Page 8 of The Single Dad Grump Next Door (Stuck Together In Mermaid Shores)

Chapter Eight: Gabe

T he weight of the conversation I just had with Alina lingers in the air as I return to my side of the duplex, laundry in hand. I’ll go back downstairs later. Right now, doing basic household chores is the last thing on my mind.

Wren is upstairs, banging on the child-size practice drums I bought her. We’re going to have to work on her sense of rhythm, but the chaotic noise is, weirdly enough, a welcome distraction at this moment.

The moment the words left my mouth down there— widowed at the age of twenty-three —I knew I’d gone too far. The look on Alina’s face wasn’t the sharp, cutting expression I’m so used to. It was wide-eyed shock, followed by something that looked too much like regret. Or something like that. As if she was genuinely sorry for me.

The last thing I want is for Alina to pity me. It’s too pathetic.

At the same time, though, we’re probably even. I pity her, too. Thanks to my eavesdropping a couple days ago, I already knew that she was dealing with an injury, but hearing the words out of her own mouth still felt like a shock to my system. Even when Alina was my greatest competition in school, I couldn’t help seeing her as this indomitable creature. She was unstoppable. She never gave up. I knew that, even if the world stopped spinning, she would never stop being a force of nature.

It was an annoying thing to acknowledge back then. Now, it’s nothing short of disorienting to be proved wrong. Alina isn’t untouchable.

And I do feel bad for her.

At the same time, I don’t regret being a little too harsh in my response to her admissions about the medical leave she’s taking this summer. Because, really, her life could be a lot worse. Sure, there’s a tiny chance that she stands to lose everything she’s worked her entire life for, but I think it’s much more likely that she’ll be totally fine… as long as she actually goes to see a doctor.

I should’ve left it at that. I should’ve just told her to grow up, deal with her issues, and carry on. Instead, I let myself play a game of vulnerability with her.

I set the laundry basket on the floor and lean against the kitchen island, rubbing a hand down my face. How did it come to this? One minute, I’m trying to say something decent to her, something that might ease the tension between us, and the next minute, I’m revealing one of the deepest scars I have.

I look around the empty kitchen, the dull churn of the dishwasher’s cycle matching the thrum in my chest.

Perfect. Alina thinks my life is perfect.

Of all the ridiculous assumptions she could have made, that one cuts the deepest. She doesn’t know about the nights I spend tossing and turning, terrified that Wren might have inherited the same heart condition that caused my wife to die so suddenly. An unknown, undetected arrhythmia—that’s what it was. She was otherwise so healthy and energetic, and although she had a family history of heart attacks, we had no reason to think it’d be an issue for her while she was so young and athletic.

Then, one day, she dropped dead in the middle of the grocery store. Her heart just… stopped. Just like that. Between one second and the next, my wife was no longer alive. Wren hadn’t even reached her first birthday yet.

Alina doesn’t know what that feels like.

She doesn’t know about the mornings I spent sitting on the floor of my bedroom, wondering how I was supposed to find the strength to keep going. She doesn’t know about the violin that I smashed to pieces because I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I felt like I didn’t deserve it. I felt like trying to play the instrument I had devoted my life to mastering was the equivalent of playing pretend. Denial. Stupidity.

Overnight, I suddenly hated the violin.

How could she know any of that, though? She hasn’t been in my life for years. And back then, all we ever did was compete. It’s not like we had moments of camaraderie where we might’ve shared our deepest secrets and desires with each other. She saw me at my most determined, my most ambitious—and I saw her the same way.

Upstairs, I’m vaguely aware of the dissonant drum beats falling silent. I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, numbly staring into space. There are too many thoughts and emotions clamoring for attention within me, and I don’t know how to navigate the forest of their tangled branches.

I only register that it’s getting late when the sun dips low enough to cast a fiery orange glow through the kitchen windows. The laundry basket is still at my feet. Blinking blearily, I stare down at my watch. Half an hour has passed since I came back up from the basement.

I spaced out again. Dissociated , as my therapist tried to call it. I’m still not sure I believe him when it comes to all of these confusing mental health terms, but it is true that I tend to check out, mentally speaking, and come back to reality only after a significant amount of time has passed.

Get it together , I command myself.

With a heavy sigh, I kick the laundry basket aside.

I find Wren in the living room, sprawled out on her stomach on the rug with a coloring book, humming to herself. She glances up when I come in, her face lighting up with a smile. At least she didn’t notice me turning into a temporary statue in the next room over. Thank goodness for the fact that she also tends to be lost in her own little world.

“Hi, Daddy!”

“Hey, kiddo.” I sink onto the couch nearby.

“Guess what?” she says, holding up her coloring book to show off a brightly colored dolphin leaping over a wave. The dolphin is lilac-purple and the waves are the color of fresh butter. Her imagination fascinates me. I wish I knew what it was like to see the world through such a bright, kaleidoscopic lens.

“That’s awesome,” I say, giving her a thumbs-up. “Looks like you’re getting pretty good at coloring inside the lines.”

“I know,” she says matter-of-factly, flipping the page. “Can we go to the beach later? Like, when it gets dark? I want to find shells and see the stars!”

I hesitate. It’s been a long day, and the thought of leaving the house isn’t exactly appealing. Even so, Wren’s excitement is hard to resist. It’s impossible to say no to her.

“Alright,” I say, smiling despite myself. “We’ll go after dinner.”

“Yay!” She jumps up, throwing her arms around me. “You’re the best, Daddy! What’s for dinner? Can I have chicken nuggets?”

“You had chicken nuggets last night.”

She purses her lips at me. “And? Is there a rule against me eating too many chicken nuggets while on vacation?”

I snort loudly. “No, I guess not.”

“Exactly! And you can have some, too! I looked at the back of the bag and I saw they have lots of protein, which is good for you because…”

I smile to myself as she babbles on about something she learned in her health and nutrition class at school. I’d rather hear the sound of her endless chatter over the cacophony of my own thoughts any day.

***

The beach is deserted when we make our way along the private path to the sand, the fading light casting everything in soft hues of purple and gold. Wren skips ahead, her sandals dangling from her fingers, leaving tiny footprints in the damp sand as the tide sluggishly withdraws.

“Come on, slowpoke!” she calls out.

“I’m coming,” I assure her, shaking my head.

She crouches near the water’s edge, examining a clump of seaweed like it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen. A wave rushes in, soaking her toes, and she squeals, jumping back.

“Careful, Wrennie,” I say as I catch up to her.

“Look!” She holds up a small shell, pale pink and perfectly smooth. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“Very pretty,” I say, crouching beside her. “You’re good at finding treasure.”

“Do you think there’s a pearl in this?” she asks, her voice full of wonder.

“Probably not.” I ruffle her hair when she pouts at the empty shell in her hand. “You never know, though. Keep looking, and maybe you’ll find something special.”

She grins and runs ahead, her laughter rising over the sound of the waves. I watch her for a moment, my heart full and heavy all at once.

Wren is my anchor; she’s the one thing that keeps me steady when everything else feels like it’s too much to handle. But there are days—days that occur more often than not, unfortunately—when I wonder if I’m doing enough. If I’m enough.

Since our conversation about her mother, I’m starting to panic about it more and more. I know that plenty of kids are raised by single dads nowadays—that it’s not entirely outside the norm anymore. Still, what if not having access to a motherly influence puts her at a developmental disadvantage? What if I’m setting my kid up for failure because I don’t have the energy, patience, or desire to find someone new to fall in love with?

“Daddy, come here!”

Wren’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I jog toward her where she’s crouched near a tide pool on a flat expanse of smooth rocks, peering intently into the water. There’s not much to light our way other than the silvery moon rising to replace the sun and the distant glow of the other beachside properties.

“What’d you find?” I ask, kneeling beside her.

“Crabs!” she says, pointing.

Sure enough, a tiny crab scuttles across the sand at the bottom of the pool. It’s nothing more than a little shadow in the glimmering water. Wren leans closer, her nose almost touching the surface.

“Do you think he’s lonely?” she asks.

I chuckle. “I think he’s probably fine. Crabs have shells, remember? They’re tough little things.”

“Like me!” she says, puffing out her chest.

“Exactly like you.”

For a while, I trail after her in contented silence while she explores the tide pools and collects shells with the help of my phone’s flashlight. Wren chatters endlessly, her energy infectious.

For the first time in days, I feel light. I guess I understand why Alina is so willing to humor Wren’s interruptions out on the patio. She might hate me, but she’s not immune to my kid’s charms.

“You’re so silly, Daddy,” she says, giggling as I have to perform an acrobatic leap to reach her on the other side of a rocky outcropping.

“Me? You’re the silly one,” I say, laughing with her.

As the sky darkens further, stars begin to appear as faint pinpricks of light scattered across the vast expanse. The shadows deepen too much for us to see anything else in the tide pools, so we make our way back toward the house.

Just as I spot the familiar glow of the back patio light, Wren flops onto the sand, staring up at the sky with wide eyes.

“They’re so pretty,” she says. “The stars.”

“They are,” I agree, lying down beside her.

“Do you think Mommy can see them, too?” she asks softly.

The question catches me off guard, but I keep my voice steady. “Yeah, I think so.”

She nods, satisfied with that knowledge, and snuggles closer to me.

For a moment, everything is still. Even the ocean seems to quiet from a roar into a hum.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement in the long streaks of light being cast onto the sand from the windows of the duplex.

I twist my neck to glance up at the cottage. Just barely visible through one of the upstairs windows, I catch sight of Alina. She’s perfectly framed in the window panes, her figure silhouetted against the curtains.

Our eyes don’t meet, or maybe they do and I simply can’t tell from all the way out here, but it feels like she’s watching us. Like she’s trying to make sense of what she sees. Like the fact that I’m a halfway decent father is something that she’s still trying to conceptualize.

Before I can decide what to think, she moves away from the window and disappears into the shadows of her side of the house.

When Wren and I head back up to the cottage, the duplex is quiet. After some thorough debating, I convince Wren to take a shower to get all the sand out of her hair and the brine from the tide pools off her skin. If she had things her way, she’d probably sleep out there among the dunes like a wild thing.

After she’s clean, I tuck Wren into bed, kissing her forehead and smoothing her curls away from her face.

“Goodnight, Daddy,” she murmurs, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Goodnight, kid. Love you.”

“Mmph-oo,” she mutters in reply, already halfway asleep by the time I pull the blanket up to her chin.

I linger for a moment, watching her breathe, and then head to my room.

As I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts drift back to Alina. After all these years, it’s still a habit that I can’t break. Every few months, I’d feel this unstoppable itch to check in on her, which is how I’d end up diving deep into videos of the CSO’s performances online.

Now that she’s here, and there’s nothing but a few thin walls separating us, that unshakeable obsession is stronger than ever.

She has always plagued my mind, for better or worse. I’m pretty sure it’s incurable. Alina is a curse I’m doomed to carry for the rest of my life, no matter how much time and space spans between us.