Fire, page 7
She covers her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry.”
Of course she believed him. Because everyone’s always looking for proof that Micah Hutton isn’t worth the family name.
“I was young and terrified and made a mistake.”
“A mistake that cost me the first six years of our daughter’s life.”
“I’m sorry, Micah.”
“Yeah, well, so am I.”
There’s nothing left to say, but we’re miles from a conclusion. We stand there, drenched in pain, eager for the other to say something to solve the problem. To erase everything and make it all better.
Ivy’s the first to break the silence.
“I understand if you don’t want to offer your assistance anymore. I do. I understand if—”
I whirl. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think learning that little girl is my daughter means I’d be less willing to make sure you two have what you need? What kind of man do you think I am? Honestly, Ivy. Who do you think I am?”
“I…”
“You and me? We may never be okay. I don’t even know if I can look at you. But me and that little girl? My little girl? We have a lifetime of catching up to do. I have an entire second floor I don’t use with spare rooms and a bathroom. Because of work, I’m not home a lot. I want you to have the space. The offer stands. Take me up on it.”
I reach for the door on instinct, ready to get the fuck out of here before things get worse.
“Micah…”
Ivy’s hand on my arm is gentle. It reminds me of a thousand times she’s been the voice of reason, calming me down when I revved myself up. I look at her slim fingers as a lifetime of memories slap me in the face.
She’s the one.
It’s always been her.
The only person to make me feel like the world makes sense.
Until today.
Because right now? Nothing makes sense. Not one shitty thing.
I meet her pale blue eyes, glimmering with unshed tears, then open the door and walk away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ivy
The ride home happens in a blur while my daughter chatters happily in the backseat, going on and on about the nice man who gave her ice cream—a man who looked a lot like Micah’s cousin Nathan. A man who saw the truth of my daughter just as easily as the rest of us.
How did I not see this coming?
“It was strawberry ice cream and it was so good, Mama. I telled him you normally wouldn’t let me have ice cream with strangers. He said that made you pretty smart. Then he said he was a stranger without danger and I thought that was pretty funny. Is that real? Strangers without danger?”
I’m not feeling very smart at the moment. I’m not feeling very anything at the moment. Or rather, I’m feeling too much of everything so my system’s shutting down and now I’m numb.
I left this morning, thinking I was taking a step toward independence. I’m coming home with the knowledge that everything I thought about Micah might be wrong.
Is it possible he actually didn’t know about Nell? All these years, I thought the worst of him and maybe, if I hadn’t taken my father’s advice, if I’d called his parents and hunted him down, everything would be different.
But that’s assuming he’s telling the truth about what happened. He looked like he’s telling the truth, but why didn’t he let me know he wasn’t going to have a phone? One text from him and none of this would have happened.
Is he lying to me? If so, why? Just to get me to live with him? That doesn’t sound like Micah.
And if he is being honest, if today was the first time he knew he was a father, everything makes more sense now.
So much more sense.
“Was it because of the non-mouse?”
Except for that question. That question makes no sense at all.
I peek at Nell through the rearview mirror as I turn onto Grandma’s street. “What did you just ask me?”
“You letting me get ice cream with the stranger without danger man. Was that because of the non-mouse…” She furrows her brows, and the expression looks so much like Micah, my heart hurts. “The non-mouse donation? What even is that anyway? A non-mouse? I keep thinking maybe a cat, but I don’t know why anyone would want to give us a cat.”
“You mean the anonymous donation?” I can’t hide my smile and it only brightens when Nell clicks her tongue and sticks her pointer fingers straight into the air.
“That’s it. The nonamouse donation.” The wrinkle of her nose says she’s aware she didn’t quite get the word right, but doesn’t care enough to slow down and try again. “Is that why you let me have that yummy ice cream with that guy?”
“That is exactly the reason why. I knew we were in a safe space with safe people, and I needed to have a private conversation with…”
…your father…
“…a man who wants to give us a place to stay.” I quickly describe what anonymous means, then we share a laugh when she points out it isn’t very anonymous when the man walks right into the room.
Nell chews her bottom lip for a minute, obviously lost in thought. “He looked at me funny. That man.”
“He did.” I swallow past a lump in my throat.
What must that moment have been for Micah? Seeing his daughter for the first time like that? Thinking he was in the middle of a kind gesture only to have reality slap him in the face?
And I’ve been so rude to him since I’ve been back in the Keys. Pushing him away every time he tried to do something nice. He said things might never be okay between us again, and I get that. From his perspective, I’ve been absolutely horrible…assuming he’s telling the truth.
I want to believe him, but that whole thing about me breaking up with him has me confused. I wanted to run home and be with him forever. Not break up.
“I felt like I did something wrong.” Nell meets my eyes through the rearview, looking genuinely upset. “And that man looked at me funny because he didn’t like me.”
“Oh, sweet Nell. I promise you; you did absolutely nothing wrong.” I risk a glance over my shoulder as I slow to turn into the driveway. “You hear me? Nothing wrong at all.”
“I thought maybe it was because I wasn’t ‘apposed to tell him my name. Some grownups don’t like it when kids talk too much. Like the nurse at my new school. She doesn’t like it when kids talk at all,” she stage-whispers, then turns her attention to Grandma, who’s waiting on the covered porch as my rust bucket rattles to a stop. Nell waves and Grandma stands, moving to meet us at the steps.
“What did they say?” she calls as I step out of the car, stretching my arms towards a sapphire sky. “Did you get it? Did they give you housing? How does it work?”
“Oh, Grandma!” Nell dashes up the steps. “You have no idea! There was this nice man and he’s giving us a special…what is it, Mommy?” She barely waits for me to catch up before continuing. “He’s some kind of mouse but it has nothing to do with cats. It’s more like a secret but he wasn’t secret at all.”
Grandma’s eyes go wide. “There was a mouse?”
“A nona-mouse,” Nell explains as she reaches for the front door.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.” Grandma looks to me for clarification.
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get inside,” I promise, doing my best to communicate through eye contact alone that I’m about to melt her brain.
The arch to her eyebrow says my message has been received and we filter into the living room. “Sweet Nell,” Grandma says, patting my daughter’s hair, “why don’t you play in the backyard for a little bit. Your mom and I need to talk about boring grownup stuff.”
“Story of my life,” Nell mutters, dutifully heading for the back door. “Everyone’s keeping secrets from Nell. At least last time they gave me ice cream.”
“She’s a riot, that one,” Grandma says as we move into the kitchen. She pulls a tea kettle out of the cabinet. “I can tell something big happened and while I don’t for a second believe it had anything to do with a mouse, I feel like this might be news best absorbed over a drink.” She pauses with the kettle under the faucet, waiting for confirmation.
“Tea’s not gonna be strong enough.” I lean on the counter while the memory of Micah’s smile fading into betrayal circles my brain. It sure looked like he was telling the truth.
Grandma’s eyebrows skyrocket. “Coffee it is,” she says, putting the kettle away and pulling a coffee tin out instead.
“There wasn’t a mouse.”
Nothing about Micah Hutton is mouselike. His energy takes up too much space. Being in that office with him, his emotions going wild, it was like standing next to a live wire. My entire body was on alert, even as I transitioned from anger to regret to…something else.
“It was an anonymous donor.”
Grandma giggles. “A nona-mouse. That’s too cute. And rather mysterious, no?”
“He spends a lot of time outside his house and has extra rooms he wanted to give us. He’s basically donating his home.”
“That’s so sweet.” She pauses, a wicked gleam settling into her eyes. “Is he handsome? Tell me he’s handsome, Ives. Let an old woman live vicariously through her granddaughter.”
“He’s Micah.”
Grandma freezes. Blinks several times. Starts to ask a question, then turns to the cabinet and grabs a bottle of Irish Cream. “I never, ever say this, but coffee’s not gonna be strong enough.”
“You know, in this instance, I agree with you.”
She’s quiet while the coffee finishes brewing, and then quiet some more while she pours, adding a second splash of Irish Cream into both mugs. Then a third. She considers a fourth but caps the bottle and takes a long drink instead.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ivy
“Micah thinks he can pop into your life now? After all this time? Just give you a place to live like that’ll make everything better? Like he didn’t abandon you?” Grandma cups her mug, glaring at its contents, then lifts her angry eyes to mine. “Oh, Ivy. Please say you told him exactly where he can put that offer.”
I take a long drink of coffee. Then another. Then one more for good measure, wishing she’d gone for that fourth splash of Irish Cream.
“He says he didn’t know.” I lick my lips, aware I sound crazy. “He didn’t know about Nell.”
“That’s bullshit, Ivy.” She levels a finger my way, pacing back and forth in the tiny kitchen. “You can’t fall for that kind of bullshit from him. From anyone. I love you dearly but falling for bullshit is something you’ve gotten really good at. Just because someone says something, doesn’t make it true. It’s the actions we listen to. Not the words.”
“Believe me. I was listening to his actions. I know it sounds absurd, but his actions are the only reason I didn’t tell him to stick his offer…” I take a sip of coffee to avoid cursing in front of my grandmother.
“Up his ass?” she supplies, arching a brow.
“Exactly.” I rest my elbows on the counter, hands cupping my mug. “Micah didn’t know. It was written all over his face, clear as day, the total shock of it all. He took one look at Nell and immediately saw she was his, the same way we see it, and he went pale and his eyes…it was his eyes that really made me listen to what he was saying. I swear, today was the first day Micah Hutton knew he was a father.”
Grandma scoffs, then rests her elbows on the counter, mimicking my posture. “But how is that possible? How can he not know?”
“He says he never got my texts, and I didn’t go any farther trying to reach him.”
“You didn’t call?” Shock. It’s an expression I’m getting quite proficient at recognizing today. “Email? Send a carrier pigeon? Ivy…”
And now disappointment. Another expression I’d like to see less of.
“I didn’t call. Or email. I should have considered the carrier pigeon…” I smile and Grandma laughs, though it’s short and tight and lacks humor. “Dad told me Micah’s silence made it clear—”
Grandma pushes off the counter. “Of course it was your father. His favorite pastime is making the women in his life totally dependent on him and letting you think Micah abandoned you would be the perfect start to making you doubt yourself.” She holds up her hands. “Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t talk shit about your dad.”
I shrug. “It’s probably good for me to start seeing that side of him.”
“But not out of spite. Not because I’m angry.” She shakes her head. “The stuff your dad got wrong—and there’s a lot of it—is an important conversation, but let’s not get sidetracked from the important conversation we’re already having. How in the world did any of this happen?”
“You know how Micah texted me out of the blue several months after I gave up trying to tell him I was pregnant? And I was so offended because he acted like everything was fine? That’s because to him, everything was fine. He had no idea what was going on and from his point of view, I just ghosted him.” I explain how hard it was for us to talk back then. “Between the time zones and Dad being weird about me turning in my phone at night, Micah and I could barely sync up. He said he was going crazy without me and broke his phone. His parents wouldn’t replace it until he got his act together, and when they did finally replace it, he got a new number for a fresh start. Which meant every single text I sent disappeared into the void.”
I pause, replaying our conversation for the hundredth time. “He did say something about me breaking up with him, something I definitely didn’t do. And there’s the whole question of why he didn’t bother to tell me what was going on, but honestly, I believe him when he says he didn’t know about Nell.”
Grandma lifts her mug to her lips, then huffs a laugh. “I guess this means we don’t have to hate him anymore for being so damn good looking, right?”
Her words wade through all the muck in my brain. When they finally process, I frown. “I’m not sure I’m in the right frame of mind to joke about this.”
“First, who says I’m joking? That man is a looker.” She takes a drink, dropping me a wink over the rim of her mug. “But more importantly, it’ll do you good to find the humor in the situation. Life is only as hard as we make it. Hasn’t it been hard enough lately?”
I bob my head. There was a time when I would have laughed my ass off at the insanity of this situation. When I would have sought a solution, then implemented it and moved on. But now, my head is bogged down with self-doubt. With questions and concerns. With the fear that I’m making a mistake by believing Micah, while being so sure most of what he’s saying is true.
Is that age and experience talking?
Or is it Julian’s voice, tearing me down instead of building me up?
“What are you gonna tell Nell?” Grandma asks.
“About which part?” I stare into my coffee. “There’s a lot going on I need to talk about with her.”
I’m leaving Julian.
We’re not going back to Seattle.
She met her father today.
And he offered us a place to stay.
“Do you plan to tell her Micah’s her father before you move in with him? Because that’s what’s happening, right? You’re going to take him up on this offer.” The way Grandma looks at me, like it’s a done deal and a no-brainer. I wish I had a fraction of that confidence.
“I don’t think living together is a good idea at this point.”
“This could be the perfect opportunity to mend your family. To get to know each other and move forward…together. Plus, you’d have a chance to see him without a shirt on and I think we can both admit that would make even the worst day better. We both saw that calendar.”
How can she be so certain of the future when the entire landscape of the past changed an hour ago?
“I don’t think there’s any mending here, Grandma. Micah was pretty upset.” I flash back to the office, where his eyes, normally so kind, blazed with hurt and pain. Micah always looked at me with love. This was the first time it was absent.
“Oh Grandma, I wish I’d called him!” I close my eyes and lift my face to the ceiling as guilt crawls up my spine to whisper in my ear. You make chaotic decisions. You make bad choices. You are the cause of everyone’s problems.
“You played a part in this Ivy, but so did Micah. If he’d told you his parents wouldn’t replace his phone, you wouldn’t have listened to your dad. One call from you could have changed things, but one text from him could have as well. At this point, you can get caught up in assigning blame, or you can make amends, admit mistakes, and figure out how to move forward. The past is over. It only exists in here.” She gently taps my forehead. “All we have is now. And what we do now shapes the future.”
I suck in my lips, inhaling deeply, as if I could breathe in her wisdom without having to learn through experience. “But that past—” I tap my forehead “—it’s been in there for so long. How do I put it down?”
“What you have to decide, sweet Ivy, is how you want your future to look, then make decisions that move you in that direction. Nothing good comes from living in the past. Learn your lessons and move on.”
Outside, Nell dashes through the yard with a palm frond in each hand, the long green leaves arcing behind her like wings. Ten bucks says she thinks if she can run fast enough, she’ll fly. It’s the source of every scrape, bump, and bruise on her tiny body.
I turn back to Grandma. “I guess Micah deserves a say in how…and when…and really even if we tell Nell he’s her father.”
“By making him part of that decision,” she says with a nod of approval, “you’re showing him you’re ready to move forward instead of looking back. You’re giving him the respect a father deserves when it comes to his child.”
“I just don’t know what to do in a situation where Micah might not be the bad guy. I’ve made every single Nell-based decision on my own…”
Grandma frowns and I immediately know what she’s thinking.
“That’s not exactly true,” I say, before she beats me to it. “Julian made a lot of decisions I disagreed with, but didn’t have the strength to fight him over.”
Of course she believed him. Because everyone’s always looking for proof that Micah Hutton isn’t worth the family name.
“I was young and terrified and made a mistake.”
“A mistake that cost me the first six years of our daughter’s life.”
“I’m sorry, Micah.”
“Yeah, well, so am I.”
There’s nothing left to say, but we’re miles from a conclusion. We stand there, drenched in pain, eager for the other to say something to solve the problem. To erase everything and make it all better.
Ivy’s the first to break the silence.
“I understand if you don’t want to offer your assistance anymore. I do. I understand if—”
I whirl. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think learning that little girl is my daughter means I’d be less willing to make sure you two have what you need? What kind of man do you think I am? Honestly, Ivy. Who do you think I am?”
“I…”
“You and me? We may never be okay. I don’t even know if I can look at you. But me and that little girl? My little girl? We have a lifetime of catching up to do. I have an entire second floor I don’t use with spare rooms and a bathroom. Because of work, I’m not home a lot. I want you to have the space. The offer stands. Take me up on it.”
I reach for the door on instinct, ready to get the fuck out of here before things get worse.
“Micah…”
Ivy’s hand on my arm is gentle. It reminds me of a thousand times she’s been the voice of reason, calming me down when I revved myself up. I look at her slim fingers as a lifetime of memories slap me in the face.
She’s the one.
It’s always been her.
The only person to make me feel like the world makes sense.
Until today.
Because right now? Nothing makes sense. Not one shitty thing.
I meet her pale blue eyes, glimmering with unshed tears, then open the door and walk away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ivy
The ride home happens in a blur while my daughter chatters happily in the backseat, going on and on about the nice man who gave her ice cream—a man who looked a lot like Micah’s cousin Nathan. A man who saw the truth of my daughter just as easily as the rest of us.
How did I not see this coming?
“It was strawberry ice cream and it was so good, Mama. I telled him you normally wouldn’t let me have ice cream with strangers. He said that made you pretty smart. Then he said he was a stranger without danger and I thought that was pretty funny. Is that real? Strangers without danger?”
I’m not feeling very smart at the moment. I’m not feeling very anything at the moment. Or rather, I’m feeling too much of everything so my system’s shutting down and now I’m numb.
I left this morning, thinking I was taking a step toward independence. I’m coming home with the knowledge that everything I thought about Micah might be wrong.
Is it possible he actually didn’t know about Nell? All these years, I thought the worst of him and maybe, if I hadn’t taken my father’s advice, if I’d called his parents and hunted him down, everything would be different.
But that’s assuming he’s telling the truth about what happened. He looked like he’s telling the truth, but why didn’t he let me know he wasn’t going to have a phone? One text from him and none of this would have happened.
Is he lying to me? If so, why? Just to get me to live with him? That doesn’t sound like Micah.
And if he is being honest, if today was the first time he knew he was a father, everything makes more sense now.
So much more sense.
“Was it because of the non-mouse?”
Except for that question. That question makes no sense at all.
I peek at Nell through the rearview mirror as I turn onto Grandma’s street. “What did you just ask me?”
“You letting me get ice cream with the stranger without danger man. Was that because of the non-mouse…” She furrows her brows, and the expression looks so much like Micah, my heart hurts. “The non-mouse donation? What even is that anyway? A non-mouse? I keep thinking maybe a cat, but I don’t know why anyone would want to give us a cat.”
“You mean the anonymous donation?” I can’t hide my smile and it only brightens when Nell clicks her tongue and sticks her pointer fingers straight into the air.
“That’s it. The nonamouse donation.” The wrinkle of her nose says she’s aware she didn’t quite get the word right, but doesn’t care enough to slow down and try again. “Is that why you let me have that yummy ice cream with that guy?”
“That is exactly the reason why. I knew we were in a safe space with safe people, and I needed to have a private conversation with…”
…your father…
“…a man who wants to give us a place to stay.” I quickly describe what anonymous means, then we share a laugh when she points out it isn’t very anonymous when the man walks right into the room.
Nell chews her bottom lip for a minute, obviously lost in thought. “He looked at me funny. That man.”
“He did.” I swallow past a lump in my throat.
What must that moment have been for Micah? Seeing his daughter for the first time like that? Thinking he was in the middle of a kind gesture only to have reality slap him in the face?
And I’ve been so rude to him since I’ve been back in the Keys. Pushing him away every time he tried to do something nice. He said things might never be okay between us again, and I get that. From his perspective, I’ve been absolutely horrible…assuming he’s telling the truth.
I want to believe him, but that whole thing about me breaking up with him has me confused. I wanted to run home and be with him forever. Not break up.
“I felt like I did something wrong.” Nell meets my eyes through the rearview, looking genuinely upset. “And that man looked at me funny because he didn’t like me.”
“Oh, sweet Nell. I promise you; you did absolutely nothing wrong.” I risk a glance over my shoulder as I slow to turn into the driveway. “You hear me? Nothing wrong at all.”
“I thought maybe it was because I wasn’t ‘apposed to tell him my name. Some grownups don’t like it when kids talk too much. Like the nurse at my new school. She doesn’t like it when kids talk at all,” she stage-whispers, then turns her attention to Grandma, who’s waiting on the covered porch as my rust bucket rattles to a stop. Nell waves and Grandma stands, moving to meet us at the steps.
“What did they say?” she calls as I step out of the car, stretching my arms towards a sapphire sky. “Did you get it? Did they give you housing? How does it work?”
“Oh, Grandma!” Nell dashes up the steps. “You have no idea! There was this nice man and he’s giving us a special…what is it, Mommy?” She barely waits for me to catch up before continuing. “He’s some kind of mouse but it has nothing to do with cats. It’s more like a secret but he wasn’t secret at all.”
Grandma’s eyes go wide. “There was a mouse?”
“A nona-mouse,” Nell explains as she reaches for the front door.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.” Grandma looks to me for clarification.
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get inside,” I promise, doing my best to communicate through eye contact alone that I’m about to melt her brain.
The arch to her eyebrow says my message has been received and we filter into the living room. “Sweet Nell,” Grandma says, patting my daughter’s hair, “why don’t you play in the backyard for a little bit. Your mom and I need to talk about boring grownup stuff.”
“Story of my life,” Nell mutters, dutifully heading for the back door. “Everyone’s keeping secrets from Nell. At least last time they gave me ice cream.”
“She’s a riot, that one,” Grandma says as we move into the kitchen. She pulls a tea kettle out of the cabinet. “I can tell something big happened and while I don’t for a second believe it had anything to do with a mouse, I feel like this might be news best absorbed over a drink.” She pauses with the kettle under the faucet, waiting for confirmation.
“Tea’s not gonna be strong enough.” I lean on the counter while the memory of Micah’s smile fading into betrayal circles my brain. It sure looked like he was telling the truth.
Grandma’s eyebrows skyrocket. “Coffee it is,” she says, putting the kettle away and pulling a coffee tin out instead.
“There wasn’t a mouse.”
Nothing about Micah Hutton is mouselike. His energy takes up too much space. Being in that office with him, his emotions going wild, it was like standing next to a live wire. My entire body was on alert, even as I transitioned from anger to regret to…something else.
“It was an anonymous donor.”
Grandma giggles. “A nona-mouse. That’s too cute. And rather mysterious, no?”
“He spends a lot of time outside his house and has extra rooms he wanted to give us. He’s basically donating his home.”
“That’s so sweet.” She pauses, a wicked gleam settling into her eyes. “Is he handsome? Tell me he’s handsome, Ives. Let an old woman live vicariously through her granddaughter.”
“He’s Micah.”
Grandma freezes. Blinks several times. Starts to ask a question, then turns to the cabinet and grabs a bottle of Irish Cream. “I never, ever say this, but coffee’s not gonna be strong enough.”
“You know, in this instance, I agree with you.”
She’s quiet while the coffee finishes brewing, and then quiet some more while she pours, adding a second splash of Irish Cream into both mugs. Then a third. She considers a fourth but caps the bottle and takes a long drink instead.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ivy
“Micah thinks he can pop into your life now? After all this time? Just give you a place to live like that’ll make everything better? Like he didn’t abandon you?” Grandma cups her mug, glaring at its contents, then lifts her angry eyes to mine. “Oh, Ivy. Please say you told him exactly where he can put that offer.”
I take a long drink of coffee. Then another. Then one more for good measure, wishing she’d gone for that fourth splash of Irish Cream.
“He says he didn’t know.” I lick my lips, aware I sound crazy. “He didn’t know about Nell.”
“That’s bullshit, Ivy.” She levels a finger my way, pacing back and forth in the tiny kitchen. “You can’t fall for that kind of bullshit from him. From anyone. I love you dearly but falling for bullshit is something you’ve gotten really good at. Just because someone says something, doesn’t make it true. It’s the actions we listen to. Not the words.”
“Believe me. I was listening to his actions. I know it sounds absurd, but his actions are the only reason I didn’t tell him to stick his offer…” I take a sip of coffee to avoid cursing in front of my grandmother.
“Up his ass?” she supplies, arching a brow.
“Exactly.” I rest my elbows on the counter, hands cupping my mug. “Micah didn’t know. It was written all over his face, clear as day, the total shock of it all. He took one look at Nell and immediately saw she was his, the same way we see it, and he went pale and his eyes…it was his eyes that really made me listen to what he was saying. I swear, today was the first day Micah Hutton knew he was a father.”
Grandma scoffs, then rests her elbows on the counter, mimicking my posture. “But how is that possible? How can he not know?”
“He says he never got my texts, and I didn’t go any farther trying to reach him.”
“You didn’t call?” Shock. It’s an expression I’m getting quite proficient at recognizing today. “Email? Send a carrier pigeon? Ivy…”
And now disappointment. Another expression I’d like to see less of.
“I didn’t call. Or email. I should have considered the carrier pigeon…” I smile and Grandma laughs, though it’s short and tight and lacks humor. “Dad told me Micah’s silence made it clear—”
Grandma pushes off the counter. “Of course it was your father. His favorite pastime is making the women in his life totally dependent on him and letting you think Micah abandoned you would be the perfect start to making you doubt yourself.” She holds up her hands. “Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t talk shit about your dad.”
I shrug. “It’s probably good for me to start seeing that side of him.”
“But not out of spite. Not because I’m angry.” She shakes her head. “The stuff your dad got wrong—and there’s a lot of it—is an important conversation, but let’s not get sidetracked from the important conversation we’re already having. How in the world did any of this happen?”
“You know how Micah texted me out of the blue several months after I gave up trying to tell him I was pregnant? And I was so offended because he acted like everything was fine? That’s because to him, everything was fine. He had no idea what was going on and from his point of view, I just ghosted him.” I explain how hard it was for us to talk back then. “Between the time zones and Dad being weird about me turning in my phone at night, Micah and I could barely sync up. He said he was going crazy without me and broke his phone. His parents wouldn’t replace it until he got his act together, and when they did finally replace it, he got a new number for a fresh start. Which meant every single text I sent disappeared into the void.”
I pause, replaying our conversation for the hundredth time. “He did say something about me breaking up with him, something I definitely didn’t do. And there’s the whole question of why he didn’t bother to tell me what was going on, but honestly, I believe him when he says he didn’t know about Nell.”
Grandma lifts her mug to her lips, then huffs a laugh. “I guess this means we don’t have to hate him anymore for being so damn good looking, right?”
Her words wade through all the muck in my brain. When they finally process, I frown. “I’m not sure I’m in the right frame of mind to joke about this.”
“First, who says I’m joking? That man is a looker.” She takes a drink, dropping me a wink over the rim of her mug. “But more importantly, it’ll do you good to find the humor in the situation. Life is only as hard as we make it. Hasn’t it been hard enough lately?”
I bob my head. There was a time when I would have laughed my ass off at the insanity of this situation. When I would have sought a solution, then implemented it and moved on. But now, my head is bogged down with self-doubt. With questions and concerns. With the fear that I’m making a mistake by believing Micah, while being so sure most of what he’s saying is true.
Is that age and experience talking?
Or is it Julian’s voice, tearing me down instead of building me up?
“What are you gonna tell Nell?” Grandma asks.
“About which part?” I stare into my coffee. “There’s a lot going on I need to talk about with her.”
I’m leaving Julian.
We’re not going back to Seattle.
She met her father today.
And he offered us a place to stay.
“Do you plan to tell her Micah’s her father before you move in with him? Because that’s what’s happening, right? You’re going to take him up on this offer.” The way Grandma looks at me, like it’s a done deal and a no-brainer. I wish I had a fraction of that confidence.
“I don’t think living together is a good idea at this point.”
“This could be the perfect opportunity to mend your family. To get to know each other and move forward…together. Plus, you’d have a chance to see him without a shirt on and I think we can both admit that would make even the worst day better. We both saw that calendar.”
How can she be so certain of the future when the entire landscape of the past changed an hour ago?
“I don’t think there’s any mending here, Grandma. Micah was pretty upset.” I flash back to the office, where his eyes, normally so kind, blazed with hurt and pain. Micah always looked at me with love. This was the first time it was absent.
“Oh Grandma, I wish I’d called him!” I close my eyes and lift my face to the ceiling as guilt crawls up my spine to whisper in my ear. You make chaotic decisions. You make bad choices. You are the cause of everyone’s problems.
“You played a part in this Ivy, but so did Micah. If he’d told you his parents wouldn’t replace his phone, you wouldn’t have listened to your dad. One call from you could have changed things, but one text from him could have as well. At this point, you can get caught up in assigning blame, or you can make amends, admit mistakes, and figure out how to move forward. The past is over. It only exists in here.” She gently taps my forehead. “All we have is now. And what we do now shapes the future.”
I suck in my lips, inhaling deeply, as if I could breathe in her wisdom without having to learn through experience. “But that past—” I tap my forehead “—it’s been in there for so long. How do I put it down?”
“What you have to decide, sweet Ivy, is how you want your future to look, then make decisions that move you in that direction. Nothing good comes from living in the past. Learn your lessons and move on.”
Outside, Nell dashes through the yard with a palm frond in each hand, the long green leaves arcing behind her like wings. Ten bucks says she thinks if she can run fast enough, she’ll fly. It’s the source of every scrape, bump, and bruise on her tiny body.
I turn back to Grandma. “I guess Micah deserves a say in how…and when…and really even if we tell Nell he’s her father.”
“By making him part of that decision,” she says with a nod of approval, “you’re showing him you’re ready to move forward instead of looking back. You’re giving him the respect a father deserves when it comes to his child.”
“I just don’t know what to do in a situation where Micah might not be the bad guy. I’ve made every single Nell-based decision on my own…”
Grandma frowns and I immediately know what she’s thinking.
“That’s not exactly true,” I say, before she beats me to it. “Julian made a lot of decisions I disagreed with, but didn’t have the strength to fight him over.”
