AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll call you.”
“I know the drill.” I offer him a half-hearted smile.
Watching him leave will never get any easier. Days and nights apart from him are hard. I’ve only been back for four months, and I have no idea how I spent so many years away.
Dinner is quiet. Knox eats her food, and she doesn’t look at me. Not even once. Not even when I try to speak to her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. What can I do to make this better? I don’t think she’s ever been so angry with me before.
“Knox, tell me what you want me to do. Tell me what I can do to get you to stop being so angry with me.” I’ve put my fork down, and I’m sitting straight up in my chair, trying to show her that she has my undivided attention.
She only raises her eyes to me. Her face is still down, but I feel the cold of her icy blue eyes on me. “Don’t have a stupid baby,” she says sharply.
I’m speechless for a moment, and I don’t even recognize her. This isn’t my Knox Rose. “Well, Knox, I can’t change it,” I tell her. “I thought you would be excited to be a big sister.”
“I’m not,” she says. “I just got a daddy, and now I have to share him with a baby. I didn’t get to have him when I was a baby. Not when I was one, or two, or three, or four either.”
I realize that she’s not really angry with the baby. It’s me. It’s the decisions I’ve made. I should have known that one day, this would come up. One day, she would realize that she should be angry with me.
“You’re angry with me, Knox. Not the baby. Not your dad. With me.”
Knox looks back down at her plate. She twists her fork between her fingers, and then she looks up at me. “I could have had a daddy my whole life.”
“You could have,” I agree, and I lean forward. “Look at me, Knox.”
She doesn’t look at me immediately, but then she finally gives in. She’s sort of hunched, her blue eyes look at me sharply. She’s angry, hurt, and confused. She looks like J.R. the day I showed back up here.
“I am sorry,” I tell her. “I am so sorry that I kept you from your daddy for so long. If I could go back and change things, I would. You deserved to have him, and I took that from you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s just not fair,” she whimpers.
“I know. I am so sorry. It wasn’t all bad, was it? We had Kelley and a nice house. We had fun, didn’t we?”
She nods.
“Your daddy gave me a second chance. Can you give me one, too?”
Knox shrugs.
I sit back a little in my chair. “I want you to come with me to the doctor next week. You can see a picture of the baby on the screen and everything,” I tell her. “It was your dad’s idea to have you come, and I think he’s right. It’s a big sister’s duty to fill in when Daddy is gone.”
Knox thinks on this for a moment. Her angry eyes look a little soft, and I think that maybe I’m finally getting through to her.
“Why does he have to be gone so long?” she asks softly.
“It’s what he does, Knox. It’s what he’s always done. It’s his job, and we have to be happy for him,” I answer. “He loves us. Both of us.”
“I like when he’s home.”
“Me, too.”
“Okay.” She sighs.
“Okay what?”
“I’ll go to the doctor with you.”
“You will?” I smile. “What about being mad at me? Can you forgive me?”
She looks unsure. “You thought you were doing the right thing? Keeping me from Daddy?”
