He turned the rose a quarter turn on the oilcloth.
“I swore I’d never do that to a kid. I’d never make a kid feel like that.”
He looked up at me.
“And Tuesday night, I sat right here in this chair and I said almost the exact same words.”
“Why?” I asked him.
Not mean. I just needed to understand.
“Because I’ve been scared for nine years that I was overstepping,” Travis said.
“Every time I wanted to call her mine, I’d think about her real dad. What if he shows up someday. What if she resents me for it. What if I take something that was never mine to take.”
He rubbed his face with both hands.
“When I said real dads, Jodi, I wasn’t talking about her. I was talking about me. I didn’t think I counted. I didn’t think I was allowed to count.”
