“What’s your relationship like with your children, Mick?” Roz asked. “They say you can tell a lot about a man by the way he treats his children.”
Mick didn’t want to play it straight. He was afraid it could scare her away. But this was the very reason he asked her to come. He had to let her see exactly what he was about. Not the fairytale Mick. The real Mick. “There is no relationship,” he responded. “I pay for everything. They leave me alone. That’s the extent of it.”
Before Roz could censor herself, she blurted out, “That is so wrong, Mick!”
And as quickly as she blurted those words out, Mick’s temper rose to the occasion and he was blurting out words too. “Nobody tells me what’s right or wrong!” he said authoritatively.
Roz was surprised by his outburst, just as he was surprised by hers, but she did not back down. “Apparently somebody does because I just did,” she shot back. “And I don’t care how you attempt to justify it, but what you just said essentially is that you give your children money to leave you alone. And that’s wrong. It’s wrong on every street corner, in every household, on every continent in this world. It’s wrong on every level.”
Mick stared at her. He’d injured men for saying less.
Roz suspected as much herself. He didn’t have the look of love, he had the look of a man who felt she was out of bounds. But what kind of relationship would they have if they couldn’t be honest with each other? What kind of relationship would they have if she couldn’t speak her mind? “I’m sorry if I sounded didactic,” she said. “But it’s not like I’m lying.”
Mick was struck by her words. He was a bad father. He already knew that. But what he never acknowledged was how such a reality necessitated that he was an immoral one too. He was a man who was willing to pay his own children to stay out of his life. She called it exactly right. And it stunned him. Nobody had ever had the nerve to speak that way to him. It was so unsettling that he wasn’t at all sure if he liked it. Right now, because of the level of discomfort it caused him, he didn’t like it at all. But the truth was always the truth. “No,” he finally responded to her. “You’re not lying.”
“How does your children feel about that relationship? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Mick did mind, but only because it was that unchartered territory in his life that he had never bothered to explore. “I don’t know if I can answer that,” he said. “It never came up.”
Roz pictured a group of spoiled brat kids who just wanted the trust fund, Dad be damned. But it was obvious Mick wasn’t ready to go there with her. So she left it alone too. “I have no children,” she said. “So who am I to judge?”
Mick smiled and she smiled, but their little moment did put a damper on the evening. And it became all about managing expectations after that. They both had been a little too optimistic for a relationship this early in its establishment. Because Roz had serious concerns. She couldn’t walk around with blinders on. The man was telling her that he had issues, major issues, and she had to decide if she wanted to deal with that. And the fact that he could be that cold toward his own children made her wonder just how warm he could ever be toward her. It was bothering her big time.
But then she had to tell herself to get a grip. This was only the feel out period for them. They weren’t even an item yet. If it didn’t work out, it didn’t work out. She would be disappointed if they failed. She really wanted Mick in her life. But it wouldn’t crush her if he wasn’t.
But the stakes were higher for Mick. He wanted more than a woman in his life. He could get a woman any day of the week any time of the day. He wanted Rosalind, this woman, in his life. But she came with her own baggage. She came challenging him and standing her ground. She came refusing to go along with his bullshit to keep him around. It was the right way to be, and probably the main reason he was so attracted to her. But he wasn’t used to this. Women didn’t challenge him. They didn’t make him want to be a better man. They allowed him to sex them whenever he wanted. In exchange, he lavished them with gifts and money. That was how it was done. That was good enough for them. But he knew it was not good enough for Rosalind. No way was that going to cut it with her.