Page 7 of One Pucking Heart

“Hey, baby. What’s up?

“Hey, Momma. Just checking in. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” That is the understatement of the year. I miss my daughter so much my heart aches, but I know she’s where she’s supposed to be.

Instead of coming home for the summer, she opted to stay in Lansing, near college, where she’s working for a local veterinarian’s office. It’s great experience for her. The practice is the one she’s hoping to get for her clinicals. Already knowing the vets and staff members will give her an advantage when it comes to placements.

“How are all the hot hockey guys?” she asks.

“The hockey players are fine.”

“What? No hot ones? I thought professional hockey players were supposed to be gorgeous. I mean, the ones on TikTok are.”

I shake my head with a smile. “I’m not there to judge their level of attractiveness, Ari. I’m there to help them stay healthy for their games.”

“Oooh.” There’s a teasing quality to her voice. “So there is a hot one. You’re just not telling me. Am I going to have a new hockey stepdaddy?”

My head falls back against the seat, and I laugh. “Would you stop being ridiculous?”

“What? I’m twenty-one. When am I getting that stepdaddy you promised?” She kids because we both know I’ve never promised such a thing.

In fact, I raised Ari to believe that she can be whomever she wants and do whatever she wants in this life without the help of a man. I’m not anti-guy. I want my daughter to find a good man, fall in love, get married, and have a family if that’s what makes her happy. She deserves a fairy-tale life. At the same time, I never want her to be dependent on a man. And I want her to stay far away from the bad ones.

Changing the subject, I say, “Tell me about work.”

Excited, Ari tells me all about the cow she had to help give birth. The calf was stuck, and the vet taught her how to stick her gloved arm into the cow to pull the calf out. The way Ari tells the story, one would’ve thought she was talking about something else, something much less disgusting. But she loves this stuff. She was meant to help animals, and I’m so proud of her.

We were the Gilmore Girls of Ann Arbor. It was always just the two of us. Though, unlike the show, my father wanted nothing to do with Ari. It’s his loss because she’s the most amazing person I’ve met in my entire life.

“That sounds exciting,” I say.

“Oh, it was, Ma. You should’ve seen that little calf. Cutest thing ever.”

“I’m so proud of you, baby.”

“Thanks, Ma. I’m proud of you, too. I know how hard you worked to be where you are. You deserve all the glory that comes with being the team doctor of a professional hockey team.”

I chuckle. “I don’t know about glory, but thank you.”

“We have to find time to get together soon. I miss you too much,” she says.

I agree, and we say our goodbyes. I set my phone in the cup holder and start digging through the compartment in the armrest for loose change. My first paycheck won’t post until Friday, so I have several more days of no money. There’s still a little credit left on the emergency credit card, but I legitimately only use it for dire emergencies. Otherwise, it would be maxed, and I’d be shit out of luck if I were to have an actual emergency.

Counting the change in my hand, I roll my eyes. “What kind of dinner can two dollars and twenty-three cents buy me?” In today’s economy, not much.

Head held high, I march into the grocery store and buy three packages of ramen, three bananas, and a dented can of green beans on the reduced-price shelf. That should get me through to payday.

I drop the handful of coins into the cashier’s hands, and the woman starts counting them out. Looking anywhere but in front of me, I wait. My stomach rumbles at the sight of the shelf of chocolate bars to my side. Chocolate is my weakness. It takes a lot of willpower not to exchange my ramen for a candy bar, but chocolate won’t hold me over. I need real food, not that ramen really qualifies as that either. After she’s verified the amount, she drops the change into the register and wishes me a good day.

The early summer heat warms me as I walk to my car. I let the vitamin D soak into my skin and give all the good happy vibes. As hard as life can be, I try not to let myself wallow in the negative. The fact that I came from an obscene amount of money, yet some weeks I survive off MSG-laden noodles, can be a hard pill to swallow. Yet I’d eat nothing but ramen noodles the rest of my life if it meant I was free from their control.

I’m the only child of one of the richest men in the world, Anthony Diego Cortez, owner of Cortez Industries. My father owns manufacturing plants all over the world that make machine parts. He holds the patent on several crucial metal pieces for manufacturing machinery. Whether a company mass produces clothing, hand drills, or cereal boxes—my father’s parts are required to make their machines run. He has a monopoly on parts needed in factories everywhere and, by extension, more money than he knows what to do with.

My father has always been a difficult man to live with. He is stubborn and set in his ways. We never had a close relationship. I don’t remember him ever hugging me or telling me a bedtime story at night. He wasn’t that type of dad. Anything nurturing in nature was my mom’s job, and she was the best.

After I lost my mom to cancer at the age of sixteen, my father withdrew from me even more.

In my senior year of high school, I started dating one of my father’s friend’s sons, Alex. We went to private school together, and he listened to me when I cried about my mom. He was the only one who did. I know now that he never cared about my feelings, only about getting into my pants. When I got pregnant at the age of eighteen, my father gave me two choices: marry Alex or leave and never come back.

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