Page 134 of Give & Take

Dad’s jaw is tight, his eyes filled with sorrow.

“There’s a Chinese proverb I read once,” I tell him, and I see him bracing himself. “Don’t worry, it’s not bad. It’s that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is right now.”

Dad blinks.

“It’s never too late to be the dad you wanted to be,” I say.

Then I look pointedly at his other sons, currently shoving themselves around the parking lot. I know they still need him in a way I don’t anymore.

“Thank you, Raph,” he says, his voice rough. “You’re going to be the best father there is.”

For a moment, I hesitate. I want to say I already am. But I’m not there yet.

Instead, I nod, my throat prickly. “Bye, Dad.”

Back in my car, which Charlie doesn’t know is going to become his after he drives me to the airport tomorrow, I don’t turn on the ignition. Instead, I pick up my phone.

While my first instinct is to call Lana—always Lana—right now, it’s not her I need to speak to about fatherhood.Not yet, anyway. Instead, I search for a number I put into my phone back that first night Lana laughed for me. Really laughed. The moment I knew for certain I was a fucking goner for her, and this would have to be dealt with.

The person on the other end picks up on the second ring. “Yeah?”

My skin goes prickly at the sound of his voice, but I remind myself I’m a mature adult.

“Hey, Mike. It’s Raphael. Do you have a few minutes?”

The next afternoon, as my plane circles over the Pacific, positioning itself for a landing in Vancouver, I feel filled with hope.

And longing. Fuck. I miss Lana and the girls so much my chest feels hollowed out.

From here I’ll drive up the coast, taking the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Swan River, and from there, the forty minute coastal highway up to Redbeard Cove.

Cal did the reverse just this morning for a business trip, and he said he’d leave his truck for me in the short term parking lot to take home. When I argued I was leaving him without transport, he said he was happy. “Gives me an excuse to take the seaplane back to the Cove.”

The truck is perfect, because it solves the problem of the special guest I’m picking up along the way.

And it’s not fucking Mike. Initially, my thought hadbeen to ask him on our call last night if I could stop into his office for a chat before I headed back up the coast. He’d been so perturbed by my call, though, that I’d spilled it all right then.

I told him Lana and I were together. That I wasn’t sure what exactly was going to happen, but that I was in it for the long haul. And we needed to talk about what that would mean for the two of us.

“I’m not looking to replace you, Mike,” I told him. “But I will if you don’t step up. And I do want to be some kind of father to your girls.”

It wasn’t a threat. It was a call to Jesus moment for him—I hope. We agreed to have coffee the next time he was in Redbeard Cove, which I see from the handful of texts popping up as we taxi into the gate he cleared his calendar for the week after next.

I swipe that away, feeling lighter about the other person I need to talk to. I text her as the plane pulls into its spot, giving her my ETA at her place in the city to the chorus of clinking seatbelts being removed.

She gives me a thumbs up.

Except when I reach the short-term parking forty minutes later after customs and baggage and a bumpy-ass shuttle ride, I freeze. I check the number on the pavement against the parking slip Cal took a picture of. It’s a match. Only Cal’s truck isn’t here. Something else is.

“What the hell, Cal?” I mutter.

When I text him, there’s no response. I call him and go straight to voicemail. He must be in transit. I try a few more times before giving up and entering a differentnumber.

She picks up on the first ring. “Hello Raphael.”

It’s unnerving, how similar her voice is to her daughter’s.

“Lori, Hi.” I say after getting over the shock of her voice. “Nice to finally put a voice to the emails and texts.”

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