“You two cheat,” he tells her, making her laugh as he heads toward the door.
“And we’re ordering pizza because you burn it.”
“Once. I burned it once. You have no forgiveness.”
“Nope.” She laughs, skipping back into the locker room.
Mia emerges and hands her bag to her father. She looks at him adoringly before turning to me. “Bye, Miss Neely.”
“Bye, Mia.” I give her my best smile before looking at Dane. I open my mouth to say goodbye, to smile, to do something, but am stopped by the apathetic look he gives me in return.
The door opens, a stream of sunlight coming inside that does nothing to warm my chilled heart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DANE
Two plates. Two forks. Two glasses. One frying pan and a cereal bowl from breakfast are freshly washed and drying on a towel beside the sink. Scent from the lavender dish soap that Mia picked out because she liked the color wafts through the kitchen.
The pipes in the ceiling squeal, and the distant sound of the music Mia plays while she showers goes quiet. Her footsteps patter overhead, and it’s just a few moments before I hear her run down the hallway and the door to her room slam shut.
I shake my head. She’s been scared of that hallway her entire life. Only in the last six months or so has she managed to get out of the shower and get to her room without yelling at me to come upstairs. Why I always listen in hopes she’ll call for me is anyone’s guess.
Drying my hands and throwing the towel on the counter, I make my way through the kitchen and living room. I stop and pick up Mia’s gym bag and hang it on the hook I put up for her near the door.
Flipping off the television and turning on a lamp by the sofa, I pause.
Artwork courtesy of my daughter hangs off an old board I fashioned with a few metal clips over the sofa. Pictures of her with her friends from Aerial’s, and a few with me, are framed along the fireplace in the corner. She picked out the blue rug in front of the television—insisting it was perfect for relaxing and that she now needed only a puppy—and the various throw pillows that I’d never choose. But they make her happy. That’s all that matters.
“Dad! Come tuck me in!”
“Coming,” I call back. Taking the steps two at a time, I hit the landing. Passing the bathroom and the spare room across from it, I get to the door with the purple star cutout hung a little crooked. It opens with a gentle push.
She’s curled on her side, her wet hair all over her polka-dot sheets. “Took you long enough,” she teases.
“Some of us have to do the dishes and pick up gym bags.” I give her a look as I sit on the edge of her bed. “Any reason why it missed the hook?”
“I’m lazy?” she offers.
“I think so.” I laugh before kissing her on the forehead. “Sounds like you had a good practice tonight.”
She rattles on about her back tuck, and I do my best to feign interest. As she goes into the mechanics of the trick, my mind wanders. But instead of going through a mental list of lumber needed in the morning or wondering if Penn put the saws up before he left today, my thoughts go straight to Neely.
The look on her face tonight is seared in my brain. But then again, so are the words she spat at me last night.
“I really like her, Dad.”
Coming out of my reverie, I peer down at my girl. “Who?”
“Miss Neely. I really like her.” She snuggles into her bedding. “She makes things seem so easy.”
You’re telling me.
“She was always really smart,” I offer, figuring that’s fair enough.
“You know her?” She pulls the blankets from her face. “You know Miss Neely?”
“Yeah, I know Miss Neely. We grew up together. She was in Uncle Matt’s class.” Rubbing the back of my neck, I laugh. “Why are you looking at me like I said I knew a rock star?”
“Did you know she was a college champion?”
“Yes. And she had many state titles before that. She also won the Spell Bowl in eighth grade and was on the Academic Bowl team in high school. Two or three years, I think.”
She gasps. “How did I not know you knew her?”
“I know a lot of people you don’t know I know.” I wait for a response but am met with only a slack jaw. “What? Am I supposed to give you a list of all the people I’ve ever known?”
Mia tosses the blankets back and sits up. “Yes, if they’re important.”
“Lie back down,” I tell her. Chuckling, I help her get situated again. Once she’s under the covers, she waits patiently. I try to outwait her, but I know she’ll win. With a sigh, I shake my head. “Fine. I knew Neely really well. At one point in my life, I thought I’d marry her.”
The words slip easily by my lips. They sound right and that annoys me.
“Why didn’t you? She’s really pretty, Dad. And smart, like you said. And she’s so nice.”
“She’s all those things, rascal.”
My gaze settles on a picture of Mia and Katie, the only one we have. Mia is all bundled up in pink blankets the day we brought her home. It sits on top of her dresser in a little black frame. I never catch her looking at it, and she never moves it but insists it stays.
My heart cracks because that love, a mother’s love, is one I don’t think Mia will ever know. I’m not sure Katie has it in her to give that kind of affection. We never shared it in the ten months we were together, roughly speaking. And she didn’t show it to our daughter in the month she stuck around after she gave birth.
My only solace in it all is that Katie knew enough to just leave. She packed her car, told me we were better off without her, that she had no inclination to be a mother, and left. My mother couldn’t do that; she drank herself to death right in front of us.
“So . . .” Mia nudges my arm. “Why didn’t you marry her?”
Because I broke up with her so she’d go to college. Got drunk. Got Katie pregnant. And never spoke to Neely again after telling her the news.
“There’s more to getting married than finding a pretty, smart, nice person,” I say. Standing up, I tuck the sheets in around her.
“I bet she would’ve married you.”
I act like I’m shocked. “Are you saying I’m awesome?”
“No.” She giggles. “I’m saying when you walked into the gym today, she made that face at you that Penn makes at Haley.”
“Mia, Penn makes that face at everyone.” I flip on her nightlight. “And if Penn ever does anything, you should do the opposite. Big lesson right there. Did I land it?”
“As good as I landed my tuck.”
“Great.” I kneel at the edge of her bed. She closes her eyes and folds her hands together in front of her face. “Dear God, thank you for all the blessings you’ve given us. Please protect us while we sleep. Amen.”
“Amen.” Her lashes flutter open as she yawns. “I love you, Dad.”
“Love you, rascal.” After a kiss to her forehead, I flip off the lamp and head to the door. “Don’t even think about using the flashlight under your pillow to read after I leave.”
“Dad,” she groans. “How’d you know?”
“Because I know everything,” I whisper. “And if I pick up your bag off the floor again, you’re taking out the trash. Understood?”
“Yes,” she grumbles. “Good night.”
“’Night, baby girl.”
I make my way back into the kitchen. Fishing around in the refrigerator, I find a beer, and then I slip out the back door.
The sky is dark, the moon bright overhead and illuminating the good-size backyard. I plop on the swing and take a sip of the beer that’s probably expired.
My heart is heavy as I push back and forth in the warm night air. From the corner of my eye, I see a flashlight on in Mia’s room and laugh. She never listens. Dad says she gets it from me. I say she gets it from Matt.
She used to come up with new quirks—a way of saying a certain word or a new part in her hair—and tell me she got it from her mother. Then when Sara, a woman I really liked and saw a potential future with, moved in after our dating for a year, Mia latched on to her like a leech. And when six months went by and she left us, too, saying she wasn’t prepared to raise someone else’s child, Mia was broken.
I won’t let that happen again. I won’t fail her a third time.
I take another sip of the beer and free my mind to roam. It does the typical inventory list for work and runs through anything I might need to leave for Haley in the morning. And then it goes somewhere I usually don’t let it: to Neely.
Resting back in the swing, a baby doll lying beside me, I imagine what life might’ve been like with her. Everything I said about her tonight is true. I’m not surprised Mia thinks the world of her. What I am surprised about is, despite her hateful words to me at Mucker’s, I still think the world of her. How could I not? I’m the one to blame for things not working out between us.
Right or wrong, I broke up with her.
I gave her hope we’d work some kind of long-distance thing out.
I slept with Katie.
I had a kid.
Glancing up as the flashlight beam bounces off the window above me again, my heart fills with a love I’ve never felt for anyone else.