“Eh, eh, eh,” he said as he took a skinny girl’s arm out of the cooler. “No more soda. That’s three I counted, Adele.”
“I was getting them for other people,” she told him as she let it drop back into the cooler of ice.
“Go ask you momma then, I’m not getting chewed out for you not sleeping tonight.”
I studied the girl who seemed so familiar to me. She looked like my brother, same green eyes, same wide shoulders, but her hair was long and dark. The interaction between them was symbiotic, the patterns of close friends or even family.
“Who was that? You got a girl with a kid?” I asked him, my mind spinning. Did Fox have a kid himself? Was Adele his daughter he hadn’t bothered to tell me about.
I watched her lanky legs carry her across the grass, where she tugged on Ellison’s arm and gestured toward the cooler. Ellison shook her head, but halfway through saw me and stopped dead in her tracks.
The anchor in my gut became the weight of the whole cruise ship pressing down on top of me. My heart sank while my stomach bottomed out.
Fox had a fucking kid with Ellison?
The fast ticking of my pulse was the only thing to buoy my swimming head.
Ellison didn’t move from where she was planted, talking to a pink-haired lady in a super short dress. Ellie stole my fucking breath away.
“Cute kid,” I said before taking a guzzle of beer. “She yours, Fox? You never told me.”
“She’s the best fucking kid. But you can ask Ellie who she belongs to if you’re suddenly interested.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I killed my beer and leaned down to take another one, never taking my eyes off of El.
I scanned the yard, looking at all of the normal people. A totally different crowd that looked like they belonged over at the Kraft’s more than at the Montgomery’s.
The lanky girl was on the other side of the yard with some friends when she hollered to Ellison, “Mom, I’m gonna go to the store with Katie!”
“Make sure Brandon goes too,” Ellison yelled back at her.
I put the beer down and bee-lined toward El like I was in a trance.
I looked back at my brother, then back at El who was looking at Fox like the shit just got spilled. I felt like my fucking head was going to explode.
I said to take care of her not take her as his own.
“Is that kid yours?” I spat at Fox as he grabbed my arm. He was trying to keep me from reaching Ellison and hearing the truth.
Ellison shook her head at me as she watched the rage rise, my arms locking, my fists tightening, ready to kill someone. Fox rubbed the back of his neck like he did when he was uncomfortable or didn’t want to answer to someone.
No way in hell I was going to let him off easy. If the piece of shit was fucking my girl while I was rotting in jail, doing time for saving all from my piece of shit father—well I wanted him to own up like a man.
“Is that your fucking kid, Fox?”
He shook his head slowly.
“I love Adele as if she were my own, Cal.”
“So, tell me who I have to kill.”
“Why do you even care Calvin? You’re the one who told her to live her life and forget about you. You locked her out of your life so you can’t get mad at her for living hers.”
“That kid is like ten fucking years old. She sure as hell didn’t wait long to get over me.”
“Great math, Calvin. Now see if you can figure out exactly how bad you fucked up without ruining the BBQ.”
I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted my own blood. When the realization dawned on me, it was simultaneously the best and worst moment of my life. I had a daughter, my own flesh and blood. But I’d rejected Ellison so thoroughly that I didn’t even let her tell me what was going on. I hadn’t only lost ten years of my own life, I’d lost the important ones of my daughter’s.
Tears streamed down my beaten face as I stared at Ellison. No words, no apology could make up for the hell I’d put her through. There wasn’t even a point in trying.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed to her. I put my face in my hands.
“She’s in a good place, man. Don’t stir shit up being stupid, like Dad. If you want her, then go and fight for her. Fight for your family. But if you’re going to hurt them again, then fucking forget it.”
I turned my back on both of them and began to walk across the lawn.
Destruction doesn't hurt when you’re doing it to yourself. When you destroyed those you loved however, the pain was profound.