Page 76 of You Know You Wanna

Remington took my hand. “Birdie? I can see that you’re having a moment, but point me in the right direction. I need to find my daughter. Please?”

Shaking myself out of my past, I nodded. “Of course. Of course, yes. I’m so sorry. I just needed to catch my breath for a sec. Let’s go. We’ll find her, Remington. She’s at the Gorge. I can feel it in my gut.”

She’d gone there, to the same place I’d run away to once upon a time. A place I’d run to from a house that now had new life in it.

As I sprinted to that place now, I wondered if this was some kind of a sign that this chapter of my life had closed. Maybe it had closed a long time ago, and it was just dawning on me, but I couldn’t think too deeply on that right then. We needed to make sure Lulu was safe first.

We didn’t stop until we reached the entrance to the Gorge. I looked from one side of it to the other, my heart in my throat. Yanking an annoying tree branch out of the way, I spotted a solitary figure sitting on a rock overlooking the waterfall.

Yahtzee!

Relief rushed through me, so intense that my watery knees almost gave out.

Remington ran past me, and as he approached the rock, he slowed and put his hands up in an “I come in peace” motion.

I took a step toward them and stopped. I wanted to go with him and make sure she was okay, but as much as I wanted to be in their lives, I wasn’t. This was just a summer fling and it was looking like it might be over sooner even than the end of the season.

In fact, I had a feeling it might be over already. Today. I’d lost them both. They were as good as gone. Just like they had been since they’d first arrived here. I was only just catching up to that absolute reality now.

They were leaving and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

39

REMINGTON

Birdie hung back while I went to talk to Laurene, staying at the entrance to the Gorge as I approached my daughter. I kind of wished she would’ve come with me, though. For the first time in my life, I was completely uncertain how to proceed.

The last few hours without knowing whether Laurene was okay had knocked the wind right out of my sails and I didn’t know how to recover. But it had also made me realize a few things. It had made me realize that it was time to do what I’d promised my daughter I’d already been doing. I needed to listen. To hear. To sit with what she’d said and actually think about it instead of only consider how it would affect my life or Jacqueline’s.

Residual pain, panic, and worry were still thrumming through me as I slowly made my way to the rock she was perched on. A fresh pain was also creeping in. The pain of seeing her, my little girl, my baby, sitting there on a rock, still wearing her pajamas with her hair sticking up all over the place and tears streaming down her cheeks.

Wow. That hurts.

She looked so fucking miserable. So forlorn, and I didn’t even know how we’d gotten here.

Well, okay. I did know. I knew exactly how we’d gotten here, but I didn’t know how I’d let it happen, how I’d let it get so out of control that this was where we were.

“Lulu?” I said softly once I was close enough, not wanting to startle her and honestly not sure if she’d noticed I was here yet.

She twisted on the rock, her eyes widening. New sobs started wracking her little body, her shoulders shaking. “I’m so sorry I ran away, Daddy. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted some space, and when I got here, I wasn’t sure how to get back.”

“It’s okay, baby.” I enveloped her in my arms, feeling like I could finally breathe again when she nestled into me. “It’s okay, honey. I’m here now, okay? Daddy’s here. Are you alright? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No,” she said into the front of my shirt, her voice muffled. “I’m okay. I’m so sorry, Daddy. I just needed a minute.”

So did I, I realized, holding on to her until the sobs subsided. I kept my arm around her even once they had though, not quite ready to let go. She rested her head on my arm, exhaling shakily as we watched the waterfall together in silence.

“It’s so peaceful out here,” she said after a while, not looking at me but not pulling out of my grasp either. “The waterfall drowns out all the noise. Cassidy told me it was like that at the Gorge. She said it was the one place where you felt like it was okay that you’re not in control.”

“That’s quite a thought for a twelve-year-old,” I replied quietly. “I guess times really have changed, huh? I don’t think I thought like that at twelve.”

On the other hand, I also hadn’t had to. Twelve had been before my parents had lost it all, so life had been pretty damn good for me at her age. “You’re going to have to tell an old man why it’s okay not to be in control out here.”

“Because it’s nature,” she said. “Nature takes its course, you know? And it’s so beautiful, and natural, and there’s nothing you can do to fight it. Only God can make that waterfall stop running.”

Well, God and men with the will to do it, but I didn’t correct her. “And that’s okay? That you can’t fight it?”

I knew I wasn’t twelve anymore, but this wasn’t making much sense to me. Why was it okay not to be in control here?