CASSIUS
I wasn't sure which feeling was worse, the absolute terror of hanging up my phone and looking around to realize that Makayla was nowhere to be found, or the gut punch I felt when Deira looked at me and told me not to call her. I had felt the briefest of reliefs when I'd looked into the store and seen Deira talking to Makayla. It was a sweet rush that only lasted seconds, because as soon as Deira turned and I saw her expression, I knew there was a chance I had screwed this all up for good.
I answered the questions from the police and drove myself home in a daze. All I could do was relive the events of the day over and over again. An endless string of questions paraded through my mind, each and every one of them starting withwhat if.
What if Makayla had gone into the street and gotten hit by a car?
What if she'd fallen and hurt herself, and I was just cluelessly talking on my phone?
What if while I wasn't looking someone had taken her?
And those were just the questions of regret about earlier that day. The questions about the future were even worse.
What if Deira decided I was unfit to be a father?
What if this had been my only chance, and I just ruined it?
What if I never saw them again?
I tried all my usual tricks to quiet my mind. I went for a long drive, then came home and did a hard workout. Exhausted, I took a hot shower. But still, all I could do was obsessively turn the day over in my mind. Was this what being a parent was like? I was starting to realize why Deira had been so cautious about me. Every moment for her must be about gauging the danger a situation would pose to her daughter. She had been rightly suspicious of me. I had let both of them down.
I was in that state of mind for the next few days. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I avoided going into the office because, while I desperately wanted to see Deira and beg for forgiveness, I was also terrified of what she might say.
Plus, she had told me not to contact her. I didn't want to risk making things any worse than they already were. So, I just waited.
Finally, after about three days, Deira called. I was in a lunch meeting, but I excused myself and went to the patio to answer the phone.
"Hello?" I said, my heart thudded in my chest.
"Cassius, hi," she replied. Her voice sounded strange. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was different.
"I'm calling because... well, I've been putting off calling."
"That's okay," I said immediately.
"But I shouldn't put it off anymore. I shouldn't just keep you hanging." Some instinct in me sounded alarm bells at that statement, and I tried to head off what she was about to say.
"It's really okay. You should take your time. Call me next week, or..."
"It's going to be longer than next week, Cassius. It's going to be a long time." My heart sank.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, I don't know how I feel about you, and I don't know when I will know. I don't know when I'll trust you around Makayla again, and honestly..." She paused for a long time before finally saying, "I'm really mad at you. So incredibly mad. I don't think I could be in the same room with you without screaming at you."
"That's fine," I said. "You can scream at me."
"No," she replied, sounding exhausted. "I don't need to scream at anyone. It wouldn't help. It would just make me upset all over again. I just need a few months to recover from this."
A few months?
"I'm sorry, Cassius. I know you meant well. And I will get over this eventually. But it's too much right now. All of it. The fighting, the sex, the worrying... We met because we got in a car accident, for Pete's sake. I don't want my life to be like this, as if I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions. So, for right now, I don't want to see you, and I don't want Makayla to see you. We're just going to live our lives for a while. I'm not cutting you out forever. I just think we need a do over. I'll reach out to you in a while, okay?"
No, not okay, a voice screamed in my head. But what could I say? Nothing she said was wrong. I had no defense for myself, so I just swallowed and whispered, "Okay."
"I'm sorry, Cassius," she said.
"Me, too," I replied. Then she hung up. I went back inside and did my best to finish the lunch meeting. The clients wanted to see more of our operation, and I guess I hid my emotions pretty well. I went home and tried to finish up some other things that I'd been putting off, but I got nothing done. I finally gave up and called Scott.
"Scott," I managed to croak out, "you got any beer?" Maybe he heard how my voice was about to crack. Or maybe he'd just been waiting for this moment. All he said was, "Give me half an hour, and I'll be there with an incredible amount of alcohol."
While I waited for him, I cracked open a bottle of expensive scotch I'd been saving and got a head start. True to his word, he showed up in about 30 minutes, bringing pizza, beer, and more scotch. We ate and drank more or less in silence, until finally Scott could bear it no longer.
"Okay," he said, clinking down his glass. "You have to tell me what this is about. The woman? The girl?" I hadn't really told him everything that had been going on. He knew I'd been in contact with Deira, that she'd started a job at our company, and that I'd met Makayla. I hadn't told him about the two times Deira and I had sex. It seemed like maybe Deira wouldn't have wanted anyone to know. And back then, I'd been worried about messing up the relationship, so I didn't want to risk Scott meeting her and accidentally letting something slip. I'd also told no one about the incident at the park. I was too ashamed.
But now, it all came spilling out. I rambled on and on, adding what were probably unnecessary details. I was drunk by this point, and Scott was well on his way, so I'm not sure how coherent I managed to be, or how much he managed to understand. He just sat and listened, nodding his head. When I got to the part about Deira's last phone call, I choked up, and couldn't go on.
After a minute, I felt his hand on my knee.
"I'm sorry, Cassius," he said. We normally had a pretty joking relationship, and this was the most serious I'd ever seen him. "I'm really, really sorry."
"It's all my fault," I said, my palms pressed into my eyes as I tried not to cry.
"Maybe," he said. "But you didn't mean for any of it to happen. I think you're trying pretty hard, and I think you're doing pretty well, considering you've only been a father for about two months."
"I've been a father for five years," I said, and the bitterness in my tone surprised me. "But I only knew about it for the last two months."
"You know what I mean," he said, his voice still gentle despite my surly tone. "This is a big change, and you took on a lot very quickly. I think maybe that's why she asked you for some time. You both need-all three of you, I mean, including your daughter-you all need a chance to breathe and accept that life now is fundamentally different."
I closed my eyes and leaned back in the chair. The room was spinning, and I wasn't sure if it was the alcohol or just some kind of emotional breakdown.
Scott's voice floated over to me. "I'm here for you, okay? Whatever you need," he said.
I sat back up, took a deep breath, and waited for the room to right itself.
"I need to get drunk," I said. "I need to get so drunk that I forget who I am, or what happened the past few months. I need to, just for a little while, go back to blissful ignorance. Can we do that?"
I looked at Scott, and to his credit, he did not look like he was judging me at all. We both knew that it was at best a temporary solution, and in actuality, just me hiding from my problems. But he just slapped his hands on his knees and nodded.
"We gotta open this other bottle, then," he said. He opened it, and refilled both my glass and his. He raised his glass and gave a toast. "To blissful ignorance."
I clinked my glass against his enthusiastically, and then downed the contents in one gulp.