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Silence fell. It was excruciating.
“Hello, my name is Winter. Nice to meet you,” I said quickly. I shifted my gaze to the woman. “Maybe we should just step out to give them some time?—”
Asher’s hand tightened like a vise around mine.
“Or not! I’ll just stay here,” I said and smiled brightly to smooth over the gaffe.
Brett came in slowly and sat opposite us. His eyes never left Asher.
Neither of them spoke for so long I had to jump back in. I felt like I was drowning in the awkward sea of silence.
“You have a lovely place here. So peaceful! I love to ride. It’s wonderful?—”
“Why?” Asher’s voice cut across my fake cheerfulness. So, that was his one question.
Brett just stared, sorrow furrowing his brow. Asher was holding my hand so tight my blood had probably stopped flowing “Just tell me why, and I’ll go, and you can go back to pretending you don’t have kids or a woman you abandoned.”
“Asher. Your name is Asher, right?” Brett’s voice was deep.
Asher flinched. “How do you know that?”
“Because I watch your games, your hockey career…and your sister’s ice dancing. You’re both damn impressive.”
“Not impressive enough to interact with, though, right? Not impressive enough to make the trip over to Maine?” Asher’s tone was hard as nails.
I didn’t know how Brett could stand it. It hurt to hear.
“Asher, listen…I lost the right to interact with you guys a long time ago. How could I push myself into your lives when you’re doing so great?”
“Don’t serve me a compliment shit sandwich. I know what you’re doing,” Asher growled. “Just tell me why you left her alone to left her alone to raise us. Why you didn’t care.”
Brett let out a long breath. “Would you believe me if I said that walking away from your mother when she told me she was pregnant is the biggest regret of my life? One that has haunted me every single day?”
Asher’s gaze remained fixed on his dad. His grip had loosened on my hand, and now, he let go entirely to wipe at his eyes.
The woman listening now looked at me and gave me a small smile. “Let’s go and make some coffee, shall we?”
I lingered beside Asher until he nodded minutely and then got up.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
Her name was Celia, and she had been married to Brett for ten years. She told me about how she’d met him when he was a stable hand on her father’s ranch. He’d been a wild traveler, moving for work, never settling in one place, a nomad at heart.
“Even now, Brett goes on his walkabouts maybe once every few years, and he doesn’t come home for months and months.”
My heart clenched thinking about that kind of uncertainty. I thought about Asher disappearing on me for months and months and felt even worse. What the fuck, Winter? He’s not your real boyfriend. Today, all kinds of lines were blurring.
We made coffee slowly, giving the men plenty of time to talk. I kept an ear out for raised voices or the sound of smashing objects, but it was quiet.
“That has to be hard on you,” I remarked as Celia sipped her coffee, standing in a patch of wild sunlight.
She nodded. “It is and it isn’t. It’s the only way to have a piece of him, and I’d rather have a piece than nothing. I hope Asher believes him. Brett has regretted not knowing those kids every single day, but he honestly felt he’d missed his chance. He felt it was selfish to push in and become their father figure, but not be a consistent person in their lives. He knows himself, for all the bad parts as well as good. Parents should be consistent. They should show up. They need to be there. Time is the greatest gift any parent can give a child, and Brett knew he couldn’t do it. That’s why he stayed away.”
I stared at Celia, sudden tears blurring my vision. Parents should show up. They need to be there. It felt like she was pulling my childhood insecurities out into the light and exposing them, not that she knew that, of course.
Celia sighed. “I hope those kids had that.”
I found my voice. “They did. Their mother — she’s amazing. She gave them all her time and attention and sheer, unwavering showing up. It’s more than some people with two parents had.” I cleared my throat after, trying to unclamp the tight ring of unshed tears that was threatening to strangle me.
