He doesn’t know how much that hurts me. I flinch, because I’ve worried about this since I took the job. But I didn’t have a choice. I had been let go from the office cleaning job and it took me so long to find something that I had to make money quick. “She’s not going to know.”
He shakes his head. “I want to see my daughter.”
“Think about it, Carter. You’re trembling right now. I can feel how mad you are coming off you in waves. I need you to calm down. Then you can see her.”
He starts to walk to the door. “I’ll be back. Nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Have her here.”
9
Carter
I storm out to my car, get in, and bang my hands on the steering wheel, screaming out my frustrations. She’s right. I’m vibrating mad. But fuck, I’m not only mad, I’m happy, I’m nervous, I’m terrified, I’m lost, and all those fucking emotions whirling around in my head are too much. I put the car in drive and head to the gym at the clubhouse. It’s either that or I’m driving to the nearest bar.
The team is at an away game and I have the gym to myself. I get on the treadmill and start running. I don’t stop until it’s been over an hour and I feel that I’m about to drop from exhaustion. Normally, running soothes me, but even as I get off the machine with shaky legs, I still feel conflicted.
I sit down on a bench, my head in my hands. I try to fight it, but I can’t. Not anymore. My heart lurches in my chest. My life is a fucking mess. It’s so easy to blame this all on Hanna. She lied to me and forced me out of her life. But I’m the one that turned to alcohol and treating women like shit, like they deserved to be treated like that. Fuck, I haven’t even met her, but just thinking of some man disrespecting my daughter that way makes me want to fucking kill somebody.
I feel almost crazy right now, so many things in my head. I think about that moment when Hanna told me she was dating someone else. I remember exactly how it felt and how it fuckin’ destroyed me. I didn’t care about anything after that. Not baseball, not my family, not even myself. I’ve let everything go to shit, I’ve suffered, my baseball career has suffered, my family has suffered, and judging by the way that Hanna lives and where she’s working, she’s suffered. But in all of this, Maggie, my daughter, my own flesh and blood, has suffered too.
And it’s time I fixed that.
I get up, grab a towel, and walk down the hall to the batting cages. I load up the pitching machine, set it on automatic, and spend the next two hours working on my swing. The whole time I’m making plans thinking of everything I need to do by tomorrow morning.
Hanna
I didn’t sleep a wink. Janice brought Maggie back shortly after Carter left, and we spent the rest of the evening playing. Then I spent the night in bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking about what a mess I’ve made of things. I thought what I was doing was sacrificial, so he could be happy. But seeing him on the news, especially of late, he hasn’t looked very happy. He always looks tormented… and angry. Man, if I could just go back and change what I did. How different would my life, Maggie’s life, be right now?
I finally fell asleep around six, and my alarm went off at seven just as I heard Maggie moving around in her bed. I get us both cleaned up and then go about fixing her breakfast. Before I know it, it’s eight forty-five and I’m a complete and utter mess.
When a knock sounds on the door, I let Carter in. I haven’t prepared Maggie, so when she sees Carter in real life for the first time, she looks at the television and then back at him. She doesn’t understand how he’s here. Carter just stands there, his arms full of a big teddy bear, staring at Maggie in nothing short of awe.
She gets up and wobbles across the room to him. She started walking as soon as she turned one and she’s picked up the pace ever since. Carter is frozen for a second, until he squats down, the bear still in his arms. He and Maggie stare at one another for the longest time, and I can’t stop the cry that comes from me when Maggie says, “Da da.”
Carter looks up at me with surprise and tears in his eyes and then back at Maggie. When he nods at her, she runs the rest of the way to him and he catches her before she falls. He pulls her up to his chest and holds her as he falls back on his back, the teddy bear forgotten as it falls to the ground beside them.