It was now up to him to decide what he wanted to do.
When I didn't get a response immediately, I sent another message, figuring the first one must have gotten deleted somehow, it not being the sort of information one usually just ignored.
I wanted so much to give him the benefit of the doubt. Then I sent another one, sure he would say something, anything. Even if it was "fuck off" or, scarier still, "marry me."
But there was nothing.
For more than a day, I waited.
I had even called my cell phone service company to make sure my phone was working. Even though I knew it was working because I had texted other people in between that time and had received responses. That was just how desperate I was.
Even more direct than texts, I figured, were phone calls. Drumming up all my courage, I dialed his number. Every jab at the keypad felt like a stab at the heart of my fear.
He was going to talk to me. He was going to explain himself. For good or bad, we were going to work this out.
After another several hours of trying the direct approach, dialing and redialing his number so many times my thumb cramped, I finally had to admit to myself that he had made his answer clear. I didn’t even bother leaving a voicemail.
I figured that after so many hello? Are you there? And You really don’t want to talk to me? texts I had sent, it would be even more pathetic to leave a spoken message.
It was obvious he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. It wasn’t even that I had gotten to tell him I was pregnant and he didn’t want the baby, which would have been bad enough, but but it was that he didn't even want to talk to me and find out what I wanted to tell him, apathy being even worse than hate, because at least with hate there was some emotion involved.
He had made it clear by his radio silence that he wasn't interested in me or anything having to with me anymore. I supposed that included his own child.
"It's just you and me, kid," I said, putting my hand on my belly, telling myself to face reality and move on.Chapter Eighteen - LoganI could be really tenacious. I guess I could blame it all on grandpa, his bad influence and all, but that was really only part of it. No matter what my influences, I still had my own mind and could make my own decisions.
It was just too bad I had let so much of my life pass me by before I had figured that out. Not that I couldn't have used someone to blame. Someone or something else to point to other than my sheer bloody-mindedness; or worse, that could possibly explain what happened.
I kept trying to call Kora. I wasn't proud of it, but I did. Dad was right, like he had so often been whether I was willing to admit it or not, but something in me kept pushing. I had resisted it for nearly two weeks.
Doing my best to push it from my mind, I had focused on work, which had been going really well. Dad really did have some good ideas and the business was growing. We weren't making quite as much per tour but we had a lot more clients and some of them were interested in buying their own boats, too, so it evened out. Eventually it would surpass what grandpa had done.
Not that I needed the money, really. But a petty part of me liked the idea of getting one over on granddad, especially by doing what dad had been wanting to do all along. While I didn't need the money, dad did. Grandpa had completely cut him out of his will and the business dad had helped build, leaving him with nothing.
That was grandpa's revenge for dad daring to go against him. Dad had tried to get another job, of course, but corporate gigs weren't was plentiful as they used to be and most of the start ups wanted someone younger, which was its own, weird kind of irony.
Eventually dad had gotten a job with a logging company, cutting down trees up north. At first, this sounded impossibly strange. Like a dog suddenly speaking in Aramaic. But it wasn't that weird, really.
Dad had always been a big guy and pretty hands on. He was always doing all kinds of repair jobs around the house, even after he was really rich. I'd seen him use a leaf blower. It wasn't really too far between that and a chainsaw.
Still, I was happy for him to be able to to get back to doing what he always wanted to do and be a partner in the business he had helped build again. Kristen seemed happier, too. She had gotten a promotion at her job and I didn't think the money she got from her stocks in the sailing business hurt, either. I really did just see it as her due.