Touching Down

  It was right then that I felt it. The strength I thought had abandoned me. It reminded me of why I needed to do this, what was riding on it, and suddenly, the words came easily.

  “I need to show you something,” I said, my voice unwavering as I knocked on the door and waited for Cruz to come unlock the arsenal of locks.

  Grant’s face creased with confusion as he checked his watch.

  “It’ll only take a minute,” I said, although I knew it wasn’t so simple.

  When Cruz pulled the door open, he didn’t look surprised to see Grant standing behind me. Cruz looked a bit surprised when he inspected Grant’s face though, like the expression on it didn’t match the one he thought he’d find. “Everything went just fine,” he said, pulling on a corduroy sports coat. “So I’ll be on my merry way to leave you kids alone.”

  “Thank you.” I gave him a hug in passing. “I appreciate everything.”

  Cruz and Grant shoulder-bumped each other in passing.

  “Oh, don’t get too thankful. It will cost you.” Firing a wink, Cruz flashed a wave and headed for his car.

  When Grant stepped inside and closed the door, he hung close to it, looking almost uncomfortable. “Listen. Ryan. I don’t know—”

  “Come here.” I held my hand out for him and waited.

  Grant studied it with the same look of conflict I’d seen on his face so many times, like he was debating which choice would cause him less pain because either way, he’d come out gutted in the end.

  A moment later, his hand slipped around mine.

  Cruz had left a few lights on in the living room and kitchen, but the hall lights were off. As I led Grant down the hall, into the darkness, I could hear his breathing pick up. His steps behind me became more hesitant, but his grip on my hand tightened. It was as if one part of him was trying to leave while another part was vying to stay.

  When we came to the closed bedroom door, I set my hand on the handle. My hand was shaking again, but this time, it was for a different reason. I couldn’t go back now. I couldn’t go back ever. Opening this door was like opening a portal to a new world for us. All of us.

  The door opened with a low whine, and I stepped inside, guiding Grant in with me. It was dark except for the streetlights casting in through the closed window. Grant stopped in the doorway, still keeping hold of my hand.

  “Ryan . . .” His voice was low, thick with an emotion I wasn’t familiar with. Then he exhaled. “I can’t.”

  It took me a moment to realize what he was getting at. When I did, I felt heat rush up my neck into my cheeks when I realized he thought I was inviting him into bed with me.

  Reaching over to where I’d set a night light on the dresser, I clicked it on. A cool glow of light spilled into the room, illuminating it just enough. My eyes drifted to the bed, my face softening as my whole body relaxed from seeing her sleeping peacefully.

  I heard Grant’s footsteps behind me. There was a moment of silence, then his breath stopped. Twisting around, I looked up at him, not knowing what I’d find written on his face.

  His eyes were trained on the bed where she slept, a myriad of emotions playing in his eyes. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t blink as he stared at her.

  “Grant,” I whispered a minute later, my hand squeezing his.

  My voice or my touch or both made him flinch, but his eyes never roamed from where they were stuck. “She’s yours?” His voice came from low in his chest, vibrating in his throat.

  Sucking in a breath, I nodded. “And yours.”

  His breath stopped again, his eyes sliding to mine. Something flashed in them. “Mine?”

  I reached for something else on the dresser. “Yours.” Then I held out the picture for him. A photo of her.

  His eyes dropped to the photo I was holding, realization settling in at the same time his head started to shake. “No,” he said, letting go of my hand. “No.”

  “Grant, she’s yours. Look at her.” I lifted the picture closer for him to see how she had the same wide brown eyes, the same mouth, and color of hair.

  “No . . .” He rolled his neck, shaking his head almost like he was in shock.

  “Look at her,” I demanded, holding the picture even closer. I knew this would be a shock, but I also knew if anyone could handle it, it was Grant Turner. He’d been through worse. He’d come out ahead of bigger curveballs. The sooner I got him to accept that this was his daughter, the sooner we could figure out what came next. “She’s yours. She’s your daughter.”

  Finally, his gaze landed on the photo. The skin between his brows drew deep as he studied it, his breath coming in labored pulls again. “What’s her name?” When his eyes moved from the photo to where she was in bed, he swallowed.

  “Charlie.” I smiled. “She’s seven.”

  Grant shifted, a pained expression settling into his face. “I have a seven-year-old daughter and this is the first time I’m finding out about it?” At first, it sounded like he was talking to himself, but then his eyes cut to mine. “You kept my daughter a secret from me for seven years?”

  He was still managing to control his voice, but I knew the look working its way onto his face well enough to know it wouldn’t stay that way. Squeezing between him and the door, I moved into the living room. He lingered in the bedroom for a minute before following, but he paused to close the door quietly.

  Instead of barreling into the living room and saying everything I could see firing in his eyes, Grant tucked the picture of Charlie in his pocket and stormed for the front door.

  “Where are you going?” I rushed after him.

  “I need to go.” He already had the locks undone and the door open.

  Where did he think he was going? I’d just told him he had a daughter. And he was about to walk out? This was not the way I’d planned this going. Not even close.

  “Stay. Talk.” My fingers curled around his arm, but he shook it off.

  “I can’t talk because I don’t want to say something I’d regret and right now” —his jaw ground together as he took a breath—“anything I say, I know I’m going to regret. Just give me some space.”

  “Grant . . .” I followed him a few steps into the parking lot.

  “No, that’s not the way this works.” He spun around on me, throwing his arms out at his sides. He looked angry. Chernobyl angry. “You don’t get to hide my daughter from me, surprise me with her like this, then decide how this is going to work.”

  Something that felt like a sob lodged in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

  A sharp sound came from him as he put more distance between us. “Yeah, so am I. I’m fucking sorry I missed out on seven years of my child’s life. Sorry I spent those years missing the shit out of you.” He stopped, remorse settling into his expression with the anger. “Goddammit. This is why I need to leave, Ryan. Before I say anything else I regret.” Without another word, he disappeared inside his truck and tore out of the parking lot.

  I stood there for a forever longer. Waiting. Wondering. Doubting.

  Terrified that everything I’d tried to get right had gone all wrong.

  SPACE. WHAT DID that mean? How much space? How long would he need that space? Did space mean he wanted nothing to do with either of us? Did it mean he needed time to get a lawyer?

  Or did it just mean that he needed some time alone to process the bomb I’d dropped on him?

  That was what I guessed it was. That was what I was hoping it was. That was what I needed it to be.

  Grant had stormed out of the motel on Tuesday night, and now it was Saturday. The waiting had killed me. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, but I’d have to accept whatever amount of time Grant needed. Because he was right. I didn’t get to call the shots after what I’d done. I didn’t get to decide how this was going to work. I didn’t get to orchestrate how he’d react to the news or how he’d respond to the future.

  I’d done enough, and god knew I’d done plenty of it wrong. It was his choice how this
would work from here. I just hoped he wanted to be a part of it.

  “Mom, your phone’s ringing!” Charlie called from the living room where she was working on some math problems. She’d finished kindergarten in a public school back in Oregon, but with all of the changes, I was homeschooling her now that she would have started first grade. It worked out well though, since I wasn’t working and Charlie read at a fourth-grade level and was already doing third-grade math.

  “On my way.” I wiped my hands clean of tomato sauce splatter and hustled as fast as my body would let me into the living room.

  The call was about to go to voicemail, but I caught it right in time. I realized a moment after saying hello who the number belonged to.

  “Ryan?”

  My face flattened, my hand going to my chest when I heard his voice. Charlie didn’t know about anything that had happened last week, and I wasn’t going to tell her until I knew where Grant stood on it all. She knew she had a dad, of course, and she even knew who he was, but she didn’t know he was the reason I’d come back here.

  “I’m here,” I said after a minute, slowly making my way back into the kitchen, so the most perceptive child to have ever been born didn’t pick up on her mom acting strangely.

  “I was wondering if I could come by tomorrow night?” His words were slow and controlled, but I could just make out the emotion he was trying to keep from his tone. “I’ve got a game at one in Dallas, and was thinking I could stop by after? You know, if you’re still at the Starlight.”

  “We’re still here. That’s a long drive though,” was all I could think to say. I was just so relieved and surprised and pick-an-adjective that he’d called. That he’d had his space and now he was ready . . . for whatever came next.

  “I’ll take a flight.”

  “Do you think you can find one last minute like that?” I absently went back to the saucepan to stir the marinara, though I should have been beating myself over the head with the wooden spoon for discussing logistics instead of rejoicing that he was communicating with me, with words and everything.

  “I’ll charter a plane. It’s a short flight, but I might not make it in until later. Maybe seven? Eight o’clock?” There was a carefulness in his words, like he was picking each one deliberately.

  “We’ll be here.”

  On the other end, Grant cleared his throat. “Okay. See you then.”

  A moment later, the line went dead.

  I was still smiling into the saucepan when Charlie poked her head in the kitchen a few minutes later. “I’m all done with my math. Can we go to the park and play now?”

  Giving the sauce one more taste, I turned off the burner and decided dinner could wait. My seven-year-old daughter asking me to take her to the park could not.

  I knew these moments would come to an end sooner rather than later.

  Dinner could wait. My daughter could not.

  THE STORM HAD won the game, much to Charlie’s delight. Well, to Charlie’s and mine. We were both Storm fans and rarely missed a televised game. Granted, she probably knew more stats and strategy than I did, but half of her DNA came from a professional football player. The sport was, literally, in her blood.

  Since I knew Grant would be getting here late and there was a possibility that circumstance could prevent him from getting here at all tonight, I hadn’t told Charlie much. I’d told her we might be having a guest tonight, but that I wasn’t sure, and she’d pretty much said, “That’s nice, let me get back to the game.”

  I didn’t know if letting Grant walk in and allowing Charlie to respond however she needed to was the right way to do this. I wasn’t sure if I should sit her down and explain everything or keep it simple and let her fill in the blanks going forward. There wasn’t an outline in a parenting handbook for how a parent could explain a situation like Grant’s and mine, and believe me, I’d been looking. The librarians at the local library all knew me by name now.

  Charlie had always been an easy-going, take-it-as-it-comes kid, but this was introducing her to her father for the first time. This wasn’t having her try a bite of her broccoli to see if she liked it.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and eat, Charlie?” I eyed the plate in front of her, which she’d refused to touch, before checking the time for the tenth time in the past five minutes. It was after eight, and still, nothing.

  “I’m waiting for our guest,” she stated, crossing her arms and slouching further into the chair. “It’s rude to eat dinner before your dinner guest arrives.”

  I had to turn into the sink to keep her from seeing my smile. Charlie was an easy-going kid most of the time. When she dug her heels in, there was no unburying them until she pulled them out herself. This was one of those instances.

  “It’s almost your bedtime. You need to eat your dinner.” Absently, I washed a couple of cups, trying not to think the worst. Grant had always been a man of his word, and I knew he wouldn’t abandon that quality when his daughter was involved.

  “I’m not hungry.” Charlie pouted into her spaghetti.

  I knew better. The girl loved spaghetti. “Listen, sweetie, why don’t you just eat? Our guest told me he might not be able to make it tonight, so we might just have to do this another night. It’s getting late, and I don’t want you crawling into bed hungry.”

  “Why not?” Charlie eyed the meatball at the top of her spaghetti tower, those dark eyes going big.

  “Because you’ll wake up a grouchy bear and I prefer my snuggle bear in the morning.”

  That managed a giggle out of her, and she reached for her fork.

  “If our guest does make it, then we’ll have dessert together instead, okay?”

  “So he’ll be our dessert guest?” Charlie sank her fork into the giant meatball and lifted it to her mouth.

  “Exactly. Now, how many seven-year-old girls do you know who get to have dessert guests?”

  “And instead of a dinner party, it can be a dessert party?” Her eyes were lighting up as her imagination spun its web.

  “I like the way you think, Charlie-Bird.”

  After drying the cups, I tucked them away and wandered into the living room to check my phone. Again. I exhaled when I discovered there were still no missed calls or texts.

  We’d watched the game earlier today and it hadn’t gone into overtime or been delayed. Nothing like that. Where was he?

  Nervous energy carried me to the door, my eye automatically squinting as I leaned into the peephole. What I saw outside made my stomach bottom out.

  “Charlie, when you finish your dinner, go put on your jammies. I’m just stepping outside to make a call.” I kept my voice as normal as I could or else I knew Charlie would pick up on it.

  “K, Mom!” she replied around a mouthful of meatball probably.

  As soon as I’d unlocked and opened the door, I stepped outside and closed it. I guessed he knew it was me, but Grant didn’t move. He just sat there, butt parked on the curb, with his knees bent and his head bowed. He’d backed his truck into the spot in front of him and the tailgate was lowered. Inside, there was a mountain of toys. Like Santa’s sleigh mountain. Everything from girl and boy toys, toddler, and teenage toys.

  “Grant . . .” I said softly, stepping up behind him, my eyes going from his hunched frame to the bed of his truck.

  “I have a daughter. A seven-year-old daughter.” His voice was tight and quiet. “And I have no idea who she is. Or what she likes. I don’t have a goddamned clue, and I should. I’m her dad. I should know this stuff.”

  I swallowed as I understood the reason for the wide variety of toys brimming in the back of his truck.

  “I don’t know anything about kids, Ryan. I don’t know how to be a dad. Shit, the only experience I have with dads is my old man, and if I know one thing about fatherhood, it’s that I don’t want to be anything like him.”

  “God, Grant.” I could taste my heart in the back of my throat as I watched him like this. Lost. Almost broken. “How long have
you been sitting here?”

  His shoulders fell. “Long enough to realize I’m as big of a fuck-up today as I was before.” He wove his arms behind his neck. “Long enough to realize why you didn’t tell me about her before.”

  I thought I’d cried the last of my tears months ago, but I’d been wrong. One rolled down my cheek and spilled onto the ground at my feet. “I didn’t tell you about Charlie for an entirely different reason than me being worried you’d be a bad dad. I never once thought that. Ever.”

  “Then why? Why keep her a secret from me for so long?”

  Taking a breath, I tucked my dress beneath me and sat beside him on the curb. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was seventeen. Seventeen, Grant.” I paused to let that settle in. “And you were a senior in college about to become a first-round draft pick.”

  This time, I had to pause for myself. Talking about it made it feel as if I was reliving it all over again. Seeing the results on the pregnancy stick, feeling elation and sheer dread all at once, grabbing my phone while I was still sitting on the toilet, staring at the stick, so I could call him . . . only to realize what it all meant. Setting that phone down and keeping the knowledge of my pregnancy to myself had been one of the hardest things I’d had to do. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d stayed up at night, scared and alone, my finger hovering over Grant’s number.

  “What would that have done to your career? To your whole life?” I whispered, wiping the next tear away with the sleeve of my sweater.

  “It wouldn’t have changed a thing. I still would have loved you. I still would have married you. I still would have played football and we could have been a family, instead of me living the last seven years thinking the best thing in my life left me without an explanation. If you had told me, I wouldn’t be here tonight, feeling like I owe you two everything and have absolutely nothing to give you.”

  For someone who’d just won a nationally televised football game, scoring two of the team’s five total touchdowns, he was acting the opposite of how I imagined a player would in his position.

  “You were twenty-one, and I was seventeen,” I said. “No matter how much we told people we loved each other, no matter what your plans were of marrying me, it still would have been seen as statutory rape.” I paused when he flinched. “You were about to be drafted. It felt like the whole nation was talking about the Invincible Man from A&M about to go on to become a pro football legend.” I scooted closer, nudging him. “Your football career would have ended before it even got started if anyone found out about you getting a seventeen-year-old girl pregnant.”