Bad Dad

by Sloane Howell

  I took a deep breath and continued. I didn’t have time to be giving a history lesson right then, let alone having a near-breakdown, but Logan was more important than anything else in the world. He deserved his answers and the truth if something happened to me. Nobody else knew the whole story. It would die along with me if I didn’t pass it along to him.

  I sucked in a huge breath. His hand gripped my thigh and he smiled at me.

  “We made plans to raise you as friends. It would’ve been like kids at school whose parents don’t live in the same house. Only we would’ve still been best friends the whole time.”

  Logan looked at me, puzzled. “Did you stop being friends? Is that why she doesn’t come to see me?”

  My heart pinched in my chest and I felt the sting of tears burning hot again. I shook my head emphatically. I had to let him know that there was a good reason he’d never met her. That he’d never done anything wrong. I’d told him as much in the past when he’d asked, but I never really knew if he’d bought into it. I told myself he did, but a child’s mind is a complicated landscape. “Oh no, Son. If she was—” I had to stop and take another deep breath. I fought the emotion with everything I had to try and get the words out. Finally, I sighed and took a long look at him. “She was so excited to meet you, Logan. She would talk to you when you were in her belly. She even ate healthy foods that she hated. She wanted you to be perfect and get everything you needed. She loved you so m-much, big man.”

  I sniffled and realized I hadn’t actually said anything out loud about what happened to Miranda in a very long time. I hadn’t talked about it with anyone. I refused to even acknowledge it for months after Logan was born. A tidal wave of excruciating pain roiled inside of me, and it was about to come out. I dammed it up. Fought it back with everything I had.

  “Okay.” I exhaled all the air from my lungs.

  Logan gripped my leg harder, and then slid his hand up to my arm. “It’s okay, Dad. You can tell me.”

  I nodded and smiled at his strength. I was supposed to be strong for him, and the roles had completely reversed. And that was fine by me. I wanted him to know it was okay to show yourself, be weak in front of people you loved sometimes. It was okay to open up and let them in, so that you didn’t always have to carry around all of the burdens. “So, we went to the hospital when it was time for you to come. And she had you and you were the most beautiful thing either of us had ever seen. We couldn’t stop staring at you. She absolutely adored you. You were it for her. She lived and breathed for you. She wouldn’t stop talking about you. Everything was about you.” I reached out with an index finger and tapped it on his nose. My shoulders slumped, and the blood rushed out of my face.

  Logan’s hand moved up and down my arm, caressing my bicep in a fatherly way. I don’t even think he realized he was doing it.

  My stare moved from his hand to his eyes. “Something happened. There were complications. It was all so fast, and my mind was spinning.” I covered my face with my free hand and lost it. Sobbed uncontrollably into it. I had to get the words out for him, but it was so fucking hard. I hadn’t ever said them aloud. “They took her back. To do surgery, an-and—”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” he whispered. He scooted closer and I felt his arms wrap around me.

  I eased my gaze slowly down to his and I showed him my face. Showed him all the vulnerability it held. Showed him me at my weakest point. Weaker than when Joe had pummeled me in the yard. Weaker than when Cora lay practically dead on the highway. I’d stepped up and did what I had to do in both of those moments, but with Miranda, there was nothing I could do. When it came to what had happened with her, it’d broken me, and I’d never taken the time to fix myself. Not in more than seven years. I couldn’t. I had Logan to look out for. Didn’t have the luxury of worrying about myself when he was less than a day old and needed me more. I shook my head. “Sh-she never came back.”

  “She died?” Logan stared up at me.

  I nodded. Couldn’t do anything else. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move.

  “Dad, don’t cry.” He dove into my chest and I wrapped him up and squeezed. Squeezed like I never wanted to let him go. So hard I thought I might be crushing him, but I felt his arms tighten right back.

  I wiped my eyes. “It’s our job to stay strong and protect the people we love, Son.” I scooped him up into my lap. “But it’s okay to be sad too. Don’t ever let someone call you weak for feeling something. Ever. Don’t you ever think you’re not a man because something makes you sad. Promise me.”

  His head bobbed up and down. “I promise.”

  “I took you from the hospital and disappeared. I’d seen a picture of Montana in a book and thought it looked like a great place to raise a boy. And that’s where we went.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  I couldn’t tell if Logan was sad or happy or just indifferent. I thought it was probably a combination of the first two. Sad that he’d never meet his biological mother, but happy to know the truth. Happy to know that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that the only reason she didn’t come to see him was because she couldn’t.

  We sat there for a little while longer. Just staring at the wall. Both of us looked past it, to what was behind it, to the future. Finally, he angled his gaze back up to me. “Dad?”

  I scrubbed a hand through my hair and wiped more tears from my eyes. Then I mussed up his hair like I always did and smiled. “Yeah?”

  “You’re going to win tonight.”

  My eyes narrowed. I stared long and hard at him. He believed every word of what he said. For kids anything was possible. I needed some of that. “Buddy, I don’t know.” My stare moved back to the wall and I shook my head. I didn’t want to lie to him. He needed to be prepared to handle things.

  He gripped me by the forearm. “Dad. I mean it. You can do this. You have to.”

  Joe and I had studied every single Sid fight tape in existence. We spent hours poring over them. Joe even more than me. He’d only spotted a couple of possible weak spots. Nothing exploitable.

  I moved my hand to Logan’s shoulder. “I will do everything I can. Everything. But you need to be ready to handle it if I lose. Okay?” I sighed. “You have to be ready to take care of the family if I can’t.”

  I’d expected him to frown, or freak out, or tell me there was no way I could lose. Expected him to have some false sense of security, or outlandish notion that it was a hundred percent certain that I’d win. But he didn’t.

  He grinned and nodded at me. “We can only do our best, right?”

  His grin took me by surprise. Like he knew something I didn’t. It worried me on the inside, but comforted me all the same. I had to trust him. Putting trust like that in a seven-year-old seems like a silly notion, but it wasn’t for us. I knew my son, what we’d been through, what he was capable of. Our own experience and journey through life had prepared him and we both knew it. I’d tried to protect him for so long, but not even I could keep him from becoming who he was destined to be—a Lane, a warrior.

  I’d told him those same words he’d just said when he was around five and was learning how to ride a bike. Something I knew he’d get a chance to do in Montana and not in a busy city. The kid had an impeccable memory.

  I nodded at him. “That’s right, big man. We can only do our best. And as long as we do our best, it will always be good enough.”

  We hugged and Logan didn’t shed a single tear. I’d wanted him to be iron and he was more.

  We walked out into the living room of the hotel. Janet looked like she’d been threatening Joe with his life if he had gone in and interrupted us. I glanced at the clock. Six thirty p.m. Fights started at seven. I’d probably fight around ten.

  I needed to get out of the room and do some heavy meditation for an hour. Then would come the dog and pony show for the press. Walk down a hallway in a robe. Disappear into the locker room. Something for them to show on TV to build the suspense.

  One thing still
lurked in the back of my mind. Where the hell was Gus?

  Janet didn’t know. Joe didn’t seem concerned. Nobody had heard from him.

  He wasn’t going to be by my side in the arena, but he was supposed to run some interference with the media so Joe and I could focus. He was supposed to help them get out of there if I lost the fight and could still breathe. Gus was tough as nails and knew the MGM Grand layout better than anyone. We needed him.

  I turned to Janet.

  She held up a hand. “Don’t.”

  I canted my head slightly and frowned.

  “No sentimental crap. You hear me, boy? Go kick that guy’s ass so we can all just go home.”

  I stared and told her with my eyes I’d do everything in my power. “I love you. You’re the only mother I’ve ever had.”

  Cora’s eyes glossed over as she watched.

  Janet broke out into tears and ran over. Her arms wrapped around my ribs and she nearly knocked the breath out of me. “I said no sentimental crap.” She sniffled. “You asshole.”

  “You needed to hear it.”

  She stepped back and put two palms on each of my cheeks. “You’re like a son to me. You know that. And you’re the best son in the world.”

  My head angled up to the ceiling. I closed my eyes and then opened them back up at her again.

  I turned to Logan. “You hear that? I’m the best.”

  I had to make the joke. I didn’t know how much more I could handle.

  My gaze roamed around to all three of them and then back to Janet. My eyes said, take care of my family if I don’t make it.

  She nodded, and her stare said, you know I will.

  I walked to Cora. She tried to fight back the tears, but they came bursting through anyway. My palms went to her cheeks and she nuzzled into them like a cat. “You’re everything.”

  I got down on my knees and took her hand. Kissed the inside of her wrist like I always did. I closed my eyes. “Say it, please. I need to hear it.”

  “I’m yours. Always.”

  She tugged on my hand and I stood and held her. I cradled her carefully in my arms so I wouldn’t aggravate her injury. “This isn’t the last time I’ll hold you like this.”

  She nodded against my chest. “I believe you, babe. I believe in you. We all do.”

  I leaned down and pressed my mouth to hers. Kissed her softly with a promise there would be more. That there’d be more kisses and more love and more everything. More of me. Soon. “I love you. Always.”

  “Always.”

  We shared a moment where our eyes locked. Where the world faded and it was just her and me. Losing was not an option. I locked in their faces—all of them. Took a mental photograph and logged it away. They were my fuel, my torch. I lived and breathed for all of them, and I would continue to do so.

  I sat Cora down and stepped back. My head swiveled around to everyone once more. All my focus moved to the task at hand. The sentiments and gestures of love were done. The promises had been made. The promises I intended to fight for, to keep. “We all clear on the plans? You guys watch the fight from the room. If I lose, you get out of Dodge with the first route we talked about. If I’m alive, I’ll make my own way out with Joe. We rendezvous where it said on the paper at the house. We’ll regroup. First one there pays with cash and uses an alias. No devices.” I glared at Janet. “Not even the Kindle. We’ll get a new one. Read a paperback.”

  Joe’s arms folded across his chest and he nodded. Everyone else followed suit. We were a team, a family. We had this locked up. They were to leave their cell phones on and abandon them in cars with northern license plates in the parking lot. If they couldn’t do that, then use a local vehicle or dump them in a trash can.

  “If you meet resistance, alternate to the next route. Think on your feet.”

  Everyone agreed. We’d been over it several times on the trip and before we’d left.

  “Don’t say the name of the rendezvous point. Not here. Not anywhere. Always assume we’re being watched or listened to until we’re out of here.”

  Joe took a step toward the door. “They got it, asshole. We need to go.”

  I glanced around at them. “I can do this. We can do this.” I kissed Logan and Cora one last time.

  Then we left.

  CHAPTER 40

  Landon Lane

  WE FINISHED MEDITATING. I’D NEVER felt so indestructible and at peace in my life. Something in the air had hope in it.

  Joe and I headed into the locker room to get ready. I paced back and forth for a bit and then walked to the table. Joe taped up my hands, slow and methodical. Each wrap perfectly aligned. Everything mattered. Even the tape. Millimeters and nanoseconds could make or break a fight. Especially at the speeds Sid and I would be moving at.

  Joe and I didn’t say a word. We knew the score—what needed to happen. It was like being in the barracks before an operation. This was one of our missions. Life or death, with more than ourselves on the line.

  I pulled on my shorts and then my robe. Looked at the clock. We’d meditated for a while in an abandoned wing under construction near the roof. Vegas was the loudest and brightest city on the planet and it’d all faded away.

  I visualized every possible scenario. Every action. What to do if I was ahead. What to do if I was losing. I felt the blows from Sid. My mind conjured up old memories and feelings. The cold air wouldn’t numb the pain this time. It’d be more intense. Sid was bigger and stronger. Much more powerful. One wrong move and he’d crush my skull. That was if he didn’t toy with me first.

  Joe stared at me. “Ready for the shit show?”

  I nodded.

  Someone from the WMMA stepped into the locker room. A man wearing makeup. Joe stared at him like he was not really a man at all.

  “You boys ready?” His voice came alive like someone you heard on the radio or TV. Excitement radiated from his words.

  Of course it did. His family’s life wasn’t on the line, nor his own. I cursed humanity. This was gladiator shit. They thought someone might die on the TV. That’s why they tuned in. It’s why it was the most important fight in history. Dominated every aspect of social media. Even mainstream news ran stories on it. If they didn’t glorify it, maybe I wouldn’t have been there.

  I nodded to the guy. “Let’s do it.”

  WE STOOD BEHIND A DOOR. On the other side of it was a camera on rollers. The makeup man explained everything to us.

  “Look straight ahead and just walk like you’re heading to the arena. We go about fifty feet and cut. Then you can go back to your locker room. Make sure to look intimidating.”

  “Okay.” I rolled my eyes.

  The door eased open and Joe and I walked straight ahead.

  Joe swung his arms out to his sides behind me. He was apparently much more of a showman. “Vegas baby. Vegas!”

  It took everything I had not to crack a smile. Him and his damn movies.

  “And cut!” The man looked at us. “That was perfect. Someone will call when we’re ready for you to head down to the arena.”

  He disappeared.

  I turned to Joe and cracked a smile. Shook my head.

  “Watched Swingers before we came.”

  “I’d never have guessed.”

  He stared at me, puzzled. “Why wouldn’t you guess that?”

  I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  His face hardened. “It’s time.”

  I nodded.

  “Get focused, asshole.” He walked off.

  CHAPTER 41

  Cora Chapman

  I PRACTICALLY CHEWED OFF THE fingernail on my right index finger. Stared down at my blue Chucks with red laces. The same ones I wore the first day I saw Landon. It was silly, but they made me feel like Wonder Woman in some strange way.

  I had to be strong.

  My phone rang. It jarred me from my seat. Landon had said to leave them on. Everything like normal until it was time to run. It still felt like I’d done something wrong. I did
n’t know how to behave or act.

  The screen lit up. Principal Williams.

  What the hell?

  I flashed Janet a strange look. She shrugged.

  I answered it.

  “Hello?”

  Why was he calling me at nine forty-five? He knew the fight was about to start anytime. He knew where I was. Knew I was still out because of my arm. I’d taken all my vacation days after my sick time ran out. I figured I might as well get paid up for the days I’d earned until I disappeared. If I had to disappear.

  “Cora. We have a problem.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of dealing with other things at the moment.”

  “We need you to resign from your position.”

  I chewed my fingernail down harder. What did this mean? Landon had taught me there was a reason behind everything. I’d figured I probably wouldn’t be back for a long time. I’d said goodbye to my family.

  Even though it was going to be hard to leave my kids behind, even after only one school year, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make for Landon and Logan. Resigning would have implications though. References mattered in teaching. I’d hoped to leave on a good note so I could teach somewhere else if I wanted.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “There are things you need to know. This is coming from high places, but you know Charles Hastings’ wife is on the school board. They know you’re with Landon. They’re claiming you treat kids unfairly in the classroom because you’re dating one of the parents. It looks bad. I got another call from the regional superintendent.”

  “I did no such thing with regards to treating anyone unfair.”

  He paused. It almost sounded like he was being forced to say the things he was saying. It was probably true to an extent. It seemed rehearsed, like he was reading from a teleprompter.

  “Did you know Landon assaulted Hastings and five other men? Actually, he did it more than once.”

  “No, he didn’t. He talked to Hastings once outside of a convenience store.”