Page 15 of The Man I Love

“Call me,” Renee stated.

“That’s it? Samantha asked. “What do you think he wanted?”

“I—I don’t know,” Renee stammered out.

Sam glanced at her phone.

Would Tristan tell her if he heard from his father? Would he answer if his father called?

Her mind flashed back to a not-too-distant memory. Two years earlier when she’d shimmied into the house, her arms loaded with groceries as she balanced Tristan’s birthday cake in her hands. “Close your eyes!” she yelled when she noticed him on the couch. “You’re not supposed to be home until four.”

But Tristan was so absorbed in his phone that he barely noticed her.

Concerned, Sam placed the cake on the entryway table and let the bags fall from her wrists to the floor. “Tristan?” She’d walked into the living room and sat beside him. “Is something wrong?”

Tristan didn’t remove his eyes from the phone. “It’s nothing,” he said in a hollow voice.

“It’snotnothing,” Sam whispered. “Are you okay?”

Tristan's attention shifted from his screen to her face, his eyes vacant and red rimmed. “I thought”—he sounded confused and hardly himself— “of all days, that he’d call me today for some reason.”

Sam’s heart broke into a million pieces as she hugged him to her chest. They hadn’t spoken of Tristan’s father in six months––since Renee’s wedding––but she knew that it was his father’s call that he waited for. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “You deserve so much better than this.” And he did. They all did. Every single one of them deserved to know why he hadn’t shown up.

The salon shrank around her, and Sam found it difficult to breathe. “Do you think he called Tristan too?” she asked, nervously plucking at a thread on her sleeve. “Is that why you asked about him earlier?” Sam’s brain was spiraling.

Renee shook her head, but didn’t make eye contact. “I—I did wonder.”

7

CHAPTER SEVEN

December

Eight Months Earlier

New York

Mr. Montgomery had beenlike a second father to Sam, yet on Renee’s wedding day he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d attended every school event, every game, volunteered as coach, but when it came time for him to walk his own daughter down the aisle, POOF, he was gone. The mystery of it all had kept Samantha awake at night for months, and hearing about the phone calls today awakened a worry she hadn’t thought about in close to a year.

She remembered standing beside her best friend on her wedding day, watching as her girlhood fantasies seemed to crumble at her feet. Renee had a gigantic heart, and Sam feared that someday a man would break it. She just hadn’t expected it would be Renee’s own father.

Everyone in attendance felt Mr. Montgomery’s absence at the wedding, but the Montgomery family felt it every day since. Whether Tristan and Renee admitted it or not, every birthday,every holiday, every special moment … was different. They all smiled a little wider, trying to hide the fact that his presence was missed. Samantha remembered the same feeling when her grandfather died when she was eight, but that hadn’t been by choice. Mr. Montgomery had abandoned them willingly, and no matter how many tiny pieces the pill was broken into, it was still hard to swallow.

Tristan had filled his father’s shoes that day, taking a role that never belonged to him—the man of the Montgomery household—a burden that still rested on his shoulders to this day. On birthdays he sent flowers. On Mother’s Day he arranged brunch. On his parents' anniversary, he took his mother out to dinner. Tristan had been trying to take the family’s pain away, placing it on his own shoulders and acting the whole time like he didn’t feel its weight.

If his father had called, would Tristan tell her?

She wanted to think so, but in reality she was uncertain.

“He’s dead to me, Samantha,” he’d said to her once. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”

A chill ran up her spine as she sat in a New York cafe with her best friend, remembering the last conversation she’d ever had with Tristan about his father.

“Don’t you want closure?” she’d asked him. “Don’t you want to know what happened?” Tristan had come home from work and noticed one of her many Google searches about Mr. Montgomery on her computer.

“No,” he’d said more forcefully than she’d expected. He gripped the bridge of his nose and rose from his seat. “I’m sorry, I—” His jaw tightened, but it was that day she realized the pain he still carried. That day she’d vowed not to get involved and gave up on her search for answers.

A horn blazed outside of the cafe, and Sam jumped, almost dropping the insulated paper cup she’d been using to warm herhands. She glanced down at her phone on the table, her anxious heart beating a little faster. She’d checked her phone at least twenty times since leaving the salon, and still there was nothing from Tristan. That wasn’t like him.

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