My defenses start to rise, but I’m unsure if they’re valid. In some ways, he’s treading on my territory, and I’m protective. Other than sending checks, he hasn’t ever been involved in Lyric’s life. Letting him help make decisions and pay for actual things is going to take some getting used to. While it’s not entirely unwanted or unappreciated, it’s foreign ground for us. Lyric has always been just mine.
“Okay,” I reply. “I’m just not used to this. If you’d like to pay for it, then I’m fine with that.”
“Thank you. What do you think about me meeting her?”
Geez. He’s not beating around any bushes tonight.
“Do you really want to talk about that tonight?”
“Yeah.”
I thought we’d ease into this conversation slowly, maybe talk about his band and my job and casual life things before diving into child visitation.
“Are you sure that’s what you want? You’ve never wanted to see her before, so I’m sorry if I sound skeptical about all this.”
“I get why you feel that way. I’m clean now, and I’m trying to get my life together. She’s my family... and when I think about that, it’s big. She’s probably the only child I’m ever going to have, and she’s eight years old already and I barely know anything about her. The pictures you send are great but I want to see her and talk to her, ya know? In person. What have you told her about me?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“Nothing. She’s asked if she had a father twice I think, and I told her you moved far away and she’s never brought you up again.”
He’s quiet for a few moments. “Does she listen to my music?”
“Blue, she’s only eight years old. She’s not listening to grunge rock songs about sex and heartache and drugs and depression. She doesn’t listen to music much, but she likes Colbie Caillat and Britney Spears.”
“Ugh,” he groans. “That’s awful.”
I laugh. “Well, it is what it is. She’s a girl.”
“You really think that badly of my music?”
“I don’t think badly of your music at all. All I have to do is listen to it to know exactly how you’re feeling about me,” I tease.
He lets out a short laugh. “Very funny.”
“Seriously, I do love your music, even though I don’t fall all over you about it. Your lyrics are deep and raw, it’s the kind of music I want to blast at full volume and do ninety miles per hour listening to, just rocking out.”
“Hell yeah, baby. Now that’s more like it.”
“I’m going to have to talk to Lyric, and slowly introduce her to the idea of having a father. I can’t just say, hey guess what? Your father has materialized out of nowhere and wants to start seeing you.”
“True. I don’t want to scare her. I want her to like me.”
“You have to understand this is all new for me. I haven’t introduced her to anyone. The only guy friend of mine she’s met is Josh. I’m a bit of a wingnut as a mother, I just take things one day at a time. Thankfully, she’s very easygoing and self-sufficient in a lot of ways so she makes parenting easy. If she was one of those demanding, tantrum-throwing, dramatic, clingy types I probably would be a total fail in the mother department.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, Piper. I think all parents guess their way through it.”
“I don’t know. Like I said, she’s usually very easy but a sudden dad in her life might freak her out a little.”
“You’ll be there, right? The first time I meet her?”
“Of course. I’m not going to just let my daughter go off with a stranger.”
Not the best choice of words.
“Hey, I’m not that strange,” he teases, flicking his lighter in the background.
“I didn’t mean that like it came out, I just mean she doesn’t know you. So to her, you’re a stranger and she knows she’s not supposed to talk to or go off with anyone she doesn’t know for any reason.”
The strumming of his guitar drifts through the phone, and the sound instantly puts a smile on my face. I miss hearing him play.
“I know you didn’t mean it that way, Piper.”
I sit up and run a hand through my messy hair. “I’m going to ask you for one thing.”
“Okay.”
“I would feel better if we wait about two or three months before you meet her.”
The strumming pauses, then starts again. “And the reason for that?” he asks.
“There’re a few reasons. The first is that she’ll be on summer break then. She’s doing really good in school right now and I don’t want to do anything that might disrupt her. The second is you said you’ve been straight for six months, and given your track record, I’d feel more comfortable if you were clean a few more months. I’m not trying to throw the past in your face, Blue, but I have to be careful. I can’t let you come and go like a revolving door with our daughter. You need to be absolutely, one hundred percent sure that you can commit to some kind of stable relationship with her.”
The strumming stops. “I really fucking love you, Ladybug.” His voice is husky and dreamy.
A small laugh slips from me. “Um... that’s really sweet but also a totally random response to what I just said.”
“I know. It’s just the way you love her, the way you loved Acorn, the way you’ve always loved me. It’s so powerful and intense. It makes me feel lucky... and proud that you’re her mother. I can just tell you won’t take any shit.”
“I won’t, Blue. Not when it comes to Lyric.”
“Then three months it is. That gives me time to try to figure out how to be the cool dad.”
“You already are the cool dad. She’s going to be fascinated with your long hair, your tattoos, all your jewelry. She’s very artistic like you.”
“She sounds awesome,” he says. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
He genuinely sounds excited and sincere. I’m hoping all the crap from his past stays in the past and doesn’t creep back up to ruin this for him or for her.
A faint, wandering melody fills the silence for a few minutes. I close my eyes and get lost in it, just like I used to. I’m taken back to the park, to his sexy smile, to falling in love with him. I wish we could go back to that time.
“Do I have to wait three months for you, too?” he asks.
“Oh, Blue,” I say with a small amount of exasperation. “What am I going to do with you?”
“What do you want to do with me?”
Where to start? So many things...
“That’s a hard question to answer. I’ve tried to spend the last three years detoxing myself from you. Just like you said you went through withdrawal and felt sick and depressed? That’s how it felt for me, too, trying to get you out of my head, not letting myself call you like a psycho or email you or sit and cry over you.”
“Babe... I had no idea you were going through that. You’ve never told me you felt like that.”
“I did. And it wasn’t the first damn time, either. I’ve let myself get in that place over you a lot and it makes me feel like a fool. My friends and my family think I’m a dumbass, a doormat, for allowing you to come back into my life after you disappeared the first time. And then you hurt me again.”
“You’re not a doormat, Piper. I’ve never thought of you that way and I never wanted to hurt you. I was just fucked up.”
“That’s really not a good excuse.”
“I know, but it’s all I got. I don’t know how to make you understand that I don’t know why I constantly fuck things up.”
I want to pull my hair out in frustration. “How am I supposed to trust you then? If you don’t even know what the heck goes on in your own head? How am I supposed to trust you with our little girl?”
“Because I’m trying. And I’m not letting drugs and alcohol stir up the mess in my head. I feel good, Piper. Better than I have in a long time. I’m writing new songs again, we have a tour scheduled, the band is getting along great. Things are all falling into place.”
“That’s all great, and I’m proud of you. I just don’t want to get hurt again. I’m petrified of it.”
“I know you are, and I don’t fucking blame you. I just... I can’t let you go. We belong together.”
I wonder if because we both feel that way that means it’s right? Is there some cosmic rule that if two people feel they’re meant to be together, then they should be together no matter what? Or sometimes do we have to walk away from the person we believe we’re meant to be with? And if we do... does that feeling that we’re missing our true other half ever go away?