Chapter 20 - The Distance He Chose
In August, Vincent told me he was selling his interest in two businesses that had kept him tied to people he no longer wanted near his family life. He did not describe the details at first, and I did not ask. His work had always existed behind doors I could not open. The difference now was that he volunteered the part that affected June.
"It may change my travel for a few months," he said. "More New York, possibly some time in Miami. I don't want to promise the current schedule if I can't keep it."
We were sitting in Elena's office because he had requested a formal adjustment rather than simply calling me when plans broke. That choice alone showed how far we had moved.
"How temporary?" I asked.
"Three months, maybe four."
"And after that?"
"I expect less travel overall."
I heard the old phrase expect and felt suspicion rise.
"What happens if it doesn't work?"
He looked at me. "Then I don't tell June something I can't guarantee. We adjust based on what is real."
Elena glanced at me, letting me decide whether that answer was enough.
It was.
We changed the schedule. Vincent would have fewer in-person visits for several weeks but longer blocks when he was in Chicago. Video calls would remain optional and short because June was still too young to understand them well. He would give notice as soon as he knew travel dates. No one pretended the change was ideal.
The first month was difficult. June had begun walking and reacted strongly to routines. After ten days without seeing Vincent, she stared at him when he arrived as though he were a familiar object placed in the wrong room. His face fell.
"Give her a minute," I said.
He sat on the floor and rolled a soft ball toward her. She watched. He rolled it again. On the third try, she picked it up and carried it to him. By the end of the hour, she was climbing into his lap.
"I hate that she had to remember me," he said later.
"Then don't make promises that require pretending distance has no cost."
"I know."
He was learning that responsibility did not mean avoiding every painful consequence. Sometimes it meant accepting the consequence and making a different choice next time.
During the same period, Daniel and I became more serious. Not dramatically. There was no declaration under city lights. He started keeping tea he knew I liked at his apartment. I met his sister when she visited Chicago. He became someone I called when my car battery died because he lived nearby and owned jumper cables.
One evening, after June was asleep, he asked whether I wanted him to meet her outside the arts center context.
"Not yet," I said.
He nodded.
"You're not offended?"
"I don't need access to your child to prove you like me."
The sentence hit a place in me I had not realized remained tender.
"Thank you."
"For having basic emotional literacy?"
"Apparently my standards have history."
He smiled and kissed my forehead.
Vincent returned from New York two days later and asked to speak privately after his visit with June. We stood in the hallway outside my apartment.
"I know you're seeing Daniel."
"Yes."
"Is he going to meet June?"
"Eventually, if the relationship continues. Not yet."
He looked relieved, then guilty about looking relieved.
"I'm trying not to interfere."
"Trying is good. Succeeding is better."
"Rachel says—"
"I swear, if you quote Rachel again, I'm sending her half my legal bill."
He laughed, then became serious. "I want to ask one thing. When it happens, can we agree that anyone regularly around June understands the privacy concerns around my work?"
That was reasonable.
"Yes. The same applies to anyone you date."
His expression shifted.
"You hadn't thought about that?"
"Not seriously."
"You will eventually."
"Maybe."
The idea did not hurt as much as I expected. That surprised me.
By October, Vincent completed the first sale. He sent Elena documentation showing that his role in the company had ended. I did not understand every line, but I understood the practical result: fewer meetings with men who made his security team nervous, fewer reasons for him to hide where he was, and fewer excuses for unpredictable travel.
"Why now?" I asked him during a handoff.
He considered the question. "Because for years I told myself the dangerous parts of my life were the reason I kept you away. Then I realized I kept choosing the dangerous parts and calling the consequence protection."
The answer was not heroic. It was honest.
"Selling doesn't erase what you did."
"I know."
"And it doesn't guarantee I'll trust everything else."
"I know that too."
He looked down at June, who was trying to remove his watch. "I'm not selling things to get you back."
"Good."
"I'm selling them because one day she's going to ask what I did for work, and I don't want my answer to begin with a lie."
I believed him.
That did not mean I understood the full shape of his past. I probably never would. Some doors would remain closed because opening them served no purpose except satisfying fear. What mattered was whether those closed rooms still controlled the hallways where June walked.
At the end of October, Vincent confirmed his travel would decrease beginning in January. He did not promise perfection. He gave dates.
I added them to the calendar inside my kitchen cabinet.
May you like
There were still blank spaces between them. I had learned to love those too.
The next Saturday, June took three determined steps from my couch toward the cabinet where I kept the calendar. I caught her before she pulled the paper loose. For a second I imagined the years ahead—school schedules, holidays, missed flights, birthday parties, illnesses, and ordinary Tuesdays we could not yet see. No document could make all of them easy. But the calendar was no longer a record of who had failed to arrive. It was a tool we revised when reality changed. That felt like progress I could actually measure.
