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“Her Ambien kicked in. She’s snoring it off in my bed.”
“I guess I’ll go.”
“Are you tired?”
“Not too much, why?”
“Because I have something for you.”
One side of his mouth lifts. “Do you?”
“Yeah, an early Christmas present.” I take a seat on the couch and pat the cushion next to me. He takes his place as I cue up my phone, hitting the mirror option before throwing the first video on my TV. In seconds, a six-month-old Dante is on-screen wiggling on the floor in an attempt to crawl. Troy’s face lights up in recognition. “So, he wasn’t exactly a crawler, he more or less dragged himself around by his arms.”
Troy chuckles. “I see.”
“He, uh, well, he might have had a hard time crawling, but when it was time to walk, it was like chasing lightning. I’m thinking he got that from his father.”
Pride fills his eyes as he watches rapt, a smile gracing his lips. When the video ends, he looks over to me.
“Got any more?”
“Hundreds.”
“Let’s see them.”
Troy tosses a piece of popcorn in his mouth and damn near chokes on it watching Dante’s first attempt at jailbreak.
“Oh, my God,” he chuckles. “How old was he here?”
“Thirteen months. Can you believe that?” I watch as Dante stacks his blanket and his animals so he has just enough room to pull himself up and over.
“Rewind that, would you?”
I nod and play it again.
“Oh, this is fucking epic,” he says, grinning from ear to ear.
“He was so damned cute.”
“Yeah, he was. What was that baseball outfit you dressed him in all the time?”
“You saw that?”
Troy nods. “Yeah, it was cool. Even if it was the wrong sport.”
“Hmm, I still have it somewhere. It says ‘Mommy’s Little Slugger’ on the front. I saved a few of my favorites to have a quilt made one day.”
“That’s cool,” Troy says, his eyes still on the screen. We watch one video after another. He’s completely smitten with Dante, and it’s so easy to see from the expression he’s wearing. I’m drawn into a video when Troy cups my chin turning me to face him. “Thank you for this. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
I fight the quiver in my lip as I try and find the right words. Pausing the video, I turn to face him fully. “I’m so sorry. I know it will never be enough. But I am. You should’ve been there. You should have had the chance to be there. I had no right to take this away from you. I hope one day you will forgive me. I hope,” a tear I can’t hold spills over and slides down my cheek. “I hope one day I can forgive myself.”
Softly, he runs his knuckles down my face. “I could’ve fought harder. I could have tried to talk to you instead of being such a fucking creeper.”
“I was scary.”
“So fucking scary,” he chuckles, catching another tear with the stroke of his fingers. “We both did unforgivable shit. It’s time to let it go.”
“Do you mean that?” I hear the shake in my voice when he nods.
