Birthday Girl(20)

And when I left, I left him with her. Cole never had a chance.

I took her to court, of course, trying to get custody, but judges back then often saw the mother as the better option, and she knew how to solicit sympathy. She wanted Cole, because Cole meant child support. And she certainly got that out of me.

It was like being in prison, having to take him back to her after my weekends with him. She twists things into knots, and that’s what she did to him. By the time he was ten, he was putting himself in front of her if I needed to say things to her, and I was always in the wrong.

By the time he was fourteen, he stopped wanting to visit every other weekend, and now, we barely know each other. He won’t even call unless he needs money.

I shake my head, clearing it. “Want to put in a tape?” I suggest to Jordan.

I don’t meet her eyes, but I can see her head snap in my direction. “A tape? Like a cassette tape?”

Her gaze suddenly flashes to my car stereo and her eyes go wide, surprise lighting up her face. I almost laugh.

She didn’t notice it on the drive here?

“Is that an actual tape deck?” she blurts out.

She reaches out and touches the old car radio like it’s a precious vase and pushes Eject. Out pops a clear cassette tape with white lettering that I’ve never listened to.

She removes it, cupping it in her hand and reading the title. “Guns N’ Roses.” Her hand goes to her mouth, looking like she’s about to fucking cry. “Oh, my God.”

Darting for the glove compartment, she opens it and stares at the line of tapes neatly set up.

“Deep Purple,” she reads, “Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, ZZ Top…”

Then she seems to spot something that really excites her, because she reaches in and plucks out the black Def Leppard case. “Hysteria?” she exclaims, reading the album title. “They don’t make that album anymore. All you can get is the live version!”

I raise my eyebrows, not sure why this is all so exciting. “I’ll take your word for it,” I say, a little amused at her excitement. “This truck was my father’s. Those are his tapes. I just never got around to clearing them out after he…passed away a few years ago.”

It occurs to me that she’s the first one to touch the Guns N’ Roses tape since he put it in the player.

She looks back at the collection. “Well, that’s good, I guess,” she mumbles. “You clearly don’t know what you have here and these would’ve wound up in the bottom of a trash can, for Christ’s sake. Your dad was a cool guy.”

I smile, agreeing. She carefully places the Guns tape back in its case and removes the Def Leppard tape.

“May I?” she asks, gesturing to the tape deck.

I laugh under my breath and shift into higher gear as we charge down the road. “Go for it.”

We listen to two songs on the way home, entering town, and taking a shortcut past the railroad bridge on the river to our right.

“Wow, look at that,” she says.

I slow the truck and follow her gaze to the right, out her passenger side window, and see the river has risen considerably. Instead of the normal twenty feet of clearance between the bridge and the water, the water now rushes like a threat just below the bottom of the bridge. Thankfully, the rain has slowed, so it shouldn’t get any higher.

I step on the gas again, taking us home.

“That was fun,” she said. “Today, I mean.”

I raise my eyebrows and glance at her.

“I mean…” She blinks, correcting herself. “I don’t mean it was fun. I mean, I hope you didn’t get set behind or lose any money, but…” She inhales and exhales, turning her eyes back out her window. “A couple times I nearly felt like my life was almost in danger.”

She sounds entirely too pleased about that, too, and I can tell by her tone that she’s smiling.

“And that’s fun?” I question.

She turns her eyes back out the front windshield and shrugs, amusement pulling at the corner of her mouth.

I chuckle. “Yeah, it was fun. Thanks for helping. I’ll be sure to let you know when the next storm’s about to roll in, so you can get in on the action.”

“Cool.”

I continue driving down the highway and into our quiet town, turning left and then a sharp right into my neighborhood, content for the first time today. She’s a good kid. I hope Cole doesn’t screw it up, because I can already tell this is the kind of girl who would make a good mother and work by your side, building a life instead of draining you dry.

And for some reason it pleases me that she enjoyed herself today. No one in my family ever took much interest—or pride—in what I do for a living. My mother loves me, of course, as did my dad before he died, but they pushed so hard for me to go to college, and that was the plan until Cole came along.

It was always a disappointment that I stayed in this town and worked a job they thought required more brawn than brains.

When I started Lawson Construction, though—my own business—and built my own home, they still always looked at me like they wanted better but knew it was useless to say anything. They’d given up.

It wasn’t that they hated what I did or were unhappy with the man I’ve become. They mourned my missed opportunities and still worried about their son’s happiness. What they didn’t realize, though, is that I have my own son now and his happiness comes first.