Amanda and Cole both took a couple of days off work. She was anxious to get back to work, though she understood she might not make it back on her bike that summer. She concentrated on healing and processing what she’d been through. Cole concentrated on helping Amanda do those things. While their relationship was still complicated, it felt different.
They spent evenings on the porch, Amanda sipping a Sun Drop and Cole sipping a beer, the two of them pondering the elusive and fleeting beauty of the sunset. The undertones of the mountain days gave way to the multi-layered complexity of night, with its sounds and smells embedded in the gray-green landscape. Amanda felt truly at home now, reconnecting with the child inside her, the mountain child who had grown up in this place.
“Some people have to go off into the world and find themselves,” Cole said one evening. “I was never one of those people. I knew when I was a child there was just a handful of things I wanted from this world.”
Amanda wasn’t sure what had brought on this moment of self-disclosure but she wanted to encourage it. They were on the cusp of broaching whatever stood between them. “What did you want?”
“I wanted to build houses and I wanted to have a family.”
“Really?” Amanda asked.
Cole nodded.
“So you were my age and already knew what you wanted out of life?”
“I did. I was the practical sort, even then.”
“That’s hard for me to imagine,” Amanda said. “I have no idea what I want to do with my life.”
“There’s no hurry. Some people never figure it out. I just always knew what I wanted. When your mother and I fell in love in high school, it seemed like part of my plan was coming together. We got married the summer after graduation.” Cole paused and took a sip of his beer.
“Was that Mom’s plan too?”
“She didn’t have a plan then. Getting married was fine with her because it wasn’t like she had anything else going on. I guess in my head I’d never considered I needed to find someone whose plans paralleled with mine. I thought I just needed to find someone else willing to be a part of mine. I took your mother’s indifference as an unspoken agreement."
“But something changed?”
Cole shrugged, traced the edges of his beer label with a damp finger. “Your mom wanted to hold off on having kids until she finished college. Then she got a good job and wanted to hold off until she advanced in her career.”
“Was I an accident?” Amanda asked.
“No,” Cole said adamantly. “Your mother was too controlling to allow any accidents to happen. We discussed it and agreed it was time to start a family. The problems came later. She claimed the time she lost from the pregnancy and from mom duties stalled her career.”
“She resented me?”
Cole shook his head. “No, she resented me for wanting a child so badly. Then, when I wanted a second child, she refused. She had this big plan. She had her business degree, she was working in the loan department of a bank, and she wanted to get her realtor’s license. She wanted us to go into business together, me building houses, her selling them.”
“You didn’t want that?”
“No,” Cole said. “I wanted a family and to work outside. I didn’t want to run a business from an office. I wanted a simple life and she had bigger aspirations. We grew apart from there, in completely opposite directions. The more outgoing she aspired to be, the more introverted I became.”
“I know she and Fox were having an affair,” Amanda blurted. There, she’d said it. She’d never told her father she’d discovered that bit of information.
Cole sighed heavily and took a long pull from his Modelo. “I didn’t want to throw that out there. I didn’t want to make you think badly of her.”
“She was responsible for her own actions, Dad. Not you.”
“She started travelling a lot. She went to a lot of conferences and meetings out of town. She kept in touch with the people she met through social media. She was on there every night, chatting long after I went to bed. It led to job offers she wanted to take but I didn’t want to move. That led to more friction between us.”
“What did you do?”
“What could I do?” Cole asked. “She was a grown-up. I didn’t have any authority over her. And maybe I’d already given up on her.”
“Did you know she was having an affair?”
“Not until she told me she was leaving. Then I confronted her and she admitted it. I guess I had my head buried. It’s probably hard for you to understand but it’s devastating when the life you’ve always imagined doesn’t turn out like you expected. It’s hard to face. I felt like a failure. Like the rug had been pulled out from under me.”
Amanda had never heard her father so vulnerable. So open. There was one last thing she had to know. “Why did you let her take me?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I need to understand it. That part doesn’t make sense to me. If a family was all you ever wanted, how could you just let it go? How could you let me go?”
Cole could hear the desperation in her voice, knowing she needed to understand for things to be right between them. Just hearing her put those feelings into words made his heart ache. It had to go back to things her mother had told her, the lies about him not wanting a child. She needed reassurance. She needed to know he loved her.
“If you’ve only had one dream it’s hard to watch it fall apart. I guess I wasn’t as sophisticated as your mother. I didn’t know a lot about the legal system. I didn’t realize I could have tried to block her from taking you out of state. She told me she had a lot of money saved up and the man she’d been seeing had a lot of money too. She said they would bankrupt me if I tried to fight them. Then she laid a bunch of crap on me about how you would be better off with her. I fell for it. I kind of retreated back into my shell and I stayed there.”
Amanda thought for a long time before responding. “I’m not sure I was better off with her. I kind of feel like I missed a lot of life back here. A lot of good life.”
“I know I did,” Cole admitted. “I missed you every day. Things never felt right but I didn’t know how to fix them. I was miserable. I lived for your visits. The rest of the time I just buried myself in work.”
“I’m sorry for what you went through, Dad.”
Tears ran down Cole’s face at his daughter’s words. “I’m sorry for what you went through too, sweetie.” He got up from his chair and went to his daughter, delicately hugging her battered body.
“Let’s start over, Dad. Let’s pretend I never left.”
“Will you drink tap water and Maxwell House?” Cole asked, his voice cracking.
“Don’t push your luck,” Amanda said, holding her father and smelling the fragrances that were a part of him. Sawdust. Pine trees. The warm mulch of the forests.
He smelled like home.