“Stop paging me, Tom.” He lost it in a way I could’ve expected. I imagined that annoying beep throwing him out of concentration for days.
“Start answering my calls,” I shot back. “Why are you ignoring me?”
Silence. I could hear him breathing, a deep inhale like he was trying to keep it together. Then came the swallowing. Tears, I realized. He was holding back tears.
When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. “It hurts too much to hear your voice.”
And then the dam bursted. Everything he’d held in for weeks came pouring out so fast, I had to remind him to breathe between sentences.
That’s when I realized he hadn’t ignored me because he was mad or done with me. He just didn’t know what to do with the situation. It reminded me of the first time I went to his house and he awkwardly pretended the mess around him wasn’t there.
I let him talk. I listened. And when he’d poured everything out and ran out of breath, I asked if he still loved me.
He reacted like I’d just proposed, with a nonstop stream of yesses and, after that, even more apologies.
I think what he needed at that point was reassurance, so I did my best to give him that. Then, gently, I suggested something I’d never imagined saying to him.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to go back to therapy.”
He told me he was seeing Erin for psychiatric treatment, that they were trying some new medication, and that he scheduled with his psychologist outside Arcadia as well.
He was trying to find his balance again, but he found that hard with the situation between us, pressure at work, and the construction at his place that offered unpleasant surprises on a daily basis.
So I suggested striking at least the first thing off that list.
I told him we were okay, as long as he promised to keep communicating. And yes, to use his goddamn phone, because he was missing out on all the sexting.
I made that joke to keep things light, and that’s when I got rewarded with a genuine little laugh.
I told him we’d talk everything through once I was back on the island, but he didn’t need to worry about anything right now.
Then I suggested again that he could stay in my room at Palm Oasis on his days off, where the walls were painfully white and the breathable percale sheets I bought for us were even whiter.
He liked that idea, and so did I, mostly because it meant Calvin could keep an eye on him for me.
With that part of my life calming down, I could turn my attention to why I stayed in Amsterdam in the first place: reconnecting with my daughter.
Effy and I grew closer every day, and I made sure to slow down and feel grateful for that.
We went for walks in the park and talked for hours. About now, about the past. About everything and nothing.
She loves deep conversations. Sometimes she’d say something and I’d catch myself smiling, recognising that same tone, that same way of thinking. I’ve had a crash course in deep conversations these past few months.
We shared coffee to go, watched the black swans in the pond, and chatted with people who passed by.
Normal Amsterdam life. And her sharp, wicked jokes… oh my god, they cracked me up. I’d just beam at her and think, yep, that’s my daughter. Mine.
We also went shopping for baby stuff together, which was somehow both terrifying and hilarious when the shop assistants assumed I was the father-to-be.
We bought a cradle and set it up in her room at Joan’s apartment. Somewhere between the manual and the screwdriver, the conversation took a serious turn.
Effy asked about Yosh, if he was my first boyfriend since she’d always seen me with a harem of girls around me.
I said yeah, he was. Yosh was my first actual relationship I wanted to commit to. That was all I wanted to give her at that moment.
I asked her how things were between her and Luca. She gave me a wry smile, said there was no her and Luca, and there never would be.
My brain glitched for a second, but she quickly explained that romantic relationships weren’t really her thing, that she felt a different calling in life.Devotion, she called it. Doing things her way.
