Page 5

I haven’t been inside a church in a while.

Sundays are for football now, but my parents made me attend when I was a kid and still lived with them.

Nerves race through my chest as I try to come to terms with all this…as I realize I’m about to meet my daughter.

My eyes immediately find her.

We’re early. My mother said the Callahans would be bringing her to the funeral, and the moment we walked in, I spotted a girl in the front row. She wears a black dress and her hair is tied back in a neat ponytail and she sits on the end of the pew closest to the aisle, and a girl about her same age sits beside her. The girl beside her leans over to whisper something to her, but she doesn’t react, doesn’t budge.

It’s her.

I feel it in my bones, but I also know it’s her because I’ve seen pictures of her.

My chest constricts in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s like I’m suffocating while my heart is expanding.

She’s hiding her emotions, and I’m sure a guy like me won’t be able to pull them out of her, but regardless of what happened or how, she’s a ten-year-old girl feeling very abandoned by her parents right now.

I can relate. I was only a little older than her when I essentially lost my parents, too, though in a very different way.

But I didn’t have anyone. She’ll have me.

My parents walk up to the front of the church, and the Callahan family moves over to accommodate their arrival. We slide into the booth beside the little girl, my father first, then my mother, then me.

“Harper, this is our son, Travis,” my mother says to the little girl, and her eyes lift to mine.

Jesus Christ.

It’s like looking in a mirror.

Actually looking into her eyes is quite a different experience than seeing her in photos.

Bright blue eyes find mine, and I see the same pain in hers I’ve carried in mine for years. She has my straight nose and my arched eyebrows and my long eyelashes.

She looks nothing like Caroline or Simon. She’s all me.

It’s weird looking at a female version of myself from nearly two decades ago. It’s surreal in the sort of way I never thought I’d experience…in the sort of way I never actually wanted to experience, but here we are.

Say something, dumbass , I tell myself.

Nice to meet you doesn’t quite feel right here. Sorry for your loss feels cliché.

So I go a totally different route. I open with a joke.

“Knock knock,” I say.

“Who’s there?” she asks quietly.

“Cows go.”

“Cows go who?” she asks.

“No, cows go moo .”

She huffs out the tiniest little chuckle, and I feel a disproportionate sense of pride that I got her to crack that stoic face within seconds of meeting her.

Maybe I can do this.

I mean, I know I can’t, but the little laugh from the little lady gives me a false sense of hope I didn’t realize I so desperately needed.

“I’m happy to finally meet you,” I say, and despite the reason we’re here, I find there’s more truth in those words than I was expecting.

“I know you,” she whispers.

My first thought is that I wonder what, exactly, she knows. “You do?”

“You play football, right?”

I nod.

“My mom…” she trails off, and I spot the flash of pain in her eyes. “My mom and dad liked to tell everyone how they knew a real football player. They’d watch the games and talk about you, and Mr. and Mrs. Woods would come over sometimes, too. It’s like I already know you.” She glances at my father, and then she flattens her lips into a thin line and turns back to the front of the church while my chest tightens with her words.

“Are you doing okay, Harper?” my father asks after a beat. He’s formal with her, but maybe not quite as formal as he tends to be with me.

She nods but doesn’t look at him and doesn’t otherwise answer. More people start to arrive, and I can’t help but wonder what, exactly, all this is going to look like. I sort of want to talk to the Callahans. Do they know? Would they take Harper in permanently?

The thought of sending her off with someone else causes my chest to physically ache.

I pull a quarter out of my pocket and start to flip it. I want to hold her hand through this funeral, but I’m two people away from her.

My mother glances sideways at me with a look that clearly says I should stop fidgeting, so I slip the quarter back in my pocket with a heavy sigh.

Fuck it. I’m her father, and even though she doesn’t know me, I’ve got the celebrity angle to my advantage. She’s heard of me, and I made her laugh. I’ll take it.

“May I sit beside her?” I ask my mother, and she nudges my father. They both scoot back to allow me to pass, and once I’m beside my girl, I take a deep breath.

Now what?

Another joke?

“Why did the math book look so sad?” I whisper to her as the music starts to play and everyone in the church rises to a stand.

She glances over at me. “Why?”

“Because it had so many problems,” I deadpan, and I’m rewarded with another one of those almost-a-laugh things. I practically tremble with pride over it.

The music stops, and the minister says a few words, and I’m only partially listening as I fully engage in the feelings of the girl beside me.

I feel her eyes on my profile every so often, and I wonder what she’s thinking.

She starts to cry when the minister talks about what wonderful people her parents were, and I toss an arm around her shoulders and squeeze her to my side. She leans into me a little, and the feeling is as natural as breathing as I try to comfort her with a hug.

I know a hug won’t bring them back, and it won’t take away her pain, but I want her to know immediately that I’m on her side and I’m here for her.

We’ll figure out the rest later.

As it turns out, later comes sooner than I thought it would.

The Callahans host a luncheon at their house after the burial, and Harper spends most of her time hanging around their daughter, Leona. I leave her alone, choosing instead to blend into the background—a tough feat given the fact that virtually every person in attendance has approached me to talk football.

It’s after we’re finished eating when my father pulls me aside and asks if he can speak with both me and the Callahan father, Jerry.

Jerry pulls us into his office and shuts the door.

“I wanted to talk about arrangements for Harper,” my father says.

“We’ve been happy to care for her over the last few days, but I have to admit that my wife and I have been wondering what comes next for her,” Jerry says. “It’s terribly tragic what happened, but we all know her staying here isn’t a permanent solution.” He says it awkwardly, as if he isn’t sure how to ask how much longer my daughter will be staying here.

I get it. They already have four kids, four mouths to feed, and they weren’t expecting to have to take on a fifth. One of their kids has been sleeping on their couch to give Harper a place to sleep, and it’s been tough on everyone.

“As you know, I’m the executor of the will, and I’ve reviewed the paperwork. The Randalls wanted everything to go to Harper, and there was an addendum to the will that said if anything ever happened to the two of them, they wanted Harper to be raised by her biological father,” my father says.

“Her…her biological father?” Jerry repeats. “Wasn’t Simon…?” He trails off his question when my father shakes his head.

“Simon was unable to have children. Caroline had an affair a decade ago, and the product of that affair was Harper,” he says.

“So then…who’s the father?” Jerry asks.

My father is silent, but his eyes move to me. I hold my hand up in the air.

“You?” Jerry says, his eyes widening and his jaw dropping open a bit.

I press my lips together and nod.

“And you’re fit to care for a little girl?” he asks.

“Well, no, but I’ll figure it out.”

Jerry whistles through his teeth. “Wow. What are you going to do?”

“Take her to Vegas, I guess,” I say with a shrug.

“That poor girl has been through so much, and now you’re going to rip her away from everything she knows?” Jerry asks.

My hackles start to rise at his words.

“Believe me, I’m in shock, too. But it’s what Caroline wanted.” It’s a feeble reason to give, and using the deceased as an excuse feels cheap given the fact that I’m starting to feel like I might even want this.

Color me shocked as all fuck about that.

“She’ll stay here with us,” Jerry says. “You can pay us child support.”

“Pfft,” I utter dismissively. Is this guy fucking kidding me? My hackles that started to rise a second ago flip all the way up. “I’m not paying you a dime. My daughter will be coming with me.” My tone is firm and finite, and that flash of pride I saw earlier on my father’s face is back again.

“You’re not fit to raise chickens, let alone a little girl who’s grieving,” Jerry protests. “Forget it. She’ll stay here with us.”

“Jerry, we’ve been friends a good number of years,” my father says. “But I have to intervene here. First, please don’t talk to my son that way. He’s more than capable of raising that little girl, and if you talk to him like that again, I can’t say you’ll be in our lives to speak another word to us. And second, I wrote the will. It’s rock-solid, and Caroline expressed her wishes. Travis is Harper’s custodian, and he can decide whether he wants to waive those rights or keep them.”

Color me shocked as all fucked once again. My father thinks I’m more than capable of raising that little girl?

He’s got more confidence in me than I have in myself, but the fierce fire to prove him right lights within me.

“I’ll be keeping them,” I say to Jerry. Fuck him. Fuck him for thinking he can make a dime out of this horrid situation. That girl would be far better off with me than someone like him even if I’ve never spent more than an hour around a kid a day in my life. Even if I look to escape most rooms I find kids in.

It looks like life is about to change for us both.