“Did you even consider telling me? Did it even go through your head that I should know?”
“Of course it did,” I said. “You were the first thing that came to mind. But I had no idea what to do. I wanted to come back to the States, but I wasn’t sure I could. Even if I did, I didn’t know how I would find you. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to see you again. All I had was your first name. Remember? We didn’t exchange anything else.”
“I know,” he said. “We didn’t really get very in-depth with each other. We never even talked about what we did for a living.”
“Exactly. I didn’t have anything to go on. It’s not like Darren is such an unusual name there would only be a handful of options. I wasn’t even sure you’d lived in the area. It was your birthday, and you were there with your brothers and friends. For all I knew, they brought you in from some other place, or you were visiting from a different town. I know I could have done more. I could have worked harder to find you. I could have looked you up, hired a private investigator, something. But I didn’t. That’s something I’m going to have to live with,” I told him.
“And so do I. When you made that decision for yourself, you made it for me, too. I know we didn’t give each other much information about ourselves, but at least you could have tried. Something.”
“I did. I picked up my entire life, my daughter’s entire life, to leave the only home I’ve ever known and move down here on the off chance I would be able to find you. I didn’t just come for a quick visit or swing through town and hope I might stumble on you. When I decided to come down here once and for all, it was to stay so that if I did find you and was able to tell you, you would be able to have a relationship with Willa.”
“But you did stumble on me. Almost six weeks ago now.”
I drew in a breath and nodded.
“Yeah, I did. That wasn’t my plan. I didn’t expect that or go out of my way to make that happen.”
“You were there to celebrate my birthday,” Darren said, sounding slightly incredulous. “You went to the bar where you met me when I was celebrating my birthday, on my birthday, and didn’t think there was any chance you were going to run into me?”
We’d already had this conversation, but apparently it wasn’t enough to satisfy him.
“I had my birthday party at a pizza parlor one time. That doesn’t mean I go back there every year to celebrate. I told you before, you didn’t exactly look comfortable at the bar. It looked like the first time you’d ever been there.”
“Of course it was. It was my twenty-first birthday. My brother brought me there because it’s his favorite bar. It’s where everybody goes after the races and to hang out, as you very well know now,” he pointed out.
I drew in a breath, closing my eyes to try to stay calm.
“The point is, I didn’t think you would be there. If I had known, I wouldn’t have gone. That wasn’t the way I wanted this to work out. I didn’t want us to just spontaneously run into each other and have me blurt out ‘oh, by the way, you have a daughter.’ I wanted to be more diplomatic than that. But then it happened. You walked back into my life. I gave you my phone number so we could get together to talk, but that didn’t end up happening, either. What was I supposed to do, Darren? Can’t you understand what I was going through? I thought I knew how this was going to unfold. Then I found out the job I was dying to get was for your family.”
“You could have told me right then,” Darren said.
“What, as part of my interview? My name is Kelly, I have almost ten years of experience and your two-year-old daughter? I didn’t think you’d hire me, or that you’d only hire me because of her. Or worse, that you’d take Willa from me and I’d get kicked back to Quebec without my daughter.” I took a few bites of my fish and a sip of my lemonade, just trying to get my thoughts together. But no other brilliant comments came to mind. “It was fear. That’s all. That’s the only excuse I have.”
I waited for Darren to respond, but he stayed silent for far too long. His stare was intense, but I had trouble understanding the emotion behind it.
“I was right,” he finally said. “That’s bullshit.”
My hands shook hard enough to make me put down my fork, and I nodded, staring down at my feet.