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Chapter Forty
Ace
As I run, I can’t stop thinking about that day at the airport. My feet pound the pavement and all I can picture is the moment when I caught sight of Raven’s baby bump. I assumed Baxter was responsible and I wanted to kill him. Then I stupidly agreed to keep her secrets, the whole time not even realising that my wilful silence was taking me away from my own daughter.
Fuck.
I have a daughter.
And not just any daughter. I have the brightest, funniest, sassiest, most beautiful daughter that I’m already head over heels in love with. One that I’ve missed out on seeing grow and develop for almost four years. It hurts. Every first, every milestone, every memory I should have been there for. Times and experiences I’ll never get back.
I love that girl as much as I love her mum, and together they were already my whole world before a piece of paper made it official.
I feel like, now I know Phoenix is mine, I’m supposed to love her more or feel a stronger bond or something, but the truth is I don’t. It isn’t possible to love her more than I did yesterday. And shared DNA doesn’t forge a bond. The hours spent reading her stories, bathing her, baking with her, rolling around on the floor playing and making memories are the things that have strengthened our bond.
But that piece of paper suddenly highlights how much I’ve missed, and how much responsibility now rests on my shoulders.
I’m scared I’ll fuck it up.
Before, when I didn’t know, it was okay. There was no pressure. If one of us made a mistake, there were four more of us there to help and pick up the pieces. Now I worry that when I mess up, my brothers will be watching me, judging, thinking they could have done it better. They’ll be looking to me to make decisions and lead by example, and when I fail, Raven will wish Nix were one of theirs instead.
I don’t want that child to grow up. I don’t believe children grow up hating their parents, but I do believe the rose tinted glasses fall off and children learn to feel betrayed and let down by the stark reality of their heroes being less than heroic. Nix loves me right now, worships me. How will I cope when she grows up enough to realise that I’m just one big cluster fuck of failures after another, surrounded by good people who kept me on the straight and narrow?
Her and Raven will hate me.
My heart already breaks thinking about it.
When I finally stop running, I’m drenched in sweat and anguish. I don’t want to pass my shitty fucked-up genes on to Phoenix. I want a better life for her. Maybe with the help of the others we can do that. Maybe.
But nature vs nurture is a strong debate with no clear winner after all these centuries. What if we’re not enough? What if love isn’t enough? It wasn’t for my mother. She couldn’t save my father. Her love couldn’t redeem him. What if I’m irredeemable like him? It’s part of the reason I’ll never go home.
Guilt gnaws at my stomach and I collapse onto a nearby park bench, pulling out my phone and hitting call. The international dial tone sounds and the phone rings for ages. So long in fact, that I almost hang up.
“Ja? Zdravo?” An out of breath female voice pants down the line. I have no idea who I’m talking to, but it must be one of my sisters.
“Is Mama there?” I ask, switching to my native tongue.
“Aljaž?”
“Ja.”
My sister shrieks down the line with excitement, nearly bursting my eardrum, and starts calling for the entire family to come. I sigh and get comfy, knowing this conversation is long overdue and that I’ll be here a while. I should call home more often. There are less demons and monsters in the household now.
“Aljaž?” My mother’s voice, older but still clear and strong, comes down the line.
“Yes Mama. It’s me.”
“Oh my baby, my baby boy, I have missed you! Don’t you dare leave it so long before calling me again! How are you? Do you have a girlfriend? When are you coming home?”
She doesn’t let me get a word in edgeways with the barrage of questions she fires at me in Slovenian. It’s been so long that I can barely catch them all, and I wait silently for her to run out of steam or breath.
“I love you, Mama,” I tell her, because it’s true. Then she starts sobbing. In the background I can hear all of my sisters clamouring to know what I’ve said to make Mama cry, and I’m pretty sure Letty – the feistiest of them all – is threatening to hunt me down and gut me for upsetting her.
“Hush girls, your brother is talking,” Mama snaps at them, and they fall silent.
“Put me on speakerphone Mama, let them all say hello.”
She fumbles with the buttons, drops the phone, curses and Letty snatches the device from her hand impatiently.
