“I’m sorry,” Jonathan says, but ‘sorry’ isn’t what she wants to hear, so it does nothing but upset her more.
Shoving out of her chair, getting to her feet, she shakes her head again as she rushes toward him, grabbing his bag. She yanks on it hard, trying to rip it out of his hand. “No, don’t go! I want you to stay!”
“I know you do,” he says, “I want to stay, too, but I have to be Breezeo, remember?”
“I don’t care!” she says, digging in her heels, pulling the bag so hard that he loosens his hold, surrendering it. She almost falls, but he catches her. The bag drops to the floor, and she tries to kick it away. It doesn’t move, so she shoves him, wanting to put distance between him and that bag. “You don’t gotta be Breezeo! You can just be Daddy, and it’ll be okay! It’s gonna be Aunt Meghan’s birthday, and you can walk me to school, and we have to do the lines together so I can practice, ‘cuz I’m gonna be a snowflake! And how can I be a snowflake if you don’t stay?”
Her voice cracks as tears fill her eyes. She’s still shoving against him, trying to get him to move, but he’s not budging.
She’s getting furious.
Sighing, he bends down to her level, gently grasping her arms when she angrily tries to shove his face away from hers.
I want so much to intervene. I want to grab her, and hold her, and make it all go away, but I can’t. So I just stand against the counter, trying to keep myself together, because me falling apart isn’t going to help anyone right now.
“You can still be a snowflake,” he says. “You’re going to be the best snowflake ever.”
“But how will you know?” she asks, the first tears starting to fall. “Will you still come see?”
“Of course,” he says. “Wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“You promise?”
I inhale sharply, but he doesn’t miss a beat.
“I promise,” he whispers, wiping her cheeks. “I’ll be back for it. It’s just that, right now, the movie needs me to be Breezeo.”
“But I need you to be my daddy,” she says.
“I’ll still be your daddy, even when I’m Breezeo.”
“No, you won’t!” she yells. “You’re gonna go away, and then you won’t be here no more, and it’ll be just like before!”
“It won’t be like before,” he tells her.
“It will! You didn’t wanna be my daddy then, and now you don’t wanna again! You wanna go away and you’re not gonna live here no more, ‘cuz you have all your stuff and it’s gonna be gone and you won’t be here to tell Mommy she’s pretty so now she can’t never love you!”
Whoa. She blurts all that out in one frantic breath before shoving past him and running off, her bedroom door slamming.
A strangled silence sweeps through the room in her absence before Jonathan slowly stands and says, “I probably deserve that.”
Frowning, I shove away from the counter, stopping him before he can go after her. “Let me talk to her.”
I head to her bedroom, pausing outside to tap on the door.
“Who is it?” she yells.
Now she wants to know who’s knocking before she answers. “It’s Mommy.”
“Mommy who?” she mumbles.
I laugh to myself, straightening my expression out before I open the door, saying, “The only Mommy you’ve got.”
“Just one Mommy,” she mutters, “and no Daddy now.”
Strolling over, I sit down beside her on the edge of her bed. “Is that what you really think?”
She shrugs.
“Look, I know you don’t want him to go away, because you’re going to miss him, but you know how special Breezeo is. And I know it’s not fair to you, and it really sucks, because you finally got to have him as your daddy and now he has to go, but you can write him, and call him, and draw him all the pictures you want.”
She swings her legs, eyes on her feet. “It’s not the same.”
“I know, but he promised he’d be back,” I say, standing up. “Do you want to come say bye to him? Maybe wish him luck?”
She shakes her head.
I leave her there, in her room, leaving the door open when I walk out. Jonathan lingers in the living room, holding his bag. He frowns when he sees me. I don’t take that personally.
“Is she okay?” he asks.
“She’ll be fine,” I tell him. “Don’t worry.”
He glances at his watch, sighing. “I have to get going. The car’s here to pick me up.”
“Okay,” I whisper as he leans over, kissing me. “Be safe. And smart. No drinking. No drugs. No more jumping in front of moving cars.”
“You sure know how to take the fun out of things,” he jokes. “I’ll see you when I can.”
He opens up the front door, to leave, making it barely a step over the threshold when Maddie’s voice screeches through the apartment, loud and frantic. “Wait, Daddy! Wait! Don’t go yet!”
He pauses, and she runs right by me, nearly plowing me over as she rushes toward him, clutching the notebook she draws in.
She shoves it at him, hitting him in the chest. “You forgot to have this.”
He takes it. “What is it?”
“The fan-fictions I made for you,” she says. “Remember? I fixed it. If you’re gonna be Breezeo now, you should have it, ‘cuz it’s better.”
He smiles. “Thank you.”
She nods, and hesitates, the two of them awkwardly staring at each other, before she flings herself at him, hugging him. “I love you, Daddy. More than all the Breezeo movies ever.”
“I love you, too,” he says, hugging her back. “More than everything in the world.”
Chapter 26
JONATHAN
It’s strange how much perspective can change in such a short amount of time.
I’ve wanted to be an actor for as long as I can remember, but somewhere along the way, I lost the spark. Between the cocaine binges and rocky relationships, between the stints at rehab and the paparazzi confrontations, between struggling with sobriety and facing notoriety, I forgot what it was I loved about it all.
And it’s funny that an almost six-year-old could remind me in just shy of two months.
I laugh, sitting on the steps of the Hair & Makeup trailer on set. It’s barely dawn, and everyone else is gathered in the caterer’s tent for breakfast, while I sit here, reading through Madison’s notebook. It’s funny, this story she came up with. It’s mostly pictures with just a few words and reads like a Scooby Doo crossover, a literal ghost mystery getting solved by Breezeo. Because he’s invisible, she says that means he ought to be able to hang out with ghosts. It’s common sense.
So at the end, Maryanne gets blown up in the warehouse.
BOOM.
It’s a happy ending, though, in a twisted way, because now she, too, is a ghost, and they live happily ever after, invisible together.
The logic of a child.
“Well, well, well... if it isn’t Johnny Cunning.” Jazz’s voice calls out as she approaches the trailer. “Talk about a sight for sore eyes.”
I glance at her, grinning, as I close the notebook. “Jazz.”
“Is that…?” She grabs her chest, feigning shock. “Is that a smile on your face?”
“Maybe,” I say. “What, can’t remember the last time you saw one of those?”