Connor grips my hair. “If you can see this, we have an issue.” He tilts my head back, jerking my chin and face up so that my eyes meet his.
“Goddamn you’re aggressive, love.”
“If you want softer, you’re with the wrong man.”
A truth I’ve always known, and I didn’t have to pretend make-out with him to find out.
Lily inhales. “Is Lo giving you a blow job?”
Connor releases his grip, and I cock my head towards the phone in his hand. “A pretend blow job, love.”
“Ohmygod.”
My pretends with Lily are real. They always have been.
I stand up. “Lily Hale,” I say towards the phone. I think about all the things I could say, but I end up with this one, “I love you.”
Her voice is a lot more subdued. “I love you just as much.”
I relax. “Is this the end of our fight?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I should give more pretend blow jobs,” I say to her.
“Ohmygod. Is my face hot?” she asks her older sister.
“Nice nipples, boys,” Daisy says.
Connor picks up his shirt and passes me mine. “They can see through the window,” he states what we all now know.
I put my shirt on. “Can we get someone to tint the windows more?”
“One of my subsidiary companies focuses on tinting,” he reminds me. “I’ll see what they can do.”
“There you go,” I say to the girls on the line. “Connor Cobalt saves the day again.”
In our world, it’s a common ending.
< 27 >
July 2022
The Meadows Cottage
Philadelphia
RYKE MEADOWS
“When does rain stop? What is rain made of?” Sulli lies on a mound of pillows she calls Mermaid Rock and kicks her feet like she’s splashing water. “What if it rains forever? What would happen then?”
At four, she has dark brown hair, wild and long, inquisitive green eyes, and tanned skin from the time we spend outdoors, especially in the fucking summer. Rain thrashes against the windowpanes, and Sulli knows it’s the reason why we aren’t in the backyard.
I’m on the living room floor with my daughter, the two of us awake at an early fucking hour. Around 5:00 a.m. in Philly.
“Rain is water that comes from the fucking clouds,” I say after I eat a big spoonful of cereal, “and too much creates a flood.”
Sullivan doesn’t ask me to define a flood. She places her hands beneath her chin and scrunches her nose at my half-eaten bowl of granola cereal. She spits it out whenever I let her try some—but it’s not the only food she hates.
Vegetables? Fucking never.
Meat? Not yesterday or a fucking year from that.
Fruit? Mostly melons and tangerines.
She only ate a fucking waffle after Daisy put whipped cream and caramel on top.
Sullivan kicks her legs again, dressed in a green mermaid skirt and a tiny bikini top. When I woke, I peeked into her room and found her hastily tugging on her skirt. Like she was running out of fucking time.
“Hey, sweetie.” I bent down and helped pull up her shiny green skirt, and then I fumbled with the strands of the bikini top.
“I’m gonna be late.” She sprinted around me, worry in her eyes.
“Sulli!” I ran after her and muttered, “Fucking A.”
“Mommy! Mommy!” she shouted, swinging her head for any sign of Daisy. “It’s mermaid day!”
I picked her up before she reached the banister. She wiggled against me and outstretched her arms towards the air as though she could fly right to her mom. It nearly broke my fucking heart, but I just remembered, she knows her mom.
She has one.
In some different kind of world, she’d never meet Daisy, and her life wouldn’t contain the same breathtaking light.
I threw Sulli over my shoulder to distract her, brought her back into her room, and plopped her down on her wicker swing. I grabbed hold of the fucking sides so she wouldn’t dash off.
“Mommy’s not fucking back yet,” I reminded Sulli. I told our daughter that she’d be gone for three days. It’s been one.
Her chin trembled. “Why?”
“She’s checking on all the fucking kids at camp.” Daisy isn’t the camp director. She’s the owner, so she’s not there full-time in the summer. But during the two-week and month-long sessions for campers, Daisy will attend their Spirit Days, which are really a kid’s last three days at Camp Calloway. It’s filled with more celebration and activities, including hanging out with Daisy, a world-famous celebrity.
Sulli began crying. “But she’s my fairy godmother…”
Dais and Sulli play dress-up when our daughter wants. If I ever join them, I’m the fucking pirate who says bad words. I didn’t think Sullivan would declare today as mermaid day, but she misses Dais. There’s a gaping hole in our lives when she’s not around.
Sulli blubbers out, “I thought she’d be back. Can you tell her to come home soon? Please, Daddy. Will she come home?”
When Sulli cries, my heart caves. My world fucking caves. I cave.
How do I cheer up my fucking daughter?
Simple.
I became the fairy fucking godmother.
In less than a minute, her tears stopped, she led me to her trunk of trinkets, and she passed me Daisy’s pink tutu outfit and purple paper wand.
It’s what I wear now. I squeezed the fuck into my wife’s leotard, thankful she’s tall or else there would’ve been no way this would’ve worked.
Sulli called me the grumpy fairy, like there are seven of us. Now we’re eating breakfast in the quiet cottage on the living room floor. Sullivan nibbles on a tangerine slice and rattles off more questions.
“What is water made of?”
“Molecules.” I say before eating another spoonful of cereal.
“Why are molecules cold?”
“Ask your fucking uncle.”
“Why does Uncle Connor know everything?”
“Because he’s a fucking know-it-all.” I wipe my mouth with my arm, my brows scrunching as Sulli rolls onto her back.
She peeks beneath the waistband of her mermaid skirt. “Daddy?” Concern spikes her voice. I’m about to scoot closer and pull her off the mound of pillows, but she asks, “Where did my hair go down there?”
Fucking fuck.
Before I changed into this fairy outfit, I thought she’d been staring at the trail of hair that runs from my belly button and disappears beneath the band of my track pants.
“You’re too fucking young to have hair down there.”
She pouts sadly and keeps staring beneath her skirt. “Will it come soon?”
“No.” Fuck no. I’m not ready for her to go from four to fucking puberty yet. I seriously feel like she was just born yesterday. Truth is, I can’t imagine seeing her as anything other than my little girl.
I sip the milk from my bowl, set it aside, and text Dais: how do you feel?
Right when I press send, my phone beeps with an incoming message.
Ryke… – Lo I cancelled on the gym this morning with my brother and Connor because Sulli was upset. That one text skyrockets my nerves.
What’s wrong? I send it. A second beep.
Groovy :) – Daisy I’d smile more if my little brother didn’t just send me a random ass text. Third beep.
Can you come to the gym? – Lo Something’s wrong.
I don’t think twice. I just act. “Want to go for a fucking ride, Sulli?” I’m already lifting her off the pillows.
Sulli nods rapidly and spits out her tangerine.
I practically storm out the fucking door.
*
I only remember I’m in a fucking leotard and tutu when I park my Land Cruiser at the gym. Four cameramen are waiting by the curb.
“Fuck,” I curse, unbuckling. I turn to the backseat, searching for a pair of pants.
Sullivan waits patiently in her car seat, not afraid of the paparazzi because of Daisy’s Shell Time TV game, but she’s not friendly towards them either. Don’t fucking talk to strangers, we’ve repeated to Sulli a thousand fucking times.
Ropes. Carabineers. A fucking climbing helmet but no change of clothes. “Fuck it.” I open my door to intense hollering and camera flashes.
I’m on an ignore and fuck off setting. I open the passenger door and start unbuckling Sulli, her hands pressed over her ears because of this: “RYKE!”
“TURN AROUND, RYKE!”
“RYKE, RIGHT HERE!! OVER HERE!”
“SULLIVAN! OVER HERE!!”