Page 7 of Buried Dreams

I walk past the family room and toward the three bedrooms on the other side of the house. When I inherited this house from my father, it stayed almost the same until two years ago when I finally had enough money to renovate the whole thing, adding in my bedroom over the back of the two-car garage. I gutted the kitchen that must have been at least fifty years old. I grew up in this house but moved out for college, then got my own place when I was done. After the accident that single-handedly ruined my life, I moved back in with Pops. It was supposed to be temporary, but my father passed away about eight months later, leaving me the house. My mother has never really been in my life. She left us when I was six to be free. She used to come by a couple of times a year, but then that stopped. The last time I saw her, I was seventeen years old. I don’t even know if she is alive. It’s not like she ever checked in with me.

Walking down the hall to the room that was the primary bedroom before I moved it to the other side of the house, I push open the door and see Saige is lying on her side in the middle of her double bed. The pinks and purples in the room let you know a little girl lives here. At least every other week.

My feet sink into the plush carpet as I bend to look at my girl with jet-black hair, my chest filling with pride as I bend and kiss her. “Wake up, baby girl,” I say softly, and she mumbles before she brings the cover over her shoulder, making me laugh. She loves to sleep—well, during the week, she loves to sleep, always did. “I’m making you an egg and sausage breakfast sandwich.” I sit on the side of the bed, draping my arm around her. “Do you want it in a croissant, muffin, or toast?”

“Croissant,” she answers me, her dark blue eyes remaining shut, “and can you add cheese?”

“What kind?” I ask. I learned the hard way she has different tastes for different days. The meltdown she had when I put American cheese instead of Swiss on it, you would’ve thought I had sold the state secrets. It was bad. She pouted and refused to eat it. I offered to make her another one, but she said her heart was just too broken to eat.

“Swiss,” she replies, and I nod.

“Okay, I’ll go get started on that, but you need to get up.” I move her hips back and forth and then bend my head to blow bubbles in her neck until she is giggling and I know she’s awake.

“Get dressed.” I get up and head back to the kitchen, grabbing my mug of coffee before turning on the stove. I add butter to the pan before tossing two sausage patties to the side and then cracking open the eggs. Walking to the pantry, I grab two croissants and cut them, putting them in the toaster before grabbing the cheese. I wouldn’t have gone with Swiss, but I always have what she has. That way, if she wants more, she can have mine.

I’m flipping over the eggs and sausage when she comes out of her side of the house, and it really is hers. One room is my office, which never gets used, and now that she’s eight and her homework is more computer stuff, she has taken over that room. The other one sits empty. I thought I would make it a guest room but the only ones who sleep over are friends of Saige’s, and they usually end up crashing in her bed. Maybe when she gets older, we’ll knock down the wall and make it a bigger room for her.

“Dad,” Saige calls my name before walking to the fridge and grabbing orange juice, “can you braid my hair?”

“Sure,” I agree, plating her sandwich and then mine.

She sits on her stool. “And next time, can we have a pizza night?” I nod, thinking about how empty the house will be with her gone for the next week.

I take a bite of my sandwich. “I’m going to go shower and get dressed,” I say. “Eat, and if you want more, take mine.” I point at my plate. She nods as she walks over to the family room, just off the kitchen, grabbing the remote and putting on her show.

It takes me twenty minutes to shower and slide on my black work pants, with the black shirt with the Jessie and Son Mechanic Shop logo on the right. Jessie is my dad’s name, and when I started working with him, he added in the son.

“Dad,” she calls, coming into the bedroom. “Can you braid my hair now?”

“Yeah.” I motion with my head for her to come to the bathroom with me. She stands in front of me, and I grab the brush from her hand, combing through her hair.

“I want a ponytail and then a braid.” I nod and finish her hair. When she turned four and started wanting all these things, I went to the hairdresser with her, and the girl was kind enough to teach me how to do it. She also gave the best head, and she was fucking wild in bed. She came over to give me one-on-one lessons, which always ended up with us in bed. It fizzled out, like it always does, because I have nothing to give, and I’m not making anyone besides Saige promises. We still hook up occasionally when we run into each other, which isn’t that often since I am either at work or with Saige. On the weeks I don’t have her, I’m in the shop for fourteen hours a day, getting ahead for when I do have her.

“There,” I say when I finish, bending to kiss her head. “Get your stuff, or we’ll be late.”

“Okay.” She turns and walks out of the bedroom. Ten minutes later, I have a thermos of coffee in my hand, and she’s holding my other one while we get her in the truck before going on with our day.

I pull up to the school and get out first before opening the back door and watching her get out. “You call me tonight,” I say, and she nods gently. “Give me a kiss.” I squat in front of her, and she hugs me around my neck.

“I’m going to miss you,” she says softly.

“Me too, baby girl, but you can call me, and maybe we can have dinner during the week,” I suggest hopefully, even knowing her mother probably isn’t going to agree.

“Yeah.” Her eyes light up, and the bell rings. She kisses me and runs into the schoolyard, stopping and waving before walking in.

I get into the truck and hear the phone beep with a message from Karla.

Karla: How was drop-off?

I look down at the message from my ex-wife and Saige’s mother.

Me: Everything was good. I was thinking maybe I could pick her up on Wednesday and take her to dinner.

We knew each other in high school. She was always sniffing around me if I’m being completely honest. Then like a very bad cliché, one drunken night and a broken condom bonded us for fucking life. Well, at least until Saige is old enough to decide on her own. We got married a month after she told me she was pregnant. Instead of being happy I was starting my life, it was one of the most dreadful days of my life. There was a pressure in the middle of my chest that just tightened as the minutes ticked by. It was just the two of us at city hall, and the minute I slipped the ring on her finger, I knew it wouldn’t last. We lasted one year until we, or better yet I, told her I was done. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t healthy for us to live together and not like each other, at least not for Saige. Co-parenting could be going so much better if Karla wasn’t as bitter as she was, but I put my head down and do what she says so I don’t get on her bad side.

Karla: Maybe, we’ll see.

I roll my eyes, tossing my phone to the side and pulling out of the parking lot. I make my way over to the shop, passing by the big Cartwright development I had started working on ten years ago when I thought I was at the top of my world, but the saying is always right. The higher you go, the harder the fall, and fuck, did I fall hard. I was terminated six months after the accident when I couldn’t do anything they wanted me to do. They literally had my future in their hands, but when the truth came out, they didn’t have anything they needed from me. So I was discarded. Now, from talk around the town, there is major structural damage in buildings because of the way the drawings were done. It was what I told them would happen from the get-go, but I was an intern, so no one was going to listen to me.

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