Mountain Daddy_The Single Dad's New Baby

by Layla Valentine

  “You’ll make good time at this hour,” I said, hearing words that people were meant to say escape my mouth. Sensible talk. My thoughts murmured around my head, unable to escape.

  “Wait.” Gracie’s voice was high-pitched and stark, compared to our adult ones. She reached into her small pocket, drawing out a small, white rectangular piece of paper. Frowning, I realized I knew what it was almost instantly: a polaroid photo.

  “Gracie, when did you…?” I asked her, incredulous.

  Since she’d been about four years old, I’d been teaching her to use the camera, training her artistic eye. I’d been hanging the photos she’d taken along the walls, directly beside the ones I’d taken over the years.

  There was such a gorgeous art to taking a polaroid. No matter how unbelievable the situation, after you snapped a photo, it became real. And it would be real in the most unapologetic way. It would be blurry, wild, crooked—whatever. And so often, during her younger years, Gracie hadn’t been able to take anything except blurry photos, things that were inarticulate, without much artistry. I knew she’d grow into it.

  But there, in her hand, she held a picture that I didn’t know she’d snapped, showing Serena and me from the night before. We were huddled together on the couch, our knees nearly touching. Serena was laughing at something I had said. Her eyes were alight, and her hands clutched her mug of cocoa.

  The photo was slightly crooked, but not blurry. I looked handsome and alive, my skin tanned and my shoulders wide. I hadn’t seen a photograph of myself in a long time. I had hardly looked in the mirror in years.

  “I wanted you to have this,” Gracie said, speaking to Serena. “So you can remember us.”

  Serena reached for the photo. Her eyes twinkled with tears. After bringing it higher into the air, realizing what it captured—our budding love, something we were both throwing away—her lips parted. I sensed she was on the verge of saying something big. But I stepped forward, placing my hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

  “A memento of our week together,” I told her, hugging her lightly. I made sure our bodies didn’t touch, that it was purely our arms patting backs. That we didn’t ignite more emotions, during this terrible, passionate time. Nothing could last forever. We both knew it.

  “I’ll keep it with me always,” Serena told Gracie, now unable to look me in the eye.

  After hugging Gracie tightly, kissing the top of her head, Serena ducked into the driver’s seat of her car and cranked up the engine. With a final, bleary-eyed wave, she drove toward the gravel road, then began her slow descent back into civilization.

  I sensed her leaving my life, falling away. I could almost feel my life grow even and right-angled again. I began to remember things I needed to do around the house. I remembered that I needed to help Gracie with her penmanship that night, before school. I needed to think about the days, weeks, and months ahead, gearing up to winter.

  I had to fill the space Serena had taken up in my brain.

  Placing my hand on Gracie’s shoulder, I led her back toward our tiny cabin, alone. Her head was turned down; the light in her eyes continued to quiver with sadness.

  “Sometimes,” I told Gracie, my voice low, “we only know people for a very small, blip of time. And sometimes those people mean the most to us.”

  “She should have stayed,” Gracie said, not playing along with my game. “She should be here. With us.”

  When we reached the cabin, I watched as Gracie darted into her bedroom, slamming the door closed behind her. I stood on the back porch, staring out over the lake. Clouds had begun to roll in over the top of us, growing heavy with rain. This was a shift in time, another era. The era without Serena.

  Already, her laugh was a mere memory. The way she’d flipped her hair—it would be something I would forget, very soon. The mannerisms we remember about people, the things they say, it all falls away and becomes like a shadow. I knew that, and had always known it.

  It was nearing lunch. I’d have to feed Gracie, even if she didn’t want to look at me. I trudged back into the kitchen, my shoulders hanging low.

  Outside, a crackle of lightning swept across the darkening sky. Nature was taking its course on all of us. Serena was not coming back.

  Chapter 11

  Serena

  December 15. I stared at the date as it flashed up on my computer at work, hardly able to believe it. It had been over two months since I’d returned home from the cabin in the mountains—over two months since I’d had Ethan’s arms wrapped around me.

  We’d had hardly any contact since, just the occasional text message, the occasional “Hope you guys are well.” Ethan wasn’t exactly great at responding, usually offering a “You too” after a few days. I didn’t blame him. He didn’t live in the modern world of the internet and social media.

  Sometimes, I hated myself for searching for any online presence of him, wondering if he’d revealed himself in any small way. Posted on a message board, or asked questions about building a cabin in the mountains. But of course, as Ethan was a professional, he hadn’t revealed anything. He was hidden. And now, he was a part of my past.

  I had to remind myself of that, over and over again. We were nothing to one another. Only memories.

  Monica, a coworker, crept past my desk and leaned against it, giving me a broad smile. She tapped her nails against the desk, shrugging slightly.

  “Daydreaming again?” she asked. She could always see straight through me.

  “Not about him,” I said, my nostrils flared. “It’s over. I know that. I’m not delusional.”

  Monica chuckled. “I’ve never seen you more caught up on anyone in your life. Don’t you think it’s time you headed back to that mountain of yours and see if it could be real love? It’s not something you can shake…”

  Gathering my papers into a folder, I gave her an ominous look. “You know I have too much work to do.”

  “Around the holidays? Things always slow down,” Monica said, almost pleading with me now. “And I don’t want you to have to spend all the next year alone.”

  “As if being alone was so terrible all the years before?” I asked, laughing sadly.

  I remembered, with a jolt, what it felt like to have Gracie’s hand wrapped around my fingers. I remembered what it felt like to be included, to be loved. Now, I spent nearly every evening alone on my couch, burying myself in work papers. I spent the hours nibbling at takeout from the nearby burrito shack, wondering if I’d have time to cook a meal again.

  “Just consider it,” Monica sighed. Leaning forward, she gazed into my eyes, as if trying to stare into the depths of my soul.

  “What is it?” I asked her, growing perturbed. I wasn’t accustomed to being stared at. I brought my fingers through my hair, untangling a small coil. “Is there something on my face?”

  “You’re just looking a little green, is all,” Monica said, placing her hand on my shoulder and jostling it slightly.

  “Just haven’t eaten yet,” I lied, feeling my stomach twist and turn within me.

  Truthfully, I’d tried to eat lunch a few hours before. But the sandwich had seemed all dried up and sour-looking, despite consisting of fresh bread, vegetables, and cheese. I’d bundled it back up, untouched, in a piece of paper towel and given it to a homeless person on the corner, chalking it up to nerves about my packed schedule.

  “Just make sure you’re taking care of yourself,” Monica sighed, playing with her long, red hair. “I’ll do my best for you. But if you can’t see that what you had with Ethan was really something—”

  “I better be off to my meeting,” I told her, my voice false and chipper.

  I burst up from my desk, gripping my folder of papers, and began to walk with purpose toward the front foyer. I raced past several other lawyers, and two of my clients, who were waiting for our meeting in ten minutes.

  After exchanging nods with them, I burst into the bathroom and into the stall, feeling my knees clacking together as I sat down. T
ears began to quiver down my cheeks. I knew, in these desolate moments, that I would never see Ethan again. I was too much of a mess to be anything for him.

  I had to refocus all my efforts on the law.

  With a jolt, I burst up from the toilet, spun around, and retched. I stared down at the water, blinking wildly.

  The next moments allowed a kind of internal peace. I flushed the toilet, readjusted my jacket, and moved back into the offices, ready to greet my clients with a broad smile. In the back of my mind, I swept the nauseous spell under a rug and focused on my meeting.

  “Shane Merkley?” I said to the new client, a broad-shouldered ex-mob boss (although that was always alleged) with a handsome face, dimples, and a thick, black head of curls.

  Shane stood up with a confident air when I approached him. He’d recently left jail, after putting up bail. I’d been assessing his charge for hours, trying to hone a plan of attack.

  “That’s me,” he said, his voice deep, yet warm. He was entirely self-assured, a kind of man who made you believe that, just by speaking with him, you were a bit smarter, a bit more assured, yourself. “And you must be Serena?”

  “The very same.” I gave him a smile, swallowing a final time to erase all memory of that strange dizzy spell. “If you’ll follow me into my office, we can get started,” I told him, guiding him toward the far room.

  As I walked, I restructured my thoughts, reminding myself that Ethan and Gracie were a million miles away, figuratively. That my place was there, with men like Shane Merkley. Innocent until proven guilty. This was a man I could help, unlike Ethan, who had never needed help, who would hide away in his mountain home forever.

  I couldn’t dwell on it.

  As I faced Shane Merkley, preparing to get the bare bones of his case on paper, I glanced outside at the foggy December day. It would be a new year soon. A new set of numbers on the calendar. And by then, Ethan would be even more of a passing memory.

  “You still here?” Shane asked me, leaning forward and giving me a curious, yet charming smile. “Or are you one of those daydreamy types?”

  I bowed my head, diving into the white paper below.

  “It won’t happen again, Mr. Merkley. You can count on me.”

  Chapter 12

  Ethan

  Gracie looped the Christmas ornament over the end of the tree I’d chopped down, her eyes glittering. The decoration was one she’d made herself at school, out of toilet paper roll, glitter, and marker. My heart ached with how proud she was of it. “It took all day to get the glue to dry,” she’d told me.

  “It’s beautiful, Gracie,” I told her, leaning against the couch.

  The tree was a shimmering specimen before us, completely decorated after nearly two hours. My head was becoming bleary with my third drink of whiskey. I hadn’t been sure why, but since Serena had left, I’d been feeling the urge to drink more than normal—to quell the feeling of loneliness, perhaps.

  It didn’t matter. I knew it didn’t. Serena would eventually disappear out of my brain, fall away into a pool of memory. Soon, I wouldn’t remember that unique way she’d smelled. I wouldn’t remember the gorgeous way she kissed, the way she reached for my waist and slipped her fingers along it, gazing into my eyes.

  I collapsed into the couch cushions, watching as Gracie scampered into her room, drawing together her coloring supplies. She perched at the edge of her little art table, drawing large, thick lines with her crayons. Reaching into my pocket, I drew out my cellphone, conscious that I hadn’t remembered to charge it for several days.

  With a lurch, I realized: during that time, Serena might have texted me. She might have said…

  Everything that had remained unsaid, when we’d stupidly, foolishly abandoned the beautiful flower that had begun to bloom between us.

  But no. What did I want her to say? That she wanted to return to me, to live in my shoddy cabin in the middle of the woods? To abandon the life she’d built back in the city, the only one she’d ever known, simply because I couldn’t exist in the real world?

  Never, in my years as a bounty hunter, had I imagined a predicament like this. A predicament like love. I’d never thought of love as anything more than a foolish man’s game.

  Regardless, I pressed the charging cord into the phone and waited, watching as the light flashed onto the screen. Gracie hummed to herself in the other room, a Christmas tune I couldn’t place.

  As seconds ticked past, I waited, hoping for a notification from Serena. But there was only a single message from Gracie’s elementary school teacher. “Happy Holidays!” it read. “See you back at school on January 4.”

  Damn.

  I flung the phone against the back cushion of the couch, grateful that it didn’t ricochet to the ground and alarm Gracie. My heart hammered in my chest, angry and volatile. I felt akin to the 20-something man who’d brooded, roaming across the continent without a single person to call his own. The me who was no longer me at all. At least, I thought I’d left him behind.

  “Hey, Gracie?” I called, my voice gritty.

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “Get your teeth brushed. You’re heading to grandma and grandpa’s in the morning, remember?”

  “Five more minutes?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and pleading.

  “Now, Gracie.”

  Reluctantly, she put her crayons down.

  Going through the motions of the next half hour, I brushed Gracie’s blond curls and tucked her into her bed. I read her a story, almost sleepwalking—and feeling like a shit father, who knew all the right words to say, but who said them without a moment of feeling.

  As I closed the door to her bedroom, I reached for the bottle of whiskey on the far counter, lurching it back. The liquid was harsh and fiery against my tongue. I grunted, stepping out onto the porch and staring out into the blackness. The lake reflected the darkness of the sky and the glittering stars above. For a moment, I pretended Serena was there. I imagined her beside me, gripping my fingers, holding onto me tight.

  But she wasn’t coming back.

  As soon as I’d thought it, the visualization of her dissolved beside me. I stepped to the right, standing where she’d “been.” I felt nothing beneath my boot.

  While Gracie was gone, I resigned myself to many days alone. I resolved to sit on the porch of my cabin, and feel the weight of loneliness pressing down on my chest. I would fall into a stupor, with drink, and I would chop wood and build a fire and stare into the flames. I was going to purge Serena from my brain, and find solace in being alone once more.

  I’d been alone all my life, until Gracie. She was the only life force I needed.

  As I guzzled the last of my whiskey (knowing to stop when the lake and the sky had begun to shimmer and grow bleary before my very eyes), I resolved to start the next year fresh, anew. Perhaps I’d build onto the cabin, restructure a second story throughout the beginning of the winter months. I’d formulate a new, more realistic plan without Serena.

  I would be alone, and it would be better. It would be right. There was a reason I hadn’t allowed this to happen before. And there was a reason I was stamping it out, now, for good.

  Chapter 13

  Serena

  “Serena. Hey. Serena?”

  I blinked several times, realizing I’d zoned out. Glancing up from my desk, I found myself staring into the blissful eyes of Monica. Her bright red sweater was a bit too tight over her breasts, making a Christmas tree stretch to odd proportions. I frowned and scrubbed at my eyes, giving her a shrug.

  “Sorry. I guess I was just…out of it again.”

  In the far room of the office, the other attorneys were celebrating Christmas Eve. Someone had baked a chocolate cake, with dark frosting and a large fondant Santa Claus in the center. I watched as Steve, another coworker, sliced a knife right through Santa.

  With a lurch, I felt my stomach grow tense. A wave of nausea shot through me. Panicked, sensing my cheeks growing green, I burst up from my seat an
d raced toward the bathroom.

  “Serena?” Monica scampered after me. I could feel her hot on my heels, almost chasing me. “What’s wrong? Did you eat something…?”

  I placed my knees on the ground in the bathroom, hovering over the toilet as I felt my stomach constrict, then release. My shoulders shook and my thoughts raced, trying to pin down a reason why. What had I had for lunch? Nothing. I’d been too busy. For breakfast? A bagel with butter. Could that have been it?

  But no. It didn’t add up.

  I stood up, mopping at my lips with a bit of toilet paper. I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Monica, near the bathroom sink. She seemed shaken, and she gave me a concerned look, whispering, “Serena, are you okay?”

  Glancing into the mirror, I hardly recognized myself: the pale, almost green cheeks, the bleary, red eyes. I shrugged softly, trying to play it off.

  “Why aren’t you at the party?” I asked her, scrubbing my hands in the sink. “That cake looks—erm…”

  “Have you been eating enough?” Monica asked me, her voice lowering. “I know you’ve been so stuck on that Shane Merkley case. Nobody else wanted it, you know? He’s clearly guilty.”

  “He seems like a decent person,” I said, scrubbing at my lips with a paper towel, hoping to rid my mouth of the taste of vomit. “I have my last meeting of the year with him in just a few hours, actually. Prepping for it now.”

  Monica allowed silence to fall. Her eyes were dark, penetrating, studying my every move. I felt another wave of nausea wash over me, gripping my stomach.

  Reaching for my abs, a sudden flow of reason fell over me. I’d attributed my lack of period to stress.

  But now, I realized there might be another reason why.

  “Oh my God!” Monica exclaimed. “You’re not—”

  “Definitely not,” I whispered, feeling as if someone was punching me in the gut, over and over, with a firm fist. “I can’t be.”

  “You haven’t been with—”

  “Not since him. No.” For some reason, it felt impossible to say his name, even as it echoed through my brain and seemed to be the only reason to exist, only reason to breathe. Ethan.