Page 49 of Surrender
“I can’t,” she moans.
“Why not?”
“Because I feel awful about it. Hayden is proud of his family name, too. And the Clarkes are wonderful. What if they take it personally? What am I saying by telling Hayden that his name is good enough for our daughter but not good enough for me?”
I exhale heavily. “I think you’re underestimating your fiancé, Vi.”
“Am I? I know it’s old-fashioned, but isn’t this completely emasculating for a man?” She pauses, squeezing her fingers around the wheel as she searches for what she’s trying to say. “I love Hayden’s manliness. It’s what attracted me to him…in the bedroom.”
“Vi!” I groan and turn away. I can’t look at her when she talks like this.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true! He’s an incredibly deep, soulful, sensitive man, but all that goes away in the bedroom.”
“I’m not joking. You have to stop,” I croak.
“He has this animalistic side to him—”
“I will jump out of this moving car!” I roar and she flinches at the sudden change in volume. “That would ruin your chance at seeing your brothers play together in the World Cup.”
“For a moody sod, you sure can turn on the drama when you want to.” She exhales. “Fine, fine. No more of that. I’m just worried that not taking his name will hurt a side of him that I love.”
I do my best not to throw up in my mouth over the images that her words evoked in my head and pray that I get a concussion at the next match to erase those horrid thoughts. Putting aside my immature feelings, I help my sister as best I can.
“A secure man—a man who knows what he has and is confident that it isn’t going anywhere—will not be emasculated by this.”
“How do you know that? Truly.”
I exhale slowly and shake my head. “Vi, were you never curious why I let Hayden speak to you the night of his brother’s wedding after he had broken your heart? I mean, history shows that I could have just kicked his arse.”
She looks over at me with a frown, passing traffic lights sliding across her curious face. “I guess that was a bit odd. Certainly out of character for you now that I think about it.”
“Exactly,” I reply with a deep chuckle. “It was because what Hayden said eliminated all the doubts I had about him.”
“What did he say?” she asks, her voice quiet with anxiety.
“He called you his forever, Vi.” My jaw clenches as I recall the stricken look on his face that night. He looked like a man who had left his heart on a battlefield and my sister was the only person who could revive him.
His devotion was impressive because the entire week leading up to that night, Camden, Tanner, Booker, and I had been threatening him. We patrolled his home around the clock to show him we weren’t fucking pleased with what he did to our sister. It was a Harris Shakedown that sent all of Vi’s previous boyfriends running for the hills. The four of us always said that if a bloke was good enough for Vi, he’d be willing to stand up against all of us. Well, Hayden didn’t run. He walked right up to me at the wedding and told me Vi belonged to him whether I accepted it or not.
I look at my sister, who I sometimes forget is still young and figuring life out. “Hayden was going to do anything to get you back. It was then that I knew he was someone I could trust with your heart.”
“You never told me any of that before.” Vi sniffles and swipes an errant tear off her cheek. “You stupid prats scared away every bloody man in my life. I just thought Hayden snuck past you.”
“He earned the right to you,” I correct and reach over to clasp her fist in my hand. “Hayden is not the kind of man who has to be all of one thing. He can both dominate and surrender. In fact, it makes him more of a man if he can do both. Respect him enough to let him tell you that himself.”
“SOPHIA!HURRY UP, HONEY.WEneed to head out to your grandmother’s now, or we won’t hear the end of it!” I shout up the stairs from where I’ve been waiting in my foyer for over five minutes while my daughter does what she calls “primping.”
“Just one more minute, Mummy Gumdrops!” she bellows from her bedroom.
I shake my head with a smile. All of a sudden, she’s seven years old going on thirteen. When did that happen? She’s always enjoyed dressing up and playing make-believe. Primping is completely new, though, along with a few other things I’ve noticed about her since I divorced Callum. Like how she doesn’t want me to read to her at bedtime anymore. Or how she refuses to eat Greek yogurt and is too cool to give me a kiss when I drop her off at school.
This is exactly what I was afraid of when I agreed to shared custody. I can only control her and see what she’s doing fifty percent of the time. I’m not there every day to see those moments she gets away without hugging her dad goodbye for school. Or when she looks in the mirror and asks why her belly is bigger than her friend Ainsley’s. I’m not there to hear Callum tell her not to have any more sweets because those are what make her tummy big.
Being a divorced mother means I have lost some of my original Sopapilla. Now she’s morphing into this new hybrid that I have to reacquaint myself with every other week. I know this is a lifestyle that many families endure and they survive. Some are even better for it. Deep down, I also know that staying with Callum wouldn’t have been the example of family I want to impart on Sophia.
I think the divorce was hard for me to accept because I wasn’t ready for it. It came sooner than I anticipated. I still had cancer tunnel vision. I was still picturing my sweet Sopapilla looking so tiny in those big hospital beds, so I was prepared to live the way we were living until I knew Sophia was truly healed and out of the scary cancer woods. I would have walked through fire to heal her, so staying married to Callum seemed a lot less painful in comparison.
But this life is my new normal. We are co-parenting and I have to accept it. I also have to accept the fact that if I’m late dropping Sophia off at Margaret’s house, she will make damn sure I know about it. And I’m not sure I have the mental fortitude to bite my tongue with her anymore.
