Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
“It took him until he was almost four to start calling me Dad. Sofie and Billy corrected him every time he’d call me Rows—he couldn’t pronounce Rhodes, and that’s what they called me—but it took a long time for him to start calling me something else. It used to make me jealous when I’d hear him call Billy Dad. I knew it was stupid. Billy was with him all the time. But it still kind of hurt. I’d send him presents when I saw something he might like. But I still missed birthdays. I still missed his first day of school. I missed everything.
“When he was nine, he complained about them going to visit me during the summer instead of going to ‘do something fun’. That hurt my feelings too, but it mostly made me feel guilty. Guilty that I wasn’t around enough. Guilty that I wasn’t trying hard enough. I had wanted him. I thought about him all the time. But I didn’t want to leave the Navy. I didn’t want to move back here. I liked having something reliable in my life, and for the longest, that was my career. And that made me feel guiltier. I didn’t want to give up one or the other, even if I knew what was more important, what really matters, and that’s my son, and it’s always going to be him. I thought me knowing that was enough.”
Rhodes blew out a breath before glancing at me, part of his mouth going up a little into that twist I knew too well. “Part of me hopes that I’m making it up to him. That it’ll be enough that I’m here now, but I don’t know if it will. I don’t know if he’ll look back on it and think that I half-assed being his dad. That he wasn’t important to me. That’s why I’m trying, so at least I know that I did. That I did everything I could think of to be there for him, but how am I ever going to know, right? Maybe he’ll be an old man when he decides. Maybe not.
“My mom didn’t even try to be a good mom. I can’t think of a single positive memory of her. My oldest brother does, I think, maybe the one right after him too, but that’s it. I’m never going to look back and think of her fondly. I don’t feel like I missed out on anything with her, and that’s shitty. I feel bad for her, for what she had to have gone through, but I didn’t ask for it either, and I got it anyway. But Amos, I asked for. I wanted him. I wanted to do better than what I’d known.”
I reached behind him and took his palm in mine, and when that didn’t seem like enough, I cupped the back of it with my other hand too, cocooning it completely with my own.
He squeezed it, his gray eyes roaming over my face. “Maybe that’s the thing about being a parent: you can just hope what you’ve done is enough. If you care. You hope that the love you gave them, if you really tried, will stay with your child when they’re older. That they can look back on what you did and be content. You hope that they know happiness. But there’s no way of knowing, is there?”
This man… I didn’t know what I would have done without him.
Pressing my lips together, I nodded, tears filling my eyes. Slowly, I lowered my head, until his fist rested against my cheek, and I told him in a croak, “He loves you, Rhodes. He told me not too long ago that he wanted you to be happy. I could tell from the moment I met you both, that you loved him more than anything. I’m sure that’s why Billy and Sofie didn’t hound you about stuff or tell you that you needed to worry. If you hadn’t been doing enough… if you hadn’t been there for him enough… I’m sure they would have said something.” I tried to suck in a breath, but it came in choppy. “Good parents don’t have to be perfect. Just like you love your kid even when they’re not.”
The choke that gripped my throat was sudden and harsh, the slide of several more tears wetting my cheeks. I hiccupped; then I hiccupped again. And something—his hand, it had to be his hand—stroked the back of my head, his fingers combing through my loose hair; I hadn’t brushed it since I’d showered. His words were soft as he said, “I know. I know you miss her. Just like you could tell I love Am, I can tell you loved your mom.”
“I really did. I really do,” I agreed, sniffling, feeling my chest crack with love and grief. “It finally just feels… final, and it makes me sad, but it makes me mad too.”