“Cheers to that.” I smiled.
Life was fucking crazy. If you had told me a year ago that I would be celebrating my wedding with my neighbor-turned-employee-turned-babymama-turned-wife, I’d have sent you to receive professional help. And my dad wholeheartedly voiced his agreement.
“Can’t say I would have ever pictured this life for you.” He looked around the house. All the guests had become a support system for Maggie and me since living here. I was damn lucky. “Although there is a hint of both of you as kids sprinkled on all of this,” he chuckled.
I took another swig of beer, eyes landing on Maggie. She was in the living room laughing with Lina and another woman I didn’t recognize. Her white dress fit her like a glove, and there was no doubt I’d be taking it off her with haste later tonight. “What do you mean?” I asked absently.
My dad let out another chuckle, noticing the way I looked at my wife. “Well, that right there for starters.”
I threw my head back with a laugh. He was going to hold my troublesome childhood antics over me for life. I’d be lucky if he didn’t recount stories to my own kids and give them ideas. “Don’t tell me the apple falls far from the tree.”
“Oh, it sure doesn’t. I just didn’t think I’d see you married with a kid on the way at twenty-three. You’re a changed man.”
I continued gazing at my wife. “Yeah. I feel like one.”
“Can I ask you something without you going off the rails?” My head swiveled back at his question.
“What’s going to make me go off the rails?”
He sighed. “Possibly me mentioning your mother.”
Hope rose in my gut. “Did you find her?”
My father’s eyes softened. “More like she found me.” Hope still rising, I motioned for him to continue. “I talked to her last week, actually. Turns out, she did have our phone numbers, but she was off the grid for the last few months on a volunteer mission in Zambia.”
Not going to lie, part of me felt relieved as hell that she was alive. But another part of me questioned why she hadn’t contacted her son when she received cell service.
“I think…” Dad shook his head. “She wants to legally separate. It’s nothing sour—we just need to find other people.”
Holy shit. Everything my mother said in those letters was true.
I just need a bit more time away from your father.
It has nothing to do with you, darling. I am just so happy here.
I’ve met people with as much passion for adventure as I have.
And now she really was leaving my father. I should have spiraled—it was what I expected myself to do. But all I cared about was my father’s well-being. Family first.
I wanted to ask,what about you? What are you going to do with the rest of your life without yourwife? How can you stand living without her?
But I couldn’t. The guilty part of me wanted to drag him along with me for the rest of my polo career, let him be a grandfather to my child, and feel included in our family. The idea of losing Maggie and accepting that she no longer wanted anything to do with me would fucking crush me. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, least of all, my own father.
So, I just nodded.
Except Lenz was my father. He read my every expression.
“I’m going to be okay,” he grinned softly. “I didn’t want to mention it to you on the phone yesterday, given your…state of mind.”
I nodded and took another swig of beer. It wouldn’t have done me any good to hear about it anyway. Re-reading the letters my mother sent me did quite enough. In fact, those letters might have been the sole reason I wasn’t shocked about this separation.
But Lenz was an incredible fucking man. He deserved happiness. And if he could find it somewhere else, it was all I could hope for.
“So, about your freakout yesterday…” He trailed off. “You get that all sorted out?”
My shoulders relaxed in memory of the weight lifted off them after last night's events. Of Maggie finding me on the floor, unable to control myself, soothing me back into normality. It rattled me that it took a severe panic attack and an ambulance ride to the hospital to reveal my fears to my wife, but I waslearning. I was growing. We were growing together. The way a family should.
“Yeah, we did.”
