Aced

“Don’t, Ry,” he warns as he shoves up from the table, his anger eating at him. “Don’t give me one of your speeches about what a good man I am because I’m not. I’m the furthest fucking thing from it right now, so thanks . . . but no thanks.”

He turns to face me, eyes daring me to say more, the defensive shield he carries at the ready, up and armed. Our gaze locks, mine asking for more, needing to understand what happened to rock the solid foundation he’s been standing on for so very long.

“You know I went there today with no expectations whatsoever. But a small part of me . . . the fucked-up part obviously,” he says with a condescending chuckle, “thought he’d see me and shit, I don’t know . . . that he’d just know who I was. Like because we shared blood it would be an automatic thing. And even more fucked up than wanting to know I was a blip on his fucking radar, was at the same time, I didn’t want him to realize it at all.” His voice rises and he throws his hands out to his sides. “So yeah . . . tell me how I’m supposed to explain that.”

The anger is raw in his voice and there’s nothing I can say to take away the sting of what he went through. I just wish I’d been there with him.

“You don’t owe an explanation to anyone,” I state softly. His legs eat up the length of the living room and he moves like a caged animal. “Everyone wants to feel like they belong to someone . . . are connected to another. You have every right to be confused and hurt and anything else you feel.”

“Anything else I feel?” he asks, that self-deprecating laugh back and longer this time around. “Like what a fucking prick I am for asking Andy to go with me? For asking the only dad I’ve ever known, the only man who has ever given a rat’s ass about me, to drive me to find a man who hasn’t given me a second thought his entire life? Yeah . . . because that screams son-of-the-fucking-year now, doesn’t it?”

His verbal diatribe stops just as abruptly as it starts, but his restraint from saying more manifests itself in his fisted hands at his sides. And I can see his internal struggle, know he feels guilty over needing to close this last door to his past at the expense of possibly making Andy feel less in all senses of the word in his life.

I want to shake him though and assure him Andy wouldn’t see this as betrayal. Find a way to make him see that he’d see it as his son taking the final step to lay the demons to rest. Find peace in the one constant that has been his whole life.

“Your dad has always supported you, Colton.” His feet stop, back still to me, but I know I’ve gotten his attention. “He encouraged you to find out about your mom. You’re his son.” He hangs his head forward at the term, the weight of his guilt obvious in his posture. “He’s proven he’ll do anything for you . . . I imagine he’s glad he was the one with you when you faced the final unknown of your past.”

I hope he really hears my words and realizes that as a parent all you want is your child to be whole, healthy, and happy, and that was exactly what Andy wanted for him today. I thought I understood that concept. Now I have Ace—albeit for a brief five days of motherhood—I know I’d move heaven and earth for him to have those same exact things.

He walks toward me without saying anything and sits back down in front of me. He reaches out and tickles the inside of Ace’s palm so he closes his hand around Colton’s pinky. There is something about the sight—huge hand, tiny fingers holding tight—that hits me hard and reinforces the notion that Ace depends on us for absolutely every single thing. That we are his lifeline in a sense. I wonder if a baby senses when one half of that connection is absent.

“I look at Ace,” he says, his voice calmer, more even, “and I feel this instant connection. I figured it was because I have blood ties to someone for the first time in my life. That it was an automatic thing you feel when you’re related to someone. I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve felt like a fucking outsider, cheated out of having this feeling.” He pauses for a moment, runs a hand through his hair and clears his throat, the grate in his voice the only sign of the emotion wreaking havoc inside him. “But today I was standing there looking at this bitter man with eyes just like mine, who couldn’t be bothered to give a shit about me, and I felt absolutely nothing. No click. No connection. No anything. And his blood runs through me.” His voice breaks some, but his confession causes every part of me to bristle with guilt for my feelings moments ago. The ironic parallel of how I desperately needed the connection with Ace when he latched on to nurse to make me feel whole and centered again.

“It freaked me the fuck out, Ry,” he confesses, pulling me from my thoughts. “That connection I thought I was missing for most of my life, I’ve had all along with my dad. Andy. Today, I realized that blood ties mean shit if you don’t put in the time to make them worth it. So yeah, I’m connected by blood to Ace . . . but in a sense, I’ve been no better than that sperm donor was to me.”

I start to argue with him, my back up instantly, but he just shakes his head for me to stop. When he lifts his gaze from Ace to meet mine, there are so many emotions swimming in them, but it’s the regret in them I take notice of.

“Look, I know I haven’t been very hands-on with Ace. I’m still petrified of hurting him or doing the wrong thing because I’m absolutely fucking clueless. But standing in that driveway, looking at that piece of shit, I realized Ace doesn’t care if I’m perfect . . . all he cares is that I’m there with him every step of the way. Just like Andy has been for me. Shit, Ry, I’ve been so busy trying to figure out what kind of dad he needs me to be that I’m not really being one at all.”