“She had your eyes. She had them the minute they opened and drank in the world, Dustin. She had your eyes, and your chin. And your wild hair and the roundness of your nose. I lay awake for days just staring at her in wonder. How someone could look so much like someone else.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, wringing them of more tears.
“I’m so sorry, Dustin. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so—” I heave out a sob as my head falls back and my eyes open to take in the smooth navy blue cloth that covers the ceiling of the car.
Dustin hasn’t moved. I feel his eyes on me still, even though I’m not looking. I have to find it in me, the courage. It was here but now it’s gone. He’s going to hate me, and that is something I will live with. But he can’t hate Bristol.
“You have to love her, Dustin. You have to because she is you. She is all your best parts.” I breathe in and blow out hard, lowering my chin, shocked to find his gaze waiting.
His jaw ticks, and my eyes dart to the place where his skin shifts with the movement.
“I was ready to tell you. I was, I swear. I had everything written down in case I got nervous, which . . . I probably should have done for right now, but—” I hold out my open palms and the distorted and mangled cap rolls from my grasp to the floor. My lips flap as my shoulders shake once. My muscles no longer feel as if they can hold my body up.
“I was going to tell you,” I repeat, forcing my breath to steady. I’m speaking as the words come to mind, not stopping to work through consequences or strategy. There is too much to say, and I feel my opportunity dwindling. He can’t sit here and simply take it forever. He has questions, and I’m sure the wave of resentment is well on its way.
He has to understand, if he and I have any chance at all. If what we had was ever true, then he has to know it all—the reason. He would have done the same. I have to believe that.
“I found out about two weeks after my move. I took two pregnancy tests, and then I took four more. I threw up . . . a lot.” I laugh pathetically. He doesn’t. I lower my gaze to the center of his chest, to the place where my initials ink his skin, and I wonder if they are still there or if he covered them with something less painful.
In one blink, I meet his gaze again, and find every last ounce of strength in my body. I become the woman who made a choice for her daughter. I live in that moment, the one that had me terrified for the life in my belly.
“Alex was waiting for me to come home. It was the night I was going to call you. I planned to tell Bailey too, and my parents. But you first. You most.”
The straight line of his mouth tilts down and his jaw flexes.
“He scared me, which of course he did. I don’t know how he found me, but he assured me he always could. He said he wanted to thank me for saving him from getting into business with you, and he wanted to make sure I was all right. But Dustin, he wanted to put his thumb on where I was and everything that was important to me and to you.”
His lips part, but his teeth remain clamped tight. His breath grows in pace, his shoulders lifting with every deep draw of air.
“So I made a choice. I created a story, one without you in it. I severed any connection you had to Bristol because it was the only way I knew she would be safe. Dustin, he sent her birthday cards. He sent flowers, and I swear I saw his car outside our house more than once. If not him, someone who works for him. He was everywhere, and while I tried to calm myself with the idea that I had an overactive imagination, I knew in my gut I was right. I know it for certain now. Dustin, Bristol is your daughter. She is your blood and your flesh, and she is made of us. I want you to have the life you deserve with her, but I don’t know how to do that. I tried on my own, and I live with regret for the decision I made, but you have to know, I didn’t know what else to do.”
My cheeks burn and my face is soaked with tears. My eyes feel puffy and they hunger to close. I want to sleep, right here and now. I want to find a dream that looks to the future and makes all of this go away. I want the paradise, the picture in my head where Dustin and I snuggle our little girl in bed on a Sunday morning and make love all night.
Dustin shifts in his seat, his hands grabbing the steering wheel as his eyes widen and glare out on the empty road. Only one truck has passed us in all the time we’ve sat here. Its shape is a dot in the distance, blurred by the rays of the sun sinking below the mountains to the west. It will be dark out here soon. I won’t be able to see into his eyes to read them, not that I can for certain now. But I see the trouble. I feel it in my bones. I’ve wrecked him. Just as he did me.
Without warning, Dustin smacks the butt of his hands against the top of the wheel, pounding it over and over while his mouth grits and growls.
“Fuck!” he finally shouts, kicking open his door and flying from his seat. He takes long strides down the center of the highway, heading toward the sun. Eventually, he breaks into a run. I push open my door and step outside, holding my weight up with the frame of the door, not sure my legs will carry me anywhere. He’s a hundred yards away from me, maybe more, before he stops and turns to face me. I can barely make out his profile against the setting sun, but I can tell he’s bending over. A second later, he’s crouching, his head held in his hands.
“Fuck!” he screams, cursing anyone who will listen. Cursing me, I’m sure.
Dustin cries and screams at the universe until the sun finally falls below the horizon and the sky shifts from pink to a dusty blue. He walks back to the car as the deeper hues take over and the stars appear. I stand outside the car while he sits in his seat, chewing on his knuckles and staring out his window at what might be the vision I denied him the experience of. That’s how I imagine it, anyhow.
I shiver and reach in for my sweatshirt, but before I can pull it out to slip on my body, Dustin grabs the other side and tugs lightly. I dip my head enough to meet his eyes. His long lashes obscure my view of the hazel I love with my entire heart. His focus is on his fist, where it wraps around the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I feel as if he’s deciding whether to pull harder or let go.
“Let’s go home,” he finally says. His voice is deep and gravelly, his throat wrecked from screaming and the salty tears he swallowed.
“Okay,” I croak, slipping inside the car. He lets go of my sweatshirt the second my door closes, and before I finish buckling, we’re jetting down the road at sixty, eighty, one hundred—more.
We’ll be home soon. His home. I don’t know where I belong anymore. All I know is that if the same script played out for me again, I would choose Dustin. For two years, I thought I would do everything the same. But that’s not true. I would trust us. It took an entire day of seeing a child rebuild stolen memories with their parent for me to understand that the world is full of bad guys, but sometimes, you luck into superheroes.
12
I’m a father.
Bristol is mine.
Hannah, Bristol, and I are a family.
Like my dreams.
We are so fucking broken.
I took my pain out on the road. I pushed the Supra and Hannah let me. She and I share the same medicine when life hurts us. We ride to danger and touch the edge. We drove a hundred miles in silence. Nothing but the roar of the road, the rumble of the straight pipe, the wind seeping through the small cracks in the chassis and the windows.