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“Oh, I see. Can you put Mommy on the phone?”
“No. ”
“Uh, why not?” I stopped myself from laughing.
“‘Cause it’s my turn to talk to you. She always gets to talk to you,” he said matter-of-factly.
“You’re right. But I need to tell her one thing and then she’ll give you back the phone, okay?”
“Okay. ” His voice sounded deflated as he handed the phone to his mom.
“Hey, babe,” she said with a giggle.
“What are you shopping for?”
“Oh my gosh, the school gave us a list of supplies he needs for his class. You should see the size of this thing. I’m walking around the store trying to find all this crap. ”
“Bad word!” Chance shouted in the background and Cassie apologized to him.
“Do you have any idea how weird it is to look at him and see you? He has your eyes, Jack. They make me miss you so much. ”
“I miss you too. I wish I were there. Take pictures of his first day and send them to me. Don’t forget. ”
I’d insisted that Cassie do that with everything I missed. My phone’s photo albums were filled with pictures of events and parties that I didn’t get to see in real life, but got to experience via photo text message.
“I won’t forget. Chance is pulling on my shirt. He wants to talk to you. ”
“I love you, Kitten. Miss you,” I said before hearing the fumbling of the phone being passed over.
“Daddy, guess what?”
“What?”
He sucked in a big breath. “I start school tomorrow and Coby is mad because he can’t come with me. He has to be in the baby school still and I get to go with the big kids. ”
I smiled. “So, you’re excited?”
“Yep! ‘Bye, Daddy. I love you,” he said out of nowhere before hanging up on me. I sat on my hotel bed with my jaw slack.
The little shit.
My phone immediately beeped with a text.
Sorry. Guess he
was done. LOL. I’ll call you later. Love you.
Knowing that the list of shit he needed for school fell on Cassie’s shoulders made me feel like a complete asshole. I started to feel like my heart was made of kite string, unraveling into a heap of nothing inside my guts. My dad walked out on me and my brother and never came back. My mom chose to leave us too. I would never leave my family, but how was I any better than my parents? I may not have left, but I was still never home.
I tossed and turned all night, trying to fall sleep. Instead of being focused on tomorrow’s game, all I could think about was the fact that it was my five-year-old son’s first day of school and I was going to miss it. The same way I missed everything else in our lives. Tugging at my hair, I had to force myself to stop from crying at the mere thought that I had a five-year-old already. Where had the time gone? How had five years flown by so fast?
I fucking hated being away from my family and I especially hated missing important days like this. It made me feel like a worthless absentee father with each event I continued to miss out on. Cassie never made me feel bad about it. No one did. Everyone claimed to understand, but I was the one who stopped being so forgiving.
The next morning my phone beeped, and I was greeted with a picture of Chance. He was looking at the phone with a crooked smile on his face, his dimple showing, his hair all spiked up, and an oversized backpack on his back. Or maybe the backpack was normal-sized and he just made it look big because he was so little.
Another beep and I clicked on my phone to open one more picture message. Cassie and Chance took a selfie together and my fucking heart squeezed inside my chest. I felt it contract and release as I stared at my beautiful wife and son. Her eyes looked so green and her smile was so big, I wanted to reach into the phone and pull her image right out of it. Chance’s beaming face was pressed against hers as he gave me a thumbs-up.
Another big day missed. Another lost moment in time I’d never be able to get back.
