Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Hey, Charlie-girl,” I said the moment I answered. She was my fierce, bubbly, blunt little one. Charlie loved working with me, building things with me, but wanted to do so with a pretty manicure and nice hair. She was stubborn, tough as nails, and she wouldn’t let you forget it, which Carol always said was just like me.
“Hey, Daddy.”
“How are you?” I asked, and she rambled a few minutes about friends at school, gymnastics lessons, and this “super hard” math they were doing at school. It was the beginning of spring, and I couldn’t wait for summer when they’d be spending some time with me. “How are you?” she asked when she finished.
“I’m better now. I miss you.”
“I know. I miss you too. Mama and Logan are fighting again. I swear they’re always fighting.”
I frowned. Logan was twelve, and Carol had mentioned he’d been a little more difficult lately. Nothing big. He wasn’t getting into trouble or anything like that, but he had been a bit more defiant. He was talking back to his mom, not wanting to go to school, which made no sense. Logan was smart. His brain constantly amazed me. Even if he didn’t get something right away, he always caught on. He loved learning. He’d never been much into the social part of classes—friends had never come easily to him—but he was in sixth grade now, and we’d hoped middle school would be better in that respect.
“How’s your brother been with you?”
“Okay, I guess. He still calls me buttface, and I call him four eyes.”
I shook my head and smiled a little. Crazy as it sounded, I even missed hearing my kids argue. “I’ll talk to Logan. But you need to be nice to him too. It’s not okay to call him four eyes.” We spoke for a little while longer before Charlotte said one of her friends was calling. That was much more important than talking to me, so I told her I loved her and we got off the phone.
Logan and I had always been different. He was small for his age, something he hated. He had asthma, and he wasn’t into sports, or building and fixing things—none of the stuff that came naturally to me. He was quiet, artsy, liked video games, but I always made it a point to try and get into the things he was into. I tried his games, even though I wasn’t good at them. I tried reading with him, never pushed him to get involved in things I liked. I wanted him to know I loved him the way he was.
I made an attempt to get back into my carving, but I couldn’t focus on it.
Woodworking was something my dad used to do, and I followed in his footsteps. We hadn’t been what I’d call close. I’d lost my mom when I was young, so it had just been him and me, before he passed about ten years ago. We might not have spent a lot of time talking, but he taught me to work with my hands. He’d been the silent type, built construction, never found anything he couldn’t fix. Just like Carol said Charlie was like me, she used to tell me I was just like my dad, and she hadn’t been wrong. I wasn’t good at talking about all the emotional stuff, not when it came to myself, at least.
Setting down my carving knife, I picked up my phone again. Carol answered on the second ring. “Hey, you,” she said softly.
“You were crying?” I could hear the sadness in her voice.
“Yeah, I got into it with Logan again. I don’t know what’s going on, Knox. He’s failing one of his classes. You know that’s not like him.”
My heart spiked, and my hand tightened on my cell. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just found out! I don’t know why I wasn’t notified. I don’t know what to do.” Her crying filled the silence between us.
Bracing my elbow on the counter, I rested my forehead in my hand. “I hate being so far away. I feel helpless.”
“I know you do. No matter what happened between us, you know I love you. You’re the best man I’ve ever known and a great father. I—”
“Is that Dad?” Logan’s voice came from the background.
“Yeah, sweetie. It’s your father. Do you want to talk to him?”
There was rustling on the line, and then Logan said, “I want to live with you. I don’t like it here anymore. Can I come and live with you?”
Carol gasped, and shock landed in my chest. Logan wanted to live with me? I would take my kids in a second, but from the beginning, as a family, we’d all decided it would be best for them to live with Carol. At the time the kids had agreed.