She took off when I was about eight. After my childhood spent playing third wheel to my parent’s lavish vacations and explosive fights, followed by chilly months on end where they would barely communicate, she walked out on us. My memories of her now are fuzzy and sparse, because as it was, she hardly spent time with me. I was mostly raised by nannies, and my grandparents on my father’s side. My mother is somewhere out there. Last I tried to track her down around my twentieth birthday she was living with some French vineyard owner in the valleys of Provence.
It’s sad, but I’ve never really missed her. Even after she initially left, I don’t remember crying. You can’t miss someone who never really showed you any kind of motherly love. Now, my father, that’s a different story. His betrayal left me reeling, unable to stand on my own two feet for weeks after he was arrested.
There should be no mystery about why I don’t feel connected to children, or having any of my own.
“Well, it’s beautiful. Better than any birthday I ever had, though there was that one where The Wiggles sang.” I chuckle, thinking of the very famous kid’s quartet my grandfather managed to snag off their American tour.
“That party was epic. I ate so much candy, I puked in the back of Dad’s beamer. He was furious.” Walker joins us, sipping what looks like a cocktail, and I kind of want to know where he got one.
“Oh, crap, Becky Feist is about to go toe-to-toe with another class mom. I have to break this up. See you guys later.” Whitney rushes off in the direction of an angry looking blonde who is two seconds away from tossing her lemonade on another woman.
“And the world says that our baseball team has its hands full with drama.” Walker shakes his head, smirking.
My head nods emphatically. “I have enough to worry about with you lot of infants in the locker room. Good thing I don’t have actual toddlers to deal with.”
“You ever think we’ll be family people?” Walker asks me, squinting around at all the little kids swirling around the lawn.
His question has my mind wandering back to Baltimore, when Hayes pulled me into that garden and kissed the daylights out of me. When he kissed me, I questioned everything. From my career choices to my stance on dating to what the heck I’m doing with my life if this man isn’t in it.
I shrug. “I guess I never really truly considered it. But being here, with a birthday coming up, I can’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind.”
“You have more time than I do,” he says.
“Biologically, I think my clock would disagree. You’re only thirty, Walker, just a short year in front of me.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to be one of those old-ass dads whose knees crack every time he gets down on the floor to wrestle with his kids. I want to be the cool, hip father who can throw them around in the pool and show them how to field a grounder.”
“Ah, the things that truly matter when it comes to raising kids.” I grin.
“You know it.” He takes a sip of his drink. “I mean it, though, Col. You can choose to be two things; happy and professionally successful. I know I’m one to talk, I haven’t dated seriously in ages, but I want more for you.”
“Why, because I’m a woman?” My voice is steely.
“No, because you seem lonely. Especially as of late.” Walker gives me a pointed eyebrow, as if to say don’t try that sexism game with me, you know it’s false.
I know he didn’t mean it the way I’m spinning it, and that he knows me better than almost anyone. “I’m just choosing to focus on work right now. It’s not like there isn’t a crisis to be dealt with every other day.”
“Speaking of drama, my dad went to see Jimmy today.” Walker bulldozes right over the casual part of easing into this conversation.
I blink, digesting what he just said. “Why?”
My cousin shrugs. “He sees him once or twice a month, as far as I know. We haven’t talked in depth about it, but they’re brothers, Col. I know they’re different men, both cold but very different. But they grew up together. Were each other’s closest confidants for years. If Sinclair did that to me, I’d want to know why.”
A snort, harsh and sarcastic, works its way up my nostrils. “Except the thing you’re forgetting is that your own brother doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body. Sure, he’s a royal idiot, but he’d never betray you like that. I have no idea why anyone in this family would have any inclination to entertain my father’s behavior. Especially after all he’s said about us in the media as of late.”
Walker nods. “Your father is a dick, no denying that one. He always has been. But I worry about you. You have no obligation to forgive him, to see him, or to communicate, but I think you need some sort of closure. Do you think that talking to him would help? You seem two seconds away from the edge of burnout, Col. And don’t bother denying it, the night security at the ballpark keeps me well-informed of how late you’ve been staying.”
Anger blooms in my cheeks, because he shouldn’t be checking up on me. “If I have no obligation to him, then why are you pushing this? I’m in the role, I’m doing my job, I think it’s going pretty damn well with all the shit that was piled on my plate from day one of me stepping into that office. If I talked to him, went to see him, it would be playing right into his hand. Like giving a toddler throwing a temper tantrum attention. It’s exactly what my father wants. Why would you even suggest that?”
I can feel how ruddy my face is, and how much my temper is spiking on the inside points of my wrists.
Walker gives me a sad smile. “I just … I only say it out of love, Col. You know that. I want him to rot in prison, too, but not at the expense of your mental sanctity. Maybe it’s time you … I don’t know.”
The letter buried at the bottom of the junk drawer in my kitchen comes to mind, and not for the first time, I’m deadly curious as to what it contains. I go back and forth between wanting to know why my father has betrayed and abandoned me this way and not wanting to confront it at all. Part of me thinks that there can only be more ugliness and spite at the end of that tunnel, and it will only destroy me further.
As if conjured by a miracle, Sinclair walks in, holding the leash of a camel in one hand and a beer in the other. Where he got either in such a short amount of time, I’ll never know. But neither of the things in his hands can be a good idea when my black sheep of a cousin is involved.
At least I don’t have to talk to Walker about my father any longer.
“Lord, help us all. Whit, don’t let him in the house, he’s bound to burn it down!” Walker cups his hands around his mouth, shouting to Whitney.
The kids are sprinting up the lawn to him, all of them wanting a good look or pet of the camel. I hope to God that thing isn’t nasty or diseased, and that no parent here trusts that Sinclair could keep their child safe if anything was to happen in the next split second.
But when the children get close, Sinclair is so easy with them, talking and maneuvering so that the animal feels comfortable. The kids are enraptured, not only with the camel, but with what my cousin is saying.
“If there is anyone who should never reproduce, it’s my brother. And yet, I think he’d be the best parent out of all of us.” Walker tilts his head, studying his brother.