“Sorry about that…”
“Don’t apologize to me,” I say, shaking my head. “So, you still hang out here?”
“Sometimes,” she says. “Not usually after dark, though. Maddie likes it here, likes playing on the swings, hanging out by the river.”
Maddie.
This makes twice in one day she’s talked to me about her, twice she’s brought up our daughter. I’m trying to not get my hopes up, but after years of slamming face-first into a brick wall, I feel like I might finally be headed in the right direction.
“So she likes the water? I seem to remember you hated it.”
“I never hated it,” she says. “I’m just not a fan of bugs.”
“And ducks.”
“And ducks,” she agrees with a shudder. “Which is funny, because Maddie loves them. She loves coming down here and feeding the ducks every chance she gets. She always worries they’re not eating enough. She’s, uh…”
“She sounds perfect.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, “she is.”
I don’t know what to say, afraid to push her so I just sit here, my eyes scanning her in the darkness. She’s wearing a little black dress, a pair of red heels kicked off on the ground by the picnic table.
“You look nice,” I tell her.
She glances down at herself, making a face. “I had a date.”
“A date.”
That word is a thump to the chest.
I’m not a fool. I know she probably moved on, and I’d be the worst hypocrite to be upset by that after some of the shit I did these past few years in an attempt to numb my feelings for her. She has an entire life outside of me, without me, a world she built for herself where I don’t even exist, and I don’t blame her for it. Not a bit. It’s not like I could expect her to sit around and wait. I never asked her to. Never gave her a reason. I haven’t just been a shitty father; I was also a terrible boyfriend.
But still, there’s a flare of jealousy burning in my gut, my shame dousing it like gasoline on a fire.
“You do a lot of that now?” I ask. “Dating?”
She cuts her eyes at me. “Not as much as you seem to do.”
Touché.
“You’ve had, what... six, seven girlfriends? Hell, they say you’ve even got a wife now.”
“They say, do they?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me you don’t read that shit, Kennedy. Tell me you don’t actually believe…”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she says. “Not that it matters. Your life, it’s yours. You’ll do whatever it is you want to do. You made that clear a long time ago. But Maddie? She’s what matters. And I can’t have you around her if…”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I say when she trails off. “I know that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Yeah, well, didn’t think you’d hurt me, either, but the moment I became an inconvenience…”
I want to tell her it’s different now. I want to tell her that I’ve learned my lesson, that I’ve grown up. I want to tell her that I’ll never make those same mistakes again. I want to tell her she’s never been an inconvenience. I want to tell her a lot of shit, but none of it will make a difference. They’re just words, and I’ve said a lot of words over the years, including a few that have hurt her.
“I’m here,” I say. “I’m sober. And for the record, I’m not married. I’m not sure where they even got that story, but there was no wedding. Most of what they print is bullshit.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” I argue. “You’re never going to let me see Madison if that’s the kind of man you think I became, if you believe the shit they say about me is real. I mean, I don’t even know what she looks like now. I could pass my daughter on the street and I wouldn’t even recognize her. And that’s my fault. But the shit they print, if that’s what I’m up against? I’m fucked.”
Closing my eyes, I run a hand through my hair, gripping onto the locks as I let out a long exhale. She says nothing, and after a moment I reopen my eyes, seeing the glow of her cell phone lighting up her face.
I start to say something, to tell her I’ll stop bothering her tonight, when her eyes meet mine. She holds the phone out to me. My gaze flickers to the screen.
My heart nearly stops.
It’s a picture of a little girl with big blue eyes, dark hair and chubby cheeks, flashing the brightest smile I’ve ever seen. She’s posing, hands on her hips, head cocked to the side. She’s a spitting image of her mother, fuck, but those eyes are all mine.
“She looks just like you,” I say.
“Yeah, well, she acts like you.”
I smile at that, grabbing her phone.
“There are a few more pictures on there,” she says, “if you want to look at them.”