Page 6 of One More Chance
Her decision was quick, a side-eyed glance to me as she nodded once. I watched the weight of everything settling onto her shoulders and without another word, she walked away.
The mud room door clicked and I turned to see my daughter…
The world froze, my lungs emptied, and tears blurred my vision. Violet… in my previous life, I hadn't seen her in nearly eleven years. Could I really do this? Was I ready to face one of my biggest failures from my previous life?
Oh, my baby girl, Violet.
Chapter 3
"Daddy!" Violet's excited scream shattered the empty silence of the house, and she rushed toward me, her face alight with the innocence only a nine-year-old could possess, wide and weightless. It took everything in me to not fall apart; burning her image into memory.
Seeing her now tore a hole in my heart. A brutal mix of relief and pain as I fought to stay grounded in the moment, ignoring the decade of torment I spent wondering what had happened to her. Like the world hadn’t stolen her from me and buried her in every dream I clung to, just to stay sane and survive the grief of losing her.
Fuck all those years of not knowing.
Despite the years, I knew my baby girl. I dropped to my knees, knees that buckled under the weight of everything I was feeling, before she launched herself into my arms, her body as light as ever, brown braided hair wild and her unfiltered joy hit me like a punch to the ribs. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat mixed with the excitement.
"Daddy! Daddy!" she squealed. I forced a smile, the effort burning my insides.
"Violet!" I said, my voice too bright, too forced, as I kissed both of her hot cheeks. She still smelled like sun-warmed cotton and peanut butter.
I almost lost it then, tears threatening to spill, but somehow I kept myself together. I buried my face in her hair and tried to remember how to exist. Her tiny body clung to me and I was afraid she would vanish from my arms. I don't know if it was from relief, grief, or the overwhelming sense that nothing in this world made sense anymore but my heart pounded so hard against my chest, I thought I might be dying all over again with only her anchoring me to reality.
She giggled, pure and unfiltered. "Dawn took us to that pancake place this morning! For the start of school break! She let us get chocolate milkshakes with breakfast! Gluten free even!"
"That's so cool!"
She was vibrating with happiness, blissfully unaware of the tension her mother and I had shared or the turmoil in my chest. My lovely Violet, so innocent and wholesome.
Then I saw Liam.
He stepped in from the mudroom, quiet, watching me. His shoulders were hunched under his oversized black hoodie despite the stifling heat outside and I knew that hoodie might as well have been armor. His dark bangs covered most of his face, but I didn't miss the sharp edge in his amber eyes. He was a little carbon copy of me, filled with angst, whereas Violet, my artsy little devil, looked like her mother with the same temper.
My son stared at me and I could tell right away this wasn't moodiness. This was pain so similar to his mother's that my chest clenched.Looking at my son, Liam had grown up more in the last few days than any kid should. He looked like a ghost wearing my son's clothes, a dark premonition of how I knew him from my previous life.
"Hey, Dad," he muttered. His gaze flicked to the floor, where the shattered remains of the ceramic mug glinted in the sunlight. "You and Mom fight again?"
Violet stiffened in my arms, her lips pursing in thought as she glanced back and forth between us.
"No," I said, softly. "No, bud. She dropped it. I was about to clean it up."
I smiled, even though it burned to lie to him and honestly, I didn't know if he believed me. I barely believed myself right now.
"You wanna help me clean it up?" I asked. "Was gonna say hi to Dawn, but…" I trailed off.
Violet's voice chimed in, hesitantly now. "She left when she saw your truck, Daddy. Dawn didn't even say bye. Called you a bad word though."
There was no bitterness in her voice and I knew truly that she didn't understand what exactly that meant. Sloane's parents and her sister Dawn were rightfully disgusted with me. I swallowed the humiliation and recalled that her parents only had another year to live before the virus ate away at them. Dawn, thankfully, would survive. My chest ached.
"It's fine," I lied.
Together, we cleaned up the broken mug and cold coffee. Violet talked nonstop, each word a tiny balm to the wreckage in my chest. Her science fair project, her volleyball game, her school reading list, all things I should've known about already. Things I'd missed while I was too busy wallowing in self-pity and fucking everything up.
I nodded and promised I'd be at the game. This time, I meant it and was looking forward to being a part of all their lives again.
Sloane came back out as we were finishing. Her eyes were still rimmed red and her damp hair clung to her neck, her expression unreadable. Even wrecked, she was beautiful and looked so damn untouchable as her walls were back up. I admired her in that fractured moment. My fierce, radiant wife, a pillar of grace holding the storm at bay for the children’s sake and here I was, panting after her like a dog in heat, desperate and pathetic.
Disgust and shame weren’t even the base of my vile personality anymore. I’d sunk far below that…mere shadows beneath the weight of my own darkness. Yet no matter how rotten I felt, no matter how much I deserved her contempt, I couldn’t stop the ache in my chest on how badly I wanted to redeem myself to her, to claw my way back into her good graces, even if it meant swallowing my pride whole. I was willing to do anything for her and my family at this point.
