Chapter 17
NOAH
It was the next day, the smell of pizza filling my car as I drove back from the restaurant to my house.
I hadn’t yet decided if it’d been a selfish call to have the big talk at my place. After all, it gave me, as the Yanks called it, home-court advantage. My thinking was that it’d be a big, open space for all of us to say whatever we had to say and not worry about feeling cramped or in one another’s faces. If someone needed to walk away for some space or fresh air, there was plenty of that.
I pulled onto the road just before the one my home was located. Sadie had arrived a bit earlier along with her parents and the twins. Cammy was set to show up in half an hour or so, having messaged me that she was running late on account of work.
It wasn’t ideal. I’d wanted them to be there at about the same time so we could tell everyone at once. The last thing I wanted was to have to entertain Sadie’s parents, to be all chummy with them before we dropped a bomb that could possibly ruin our relationship forever.
Then again, there wasn’t anything ideal about a situation like this. I’d be lucky if I got through the night with no more than a broken nose.
I pulled one more turn and was on my road. Sadie’s car, a Toyota sedan that had seen better days, was parked in front of the house. Her parents’ car, an even older Subaru, was parked just behind that. I sighed to myself thinking that neither car was acceptable for taking my children around town.
All the more reason to get this over with. Once the Band-Aid was ripped off, we could start picking up the pieces and moving forward, getting her moved in, and purchasing a safe, reliable vehicle.
I wasn’t looking forward to the next two hours, but Iwaslooking forward to a clear conscience when going to bed that night.
I pulled my truck into the driveway and noticed right away that Jack was on the front porch. I tried to look to see if he was smoking a cigarette or something – any explanation for why he was just standing there. But I was clueless as I pulled around and parked.
By the time I killed the engine, I just knew that something was wrong. My stomach tensed as I prepared for the evening to not go the way I’d planned.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, then grabbed the four boxes of pizza from the seat next to me and got out.
Walking around the house, I felt like a man going to his own execution.
I didn’t get halfway before Jack burst around the corner, dressed in his big, puffy winter coat. If there had been any doubt left that he was furious with me, it was completely blown away the moment I laid eyes on him.
It was strange to see him like that. Granted, I hadn’t been all that close with Jack over the years – we’d have the easy, surface-level sort of relationship that a man had with the friend of his daughter. But as he stormed toward me, his face tomato-red and his hands balled into fists, I knew whatever good there might’ve been in our relationship was about to disappear forever.
“You…you son of a bitch!”
There was something about seeing the normally cool and calm Jack Clarence yelling at me like that, calling me names. A tiny part of me wanted to laugh at the insanity of the situation. But I knew better than to do that.
“Jack!” I said. “What’s the craic?”
It was probably the single stupidest thing I could’ve said at that moment. As Jack closed the distance between the two of us, I realized how dumb I must’ve looked right then and there, a dopey smile on my face and a big stack of pizza boxes tucked under my arm.
“The craic? You want to know what the damncraicis? How about this? The craic is that you knocked up my damn daughter!”
There it was. In a way, I felt relieved. Like most difficult things, the anticipation was the worst part. Then again, his hands were still in fists, so maybe I was being a bit premature in assuming that the worst was over.
He came to a stop a few meters from me, leaning forward as if he were going to run straight at me. Slowly, carefully, I bent over and set the stack of pizza boxes on the bench nearby, my eyes on Jack all the while just in case he was in the mood to bum rush me.
I took in a slow, deep breath and spoke.
“Where are they? Where’s Sadie and the twins?”
“They’re inside,” he said. “Sadie’s in the process of trying to talk her mother through a potential nervous breakdown. But they’re not your concern right now, asshole. Right now, you and I are going to sort this out like men.”
Sure enough, he raised his fists, rotating them back and forth like an old-time boxer.
“You ready for this?” he asked. “I’m a pacifist, but I’m more than willing to make an exception for the man who did this to my daughter.”
“You don’t want to do this, Jack,” I said. “This isn’t who you are.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be the first person acting out of character,” he said. “The noble, selfless doctor who snuck around and knocked up a woman half his age. What kind of man does that?”