Page 140 of Unexpected Forever
She slides the plate of cookies toward me. “Now, help me eat these cookies.”
I spend the rest of the afternoon with her, talking all things baby. By the time I leave with a container full of cookies, a peace has settled over me.
Sometimes a girl just needs her mama.
Later that night, I lie staring at the ceiling, thinking back over her words.
The future between Nate and me is foggy at best. Where we end up is anyone’s guess.
But I’ve always said my mom is rarely wrong. No doubt this time will be any different.
Maybe life is best left to chance.
TWENTY-NINE
nate
Rosemont Hills.
A pretty name for a place that’s all about death.
Behind the black wrought iron gates, my parents lie in their graves, topped with a large granite headstone, bearing the birth and death dates.
As well as those bullshit things everyone says like, “loving mother” and “devoted father.”
Not that I know this for myself; Megan told me. I haven’t been to my parents’ graves since the day we laid them in the ground.
When people from the industry showed up for them and cried for the loss, I’d heard the comments like, “I didn’t even know they had kids” said in hushed tones.
Somehow, even the most heartless of bastards are revered in death as though their dying washed away all the shitty things they’d done in life.
I step out of the rented SUV and into the cold air of Nashville. It’s as biting and bitter as the resentment that festers in my gut.
The dreary gray skies match my mood. Standing on the beach in Cape Sands, I had all the confidence of the man I’d become on the baseball diamond. Of the home run king that left the best pitchers in all of baseball with sweat running down their spines.
Now that I’m here, standing hundreds of yards from where my parents are taking their dirt naps, I’m thrown back to being the ten-year-old boy who knew his parents didn’t love him as much as they loved the feeling a white line of powder gave them.
Why did I think coming here would be a good idea?
Charley’s face invades my mind just like it has since she left. While she and my unborn child are the biggest reasons I’m here, I’m also here for me.
After Megan, Darcy, and Lucas came by, I did a lot of soul searching and plotting on how I’m going to convince Charley that when I say I’m all in, I mean it in every way possible.
Facing my past is the only way I’m ever going to have what I always wanted from my parents and was too blind to see it otherwise—love and acceptance.
Putting my past behind me is the first step in picking up the sharp, broken pieces I’d swept under the rug for decades.
My baby deserves a dad who will never withhold his feelings. A dad who will love and take care of them, even when they have children of their own.
Charley deserves a man that will appreciate everything about a woman. A man who wonders why the hell she picked him to share her mind, body, and soul. A man that knows she’s a precious gift to be treasured.
Megan deserves a brother who will be there for her in ways that have nothing to do with my bank account. A brother who looks at her and sees the woman she’s become and not some child who needs to be shielded from the world.
A gust of wind blows around me, making the dead leaves rattle on the pavement as though telling me to stop stalling and get on with it.
Renewed resolve moves me, one foot in front of the other, walking along the path between the graves. It’s a meticulously kept cemetery, the yellowed sod trim and free of debris.
A mix of flower bouquets, some bright and new, some faded with time, lie on various headstones, showing that whoever occupies that area six feet under has someone who loves them.
