smiled. “Like a bat cave.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Her smile faded as she walked toward me, her eyes were full of concern. She wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her cheek against my arm. “I’m sorry, Nate. I don’t know what to say.”
“This isn’t your fault.” None of this was her fault, yet I kept wanting to apologize to her. Was it because I knew she was going to end up being hurt?
“Your mother is down there breathing into a paper bag.”
“Jesus. Of course she is.”
“What do you want to do?”
Get the fuck out of here. Turn back the clock. Get my life back on track. I took a breath. “Try again, I guess. Give it another hour or so. Is that okay with you?”
She kissed my shoulder. “Of course it is.”
Before we went back downstairs, I went into Adam’s room down the hall. It too had been repainted, from sky-blue to deep maroon. At some point, it had been converted into an office for my father and held a large desk, some bookshelves, and a leather chair in one corner. It smelled faintly of stale cigar smoke. I turned to Emme, waiting for me in the hallway. “Can I ask you to take Paisley downstairs? I need a minute to look for something.”
“Sure.” She reached for Paisley, smiling brightly at her. “I bet you’re hungry, peanut. Want a snack?”
“Good idea,” I told her. “Want to make her a bottle?”
She nodded and took the diaper bag from me too. “No problem. Maybe I can even recruit Grandma to help me.”
After she left, I went over to the closet and opened the door. It held some suits of my father’s zipped up in garment bags, a few dresses of my mother’s from the days when they enjoyed an active social life, and tons of wrapping paper, ribbon, and bows in stacked plastic containers. No wonder my mother’s gifts to me always smelled like mothballs. On the top shelf, I saw the box I was looking for. It was labeled BOYS.
I took it down and brought it over to the desk. A layer of dust covered the top, and I sent motes swirling when I lifted it off. Inside were relics from my childhood—I’d looked through this box many times and knew its contents. Our first pairs of shoes, bronzed, which we’d always thought was so weird but my mother claimed was a tradition in her family. Little velvet bags containing our baby teeth. Hats and gloves that had been knitted for us by relatives we’d never met. Childish drawings in crayon. School pictures. Adam’s stuffed bear. My Batman cape. And there toward the bottom was the item I wanted—his joke book. I took it out and thumbed through it. Its pages were yellowed and it smelled musty, like a basement. Inside the front cover, he’d printed his name in blue ink. Adam Pearson. Beneath that, he’d written a note: