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Honestly, I didn’t see how I could say no.
She’d given up so much to have our son. When her fundamentalist parents found out that she was pregnant at sixteen, they disowned her. She had to move in with a friend and then with my family, once Adrian was born and we were officially engaged.
She also lost her summer dance scholarship with the New York City ballet and never got back on toe shoes again. Pregnancy did something to her feet, she said, that made the wooden boxes of the shoes too painful. She’d done her best to make it in the modern dance world, while taking business classes at NYU and caring for Adrian. But in four years of devoting every spare moment to classes, free performances, and networking at dance world parties, she had yet to land a paying gig.
The offer to tour with a small company who’d found funds to hire a nanny for the three dancers with children too young to leave at home, was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And Adrian was only five and such a mama’s boy. We had fun going to the playgrounds in Central Park when I had an afternoon off from class or hitting the zoo with my parents on weekends, but Angela was his world.
As much as it would break my heart to only see him on video calls and the few weekends that I would be free to fly out and meet them on the road, I knew it was what was best for my son. My wife.
My family.
I had no idea Angela already had a divorce lawyer on retainer, or that she would file as soon as she’d been away six months, the minimum amount of time her lawyer advised she would need to prove my lack of paternal involvement in Adrian’s life.
My parents helped me hire a lawyer to plead my case, but Angela’s attorney was a beast, and she had months of advance planning working in her favor. The judge ruled that Angela should maintain sole physical custody, we would share joint legal custody, and I would be granted one weekend of visitation per month—provided I could make it to wherever Angela was living or touring at the time, and five weeks during Adrian’s summer vacation.
From the get-go, Angela made the visitations as difficult as possible. Arranging to be in Alaska for a dance festival on one of my first court-appointed weekends and calling Adrian every night in tears the first summer he stayed with me in New York. By the end of the first week, the kid was so upset, I stopped taking Angela’s calls, which she used as leverage to claim I was denying her access to Adrian and causing our son psychological distress.
Cue another court battle and more money poured down the drain while my happy, easy-going son grew more withdrawn and emotionally fragile.
By the time he was eight, Adrian rolled his eyes at everything I said. By eleven, he told me I was a deadbeat dad on a regular basis, something he’d obviously heard from his mother. By his freshman year of high school, he appealed the court to stop our summer visits, and…they did.
Since then, he’s been willing to take my money for a car for his sixteenth birthday, a senior trip to Barcelona, and college tuition, but acts like having a civil conversation with me is unspeakably grueling.
Now he’s dropped out of grad school at NYU to DJ and launch some art app. But he expects me to keep paying rent on his apartment, even though he’s a grown man capable of accomplishing great things—as long as it’s something he wants to accomplish, not boring things like supporting himself financially.
I can’t help drawing a parallel between Adrian and focused, mature, hard-working Sydney.
Sexy. You forgot sexy. What do you think Adrian would say if he knew you’ve spent the better part of the past month fantasizing about fucking a woman a couple years older than he is?
I fetch my suitcase from the baggage claim and push the thought away as I head out to find the company car.
I don’t let myself think about Sydney. Not during the day, anyway. Thoughts of the one who got away are reserved for late nights with a glass of scotch and memories of how perfect it felt to wake up with her body close to mine.
I find the car waiting at the curb. Smith, my father’s old driver, who I hired to work for me full time when Dad retired to Florida, greets me with a hug.
“Hey there, Gid,” he says, with a tight squeeze. He’s nearly sixty but built like a barrel-chested bulldog and capable of tossing bags into trunks without breaking a sweat. “How’s life in the sticks?”
“Good,” I say as we part amidst affectionate slaps on each other’s arms. “Nice and boring, just the way I like it.”
Smith laughs. “Not me, man. I couldn’t take it. Gotta have my city life and city food. Which reminds me, Betsy sent a sandwich, since you won’t have time for dinner before the party. It’s in the backseat. Just sit back, snack, relax, and I’ll get you there as fast as the traffic’ll let me.”
I nod and let him take the handle of my rolling bag. “Thanks. Sounds perfect.”
I don’t have a personal assistant on staff in Burlington anymore, but for short, always jam-packed city visits, it’s nice to have someone making sure things run smoothly. Betsy works for Mitch McMillan, my head guy at the New York branch of G.P.G. Green, but keeps me on schedule and up to speed when I’m in the city.
She’s still at the top of her game, a fact proven by the gourmet Italian sub from my favorite Manhattan deli waiting for me on the leather seat inside.
The traffic out of LaGuardia Airport in Queens is typically awful, so I raise the privacy screen in the town car between Smith and myself and tap Betsy’s contact button.
“Welcome to New York, Mr. Gabaldon,” she answers in her hint of a Southern drawl. “Hope you had a smooth flight.”
“It was perfect, and this sandwich is even better. Thank you so much. And won’t you please think about calling me Gideon?”
“I’d rather not, sir,” she says cheerfully. “My mama and daddy would whip my backside if they knew I was disrespecting my boss like that. Just wasn’t raised to first name the people I work for.”
“All right. But if you ever decide you’re ready to ease up on the formality, know that I’m on board.”
“Thank you so much, sir, I’ll keep that in mind. Would you like your briefing on company matters now or tomorrow morning, before your breakfast meeting with Mr. McMillan?”
