Misconduct

“Yes, Mr. Marek,” I sang out.

I had things I wanted but didn’t need and things I needed but didn’t want.

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” Abraham Lincoln had said.

Family, fortune, and future.

One irrefutable fact about parenting that I knew even before I was one was that there was no “right” way. No set list of proven methods to follow if you wanted your kid to captain a submarine or conduct orchestras or be president.

If you pushed them to succeed, they could resent you. If you didn’t push them enough, they could still resent you. If you gave them what they needed, they would complain about not having what they wanted, and if you gave them what they wanted, they may only want more.

How much was too much? How much was too little? How hard should you push to be able to call it encouragement, because if you pushed too hard, they’d call it bad parenting?

How do they know that you love them? How do you know if they love you?

How do you know if they’re going to be okay?

Bowing my forehead down to hers, I tried to keep my voice low. “You’re going to get me into trouble with that mouth of yours, and I may not get everything I thought I wanted out of life, but if I don’t have you and my son, then the rest of it means nothing,” I told her. “You make me happy, my kid likes you, and I feel like I could do anything if I knew I was going to see you every day. I need you.”

“I don’t care,” I told her. “I don’t want to make trouble for you, but I don’t care about the campaign if I can’t have you. I don’t fucking care.”

“Tyler!” she burst out. “We can’t —”
But I interrupted her, taking her face in my hand. “I love you, okay?” I rushed out. “I love you like crazy, and I’ve never said that to a woman before, but I’m completely in love with you, Easton Bradbury.”

He definitely knew how to shut me up.

loved.

I could survive without Tyler, but why would I want to? Ever?