Page 4 of Off the Beaten Path

“You need to tell her to stop promising things that are never going to happen, Holden. She gets June’s hopes up every time, and June ends up crushed.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I rasp. “You don’t think it rips me apart when June cries because hermomforgot she made plans to video call or promises to visit and then cancels at the last minute?”

“Then put your foot down,” she says, jaw ticking, fury and hurt flashing in her eyes.

“I—”

“Daddy!” An excited, high-pitched yell comes from the end of the hallway, and despite the heaviness of the conversation with my mom clinging to me like dew to grass, a smile cracks across my face.

A head full of wild blond curls flings itself at me, and skinny arms wrap around my neck like tentacles, suffocating me in the best way. She’s bony but strong, and I’m always surprised by her strength.

I band my arms around June’s middle, breathing in her little girl scent—cheap watermelon shampoo and sweat, despite the frigid air and falling snow. “How was your day, June Bug?”

“Good!” she yells into my ear, fairly shattering my eardrum. “Olivia invited us over for a play date.”

“Did she?” I murmur, setting her wriggling frame back down on the floor.

Mom presses her lips together to hold back a smile, no trace of the tension from our earlier conversation clouding her features. Her hazel eyes meet mine, twinkling like the first of the stars starting to appear in the twilight haze outside.

“Can we go?” June asks.

I reach for my mug so I can take a sip and avoid answering.

Oliviais a really sweet little girl in June’s first grade class at school.Her mom, Charlotte, on the other hand…wants in my pants. She sent me nudes a few weeks ago. I didn’t think people even did that anymore. After consistently turning her down since the girls became friends at the beginning of the school year, I made the mistake of agreeing to get coffee with her a month ago. Since then, she seems to believe she’s finally snared me.

“Can we?” June asks again, undeterred by my avoidance.

“Yeah, Holden,” Mom says, face lighting. “Are you going to go play with Olivia’s mommy?”

I level her with a flat glare. She ignores me, humming as she bustles around the kitchen.

Turning to June, I say, “Maybe. We’ll talk about it later. We should probably get home.”

“We better hurry,” June says, reaching for her backpack that’s discarded on the kitchen floor. “Last night, Mommy said she would call me tomorrow, and now it’s tomorrow.”

Mom’s gaze collides with my own, and that sick feeling settles low in my stomach again. We’re lucky to get a call from Mia once a week with the time difference and her indifference toward the family she left behind. There’s no way she’s going to remember to call tonight, especially not when she’s probably already in bed with whatever Parisian boyfriend she’s currently entertaining.

The look Mom gives me is meaningful. She wants me to stand up to Mia. If I’m being honest, I’d love to give my ex-wife a piece of my mind about how she treats our daughter, but I fear it would only push her away further, until the weekly calls become monthly and then fizzle out entirely. I think Mia loves June, I really do. I just don’t think she knows how to be anything but selfish. It isn’t a trait I would have chosen for the mother of my child, but we hadn’t even been together a year when the strip came back positive and our lives turned upside down. The only thing I can do now is make the best of the bad situation she put June and me in.

Sighing, I rest a hand on June’s shoulder, leading her in the direction of her shoes that I noticed scattered by the front door when I walked in. It’s best to keep her from finding something to distract her or we’ll be here all night.

“Think about what I said,” Mom yells after us as we walk through her front door and are met with an icy blast of wind.

I don’t bother responding, just lifting a hand in a wave as I shut the front door behind us. Mom doesn’t need to tell me to think about it. Mia’s actions are always in the back of my head, looming over me like a storm cloud. There’s always a voice in my ear telling me I can’t raise our daughter on my own—even though I’ve spent more time as a single parent than I did with Mia here—reminding me that I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m one mistake away from ruining June for life.

I didn’t expect this when I met a girl with out-of-control curls on a sidewalk one long-ago August day, and I definitely didn’t expect it three and a half years later when she left us on an especially cold day in December.

Out of those two days, it’s December that I go back to most often, wondering where it all went wrong.

I finish buckling June in the back seat of the truck and climb into the front, cranking the heat. “How was school?”

“Olivia traded me a cupcake for my carrots at lunch, so it was a pretty good day,” June says.

I meet her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I packed you carrots because I wanted you to eat carrots,” I tell her, my tone stern.

June has the worst sweet tooth of anyone I’ve ever met. I even had her pediatrician run some tests last year to make sure I wasn’t rotting her insides or putting her on track for diabetes. She said June was healthy, but I still want her to eat better. Which is great in theory, except she keeps conning her friends into trading her fruits and vegetables for sweets.

She’s going to be a politician one day. I can feel it.

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