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Darlene patted the seat beside her, and I blinked back to the present. I sat beside her, sipped my coffee, and then told her about the house I’d planned to buy.
We talked about plans, and she gave me the number of the inspector we used on this house. I told her how the business was getting out of hand, and I was hiring people to take over the Waco branch, then eventually, we’d build up in Houston. Missy and I had decided to slow down our growing empire since things in Dallas were picking up with residentials.
Darlene told me about things with work and how she’d had to quit the job she’d had since before James was born. Apparently, she wasn’t doing as well as she used to, and they were bringing on newer faces and slowly pushing out the old ones. The man she’d slept with was a single father she’d been nannying for, apparently, or at least partially while his full-time nanny was in the hospital.
She wasn’t slacking; if nothing else, she was working too hard. I offered to split custody evenly. I’d start sending her more money so that she wouldn’t have to nanny for now; then, when I settled in the new home and business smoothed out a little, we’d start the joint custody thing.
“I’m not saying you don’t need to spend more time with him, but split custody, Ryan? Do you honestly have time for that?”
I sighed. “I’m going to make time. That’s why I’m hiring more people to run things. I need to have a real life, a life with my family. You have a life, too. You and Duke can fix things up, and this will give you the chance to start your life with him.”
“I’ve already started a life with him. James is part of that life.”
“He’s part of mine, too.” I shifted, so I faced her fully. “You were just saying how you never got to pursue your dreams. How you got into sales because it was an open door. You always supported what I tried to do for us. Let me support you this time.”
“Things changed, Ryan. We had James. My dream now is to be a good momma to him. That’s all I want.”
My heart sank in my chest as all the progress we’d made seemed to come to a halt. “And I want to be his dad. I don’t want Duke to take my place.”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“The hell it isn’t.” I tried to keep my voice down.
She shook her head. “Ryan, you can’t work as much as you do and raise a kid at the same time. If you want joint custody, you have to make sure you can handle everything that entails.”
I counted on my fingers. “Babysitters, daycare, he can come to work with me some days. I’m buying a house. He’ll have his own room and a big back yard. I’m going to make time to see him.”
“But it’s not just about seeing him, Ryan.” She grabbed my hands in hers the way she used to when she was trying to keep me calm while she made her point. She didn’t have to do that. I was fine. “You can’t just throw money at things and call it good. He needs to be taught, disciplined, and loved. It’s not just you doing things with him so you two are buds.”
“But...” I hadn’t realized I was thinking of it that way. My dad had barely made his presence known if he wasn’t putting my mom through hell, but when it was just me and him, it was calm. We’d go fishing or play golf with his work friends, but he’d never been there for any part of my life otherwise. Was that who I was turning into? A distant father there when I want to be? Had I really avoided raising my son the way my dad did?
“When you first got pregnant, I swore I wouldn’t be as selfish as Dad was. Remember?”
She nodded.
The weight on my chest felt heavier than ever, and I couldn’t blame it all on Darlene for once. “Turned out just like him, didn’t I.”
She offered a sympathetic smile. “Not just like him ...”
I released her hands, hoping it wasn’t the wrong move. “I knew right away that you’d be a better mother than I would be as a father. I didn’t doubt you would do everything right. But I guess, because I thought you knew what you were doing, I tried doing just what I knew how. I made sure I provided for us. No matter what. I wanted James to know that if I couldn’t do anything else, I at least did that.”
“I guess my pressure didn’t help you see what you really needed to work on.”
I shot her a hard stare, but she just shrugged, and I laughed lazily. My eyes were heavy despite the caffeine. “I’m not a good father like you’re a good mother. I know you just wanted me to do better, but I’ve always tried. I still want to try.”
“I knew how much you wanted to succeed, but we never needed to have everything. I wanted success, not the world. I wanted us to pay our bills and just be okay. I wantedyouto be proud of who you were, but it never felt like it was enough.”
“You and James were enough.”
“Well, what we have now is still enough,” she said with a hopeful smile. “Let’s work on that. You can’t have full custody, though.”
I dipped my head in shame, but a chuckle escaped on a despairing breath. “Oh, crap. Yeah, well...” I looked at the mother of my child. “I guess I’ll call off the lawyer.”
Darlene rolled her eyes. “I appreciate it.”
Chapter 23
Christie
