Rider’s Block

32. Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter thirty-two

"Somethin’ Bad," Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert

I ’ve lived in California for five years without running into the man who is half responsible for giving me life. But here he is. With a girl no more than four years old holding his hand like he’s her favorite person on the planet, sitting next to a woman who looks barely older than me at their side.

He hasn’t seen me, I know it. The way I’m sitting in a corner has me perfectly blocked from his line of view. But I can see him, and I want to throw up.

That asshole started a new life. A new family! How could he…how could he do that? The stinging behind my nose starts to increase at alarming levels. What if the receptionist calls my name? What if he hears it? What’s he going to do?

I haven’t talked to him since the last half-assed attempt of a birthday call he tried to make last year. The way he treats me feels like the last thing in the world he wants is a family, but there he is, with a new one.

Sure, I could assume he stepped into the role. But that little girl looks like him. Do I…do I have a half-sister?

My mind is reeling, and my ears are ringing so much it shocks me that, to my horror, the receptionist does call out my name, and I do hear her. And so does my douchebag of a father.

Our eyes whip up to meet each other at the same time, and I see every ounce of color drop from his face.

He stands, almost absently, to walk in my direction, but I drop my eyes. I can’t do this. I absolutely cannot talk to this man. This man who made my entire existence feel like an inconvenience my whole life. An accident . A tether to keep him where he didn’t want to be. The reason he didn’t get to be everything he wanted to be in life.

The tops of his shoes come into my line of vision first. They’re a nice pair of loafers. The first thought that runs through my head is that he looks like a fucking yahoo, and somehow the thought grounds me just enough to look up.

He’s still white as a ghost. “Mia,” he croaks out, still trying to find his own voice. “How have been? What happened to your arm?” He almost looks concerned. Concerned! Like he could actually care that I’m hurt. But it’s still half-assed. Like he feels like he has to.

His insincere and ultimately too late expression of care sends me over the edge. The pit in my stomach is replaced with an inferno. This fuckwad.

“First of all,” I say with a much steadier voice than I thought I was capable of, “you don’t get to call me Mia. Not anymore. Second of all, don’t pretend to care anything about me now.”

“Mia, I’ve always cared—”

“I said don’t call me Mia—”

“I’ve called you that since you were in diapers, I think I’m entitled to address my own daughter by the name I gave her—”

“Looks like you got a second chance at naming a daughter. Did you ever think I might want to know I have a half-sister?” I hear a gasp from across the room that I know to be from the woman who was sitting next to him. It must come as a real shock to her to know she married someone with offspring her age.

His face goes from ghostly white to a deep red I know means he’s about to start one of his rants. He doesn’t disappoint me, for once.

“Listen here, Mia, I know this is a shock, but you have no right to—”

“You know what? Save it. I’ve moved on. You may have walked away from us, but I moved on from you a long, long time ago. I can’t say that I wish you well, but I can say that I don’t think about you half as much as I used to.” I turn to walk away but am hit with a conviction that is so fierce it scares me. That little girl’s face flashes in my mind, and I know I used to look at him like that. Like he could fix anything. Like he thought I was valuable. Like he’d be there for me. I don’t know this girl, and if I’m honest with myself my first gut feeling was jealousy. But if I can make her life better than mine, I have an obligation to.

Turning back on my heel to face him, I get just close enough for only him to hear me. “I’ll just say this. If you ever, ever also refer to that little girl as an accident, then you deserve every evil that falls on you.”

His face blanches of all color again. “You heard that?”

With a resoluteness that every Randall sibling would be proud of, I square up my shoulders and face him head-on when I answer, “Every Goddamn time.”

The receptionist, to her credit, pretends that she didn’t see the showdown of a lifetime in the lobby as she walks me back to the doctor’s room, but I’m reeling. I caught a glimpse of his new woman’s face, and she looked just as shocked as I was. I didn’t have time to check to see if there was a ring. But what would it matter? If the little girl is as old as she looks, then he wasted no time in finding a replacement for my mom.

My mother, who would have moved mountains for him. And he filled her role without batting an eye. He filled my role without batting an eye. Who could do that? He never seemed like a scumbag when he was around, he just seemed…distant. I used to look at him like that little girl—my half-sister —looked at him.

I don’t get to wallow too much in my thoughts before the doctor comes in to examine my arm. My cast is removed, and my skeleton of a forearm is exposed to fresh air once again. Watching Eric’s signature cut through with the saw has my heart hurting a little bit.

After demonstrating that my wrist is capable of rotating in no less than thirty different directions, I’m finally cleared to leave and move on with my life. The damage that stupid tree limb inflicted is officially healed.

A weird, weird sentiment.

Looking down at that cast reminded me the summer was real, that the signature written in all caps right at the top where I could see it most was from someone who was very much real. It feels absent and wrong having that reminder removed.

By the time I get home, with my sandwich in my purse, I finally let the onslaught of emotions hit me. I cry. Big, fat tears. I haven’t cried since my dad walked out, so it’s only fitting they’d return after seeing him. I cry so long I’m surprised my skin isn’t pruney. But I can’t stop. The man who said a family is the reason he wasn’t successful in life up and started a new one. Threw us out like a used car in favor of a newer model.

I cry for my mom. My sweet, devoted mother. Her love was so pure. So innocent. And it wasn’t returned. No matter what she did, he still chose to leave us all. And he gave that love to someone else. I don’t know this other woman’s story, I don’t know if he’s as distant with her as he was with my mother, but I hate her and pity her at the same time.

Chester curls up in my lap after an hour staring at me sobbing from across the room. He’s never been a lap cat, much to my regret, but he knows I need it. And I do.

I really do need it.

I cry for me. I feel so weak. I let this man make me feel like my presence on this earth wasn’t supposed to happen. I let his frustration with my existence prevent me from living and pursuing the type of goals it took years for me to finally work toward. Does he even know my name has been on a New York Times Bestsellers list? Probably not, and that makes me cry a little more. And then I cry because I don’t feel like I should cry over him anymore, but I can’t help it.

What feels like a lifetime later, I finally pull myself together. That asshole can’t have a hold on me anymore. If I’m honest with myself, his face as I walked away gives me a little bit of peace. It’s petty to take so much comfort in his discomfort, but I’m beyond caring.

But what finally pulls me out of my thought spiral is the ring on my phone. Knowing who it is, I do my best to remove any evidence that I’ve been crying. But I should have known better. It took not even two seconds after answering the phone for Eric’s facial expression to shift.

“Baby, why are your eyes red?” is how he greets me when I answer his call.

“Welp. Thought I could hide that better.” If my red eyes hadn’t given me away, then the shakiness of my voice would have.

I see Eric shift from where he’s sitting leaned against his bed. He sits in the same spot when he calls me every night, so it’s a familiar sight by now. “What the hell is going on? Red, what happened—”

There’s no way of getting around it, I know that. “I saw my dad today.”

The way his jaw flexes has me mentally thanking the creators of the iPhone for having such detailed frontal cameras. “You saw your…you saw your dad? Where?”

“At the doctor’s office.” I take a deep breath. “I got my cast off today, and he was there…with his…with his new—” I try to clear my throat, but it’s obvious that I can’t keep my emotions in check. And Eric makes me feel safe. Makes me feel like I can share this kind of stuff. “He was with his new family.”

“That fuckwad.”

“You know, I thought the same word in my head.”

“I just…fuck, Red. When you say family, do you mean—”

“He had a daughter.”

“Oh Lord…”

“I have a half-sister I’m just learning about—”

“Damn, baby. What can I do? What do you need?”

“I don’t know…it just caught me off guard.”

“No shit. That’d catch anyone off guard.”

“I threw a few jabs though…”

The tilt of his mouth hikes up in that smirk that settles me. “Oh yeah? Are we talking physical jabs, or did you throw one of your sassy remarks his way?”

“Well, I couldn’t risk my other hand, so I had to stick with words.” I don’t know how I’m able to joke, but I have the man on the other end of the line to thank for it. “But I told him if he called that little girl an accident, he’d deserve every evil headed his way.”

“Damn straight he would, what did he say?”

“He just turned three sheets of white and acted like he was surprised I’d heard him call me an accident.”

Eric is quiet for a moment, but the look in his eye is murderous. If we were in the same state as my father, I’d fear for that scumbag’s safety. Marginally. Actually, not at all.

“What do you need, Red?” he repeats as his look softens a bit.

“I don’t know. Talking to you helps,” I admit at a lower octave, subconsciously hoping he doesn’t hear me. “And Chester finally sat on my lap. That helped. He never does that.”

“Well, now I’m really worried—”

“It’s okay,” I cut him off, surprising myself even further with my ability to chuckle. “I’m just trying not to move so he doesn’t move. I’ll sleep on the couch if I have to. It’s a comfy couch, anyways. How’s everything back home—at the ranch?”

Fuck me.

I get emotional for ONE DAY and refer to the ranch as home.

If I thought I got away with it, Eric’s beaming smile reveals I did not, in any way, get away with it. He heard me, but he’s going to let me think he didn’t.

I get a play-by-play of the preparations for the upcoming rodeo in Montana. I’ve never been to that part of the state, but apparently, it’s Eric’s favorite. He asks me what I have coming up this week. He hasn’t officially asked me to come to this rodeo, so I don’t know if I’m going or not. Christine and Penny have been hounding me about it, but I still have the rest of the week to decide if I’m headed to Bigfork, Montana, or not.

I’m waiting for Eric’s cue. He’s been diligent in calling me every night. He shows me he cares every day. But seeing my dad today reminds me of that feeling of being unwanted, a burden. If I learned anything today, it’s that I can barely handle that feeling in a father-daughter relationship.

Romantically? There’s no way. I thought my time with a therapist fixed me, but I think it’s more of an ongoing process than I realized.

Eric ends the call telling me he’ll call me tomorrow, and after three weeks of proving that sign-off correct…after today the doubts crawl into my subconscious more than ever.