18. Ozadus

It’s too soon to make a judgment call, but it seems my plan is working. Lisa tries to hide it every night when we say goodbye. She wants me. I feel it every time the door closes in my face. Each night she takes the divide in her hands more slowly, an indication that I’m exactly where I need to be.

As I walk back to my hotel, I feel I”ve earned a drink for all my hard work. The hotel bar looks pretty dull tonight, but that’s no worry to me. All I want is a nightcap and to look over the photos I took on my comm pad today.

“What will it be?” the bartender asks while she towel dries an empty mug at the counter.

I hunch into a seat, hoping to bury myself in a wall of solitude, but she looks eager. Chatty.

“Thistle water, neat,” I say, surprising myself by ordering a drink from my father’s generation.

She smiles on one side of her mouth, “Haven’t had one of those in a while.”

While I wait, I pull out my comm pad and start flipping through my day with Zhara. Spending my evenings with her is totally out of my wheelhouse. I”ve never had an experience like this before.

It’s wild sometimes when I think about it. Zhara’s tiny little life is in my hands when her mother is away. When it’s just the two of us, I’m all she has. And when I leave again at night, I feel something strange creeping up inside me that I’ve never felt before.

“Is that your daughter?” the nosy barkeep asks, peering at my screen. “She’s gorgeous.”

“Thanks,” I say, finding that I’m softer to her attempt at conversation than I was before. Maybe it’s the drink, hitting my stomach with that familiar burn. Or maybe she’s a fellow parent who gets it.

“Mine are two and four,” she says, pulling up pictures of her own hybrid children. “They’re a quarter Odex. My partner is half.”

I find myself flipping through the screen with her. I can’t help it.

“Look at her holding her spoon. I swear she’s a little genius. She’s so advanced for her age.”

“Is she your only kid?” she asks, preparing me another thistle water now that mine has gone dry.

“So far,” I confess, unsure if I”m even hearing myself right. It’s not that I never wanted a family in my life, it’s just that I didn’t see it as a real possibility. Stealing hover cars and spaceships on the reg doesn”t equal preschool.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I’m done yet either,” she says. “Every day is a new challenge and a new reward, as they say.”

Two drinks later and I’m stuck in my own story with a total stranger, which is wildly out of character for me. I don”t know what it is, but why didn”t anyone ever tell me how much fun it is to gush over your kid? I could do this all night.

“If I can just get her mom to let me be there more.”

“So you think you can win her back?” My new friend looks skeptical at my plans. Admittedly, the more I drink, the more I boast.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, throwing back the rest of the glass. “I’m about there. She just needs a little more time. I gave her a clean house today, a good meal, and took care of our kid all night while she worked. I’m just about over the finish line.”

The scoff coming from across the bar catches my attention. My new friend, Kate, doesn”t seem to see my vision as well as I do.

“Oh, buddy.” She shakes her head, sliding a warm mug towards me. “It was nice knowing you.”

“What?” I demand, wobbling from the barstool. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, boy.” She looks flustered. “Do I tell him? I do. You’re going about this all wrong, Ozadus.”

“What do you mean?”

Maybe it”s my blurry vision, but Kate the bartender looks at me like I’m stupid. But that’s not right. Is it?

“You said Lisa was smart.”

“Yeah, and?”

“You can’t trick a smart girl, not for long, anyway. They don’t work like that. You said this girl was your fated mate, is that right?”

It hits me that I”ve revealed too much to this stranger, I feel the need to bail suddenly, but I can’t resist seeing where she’s going with this.

“I did say that.” I feel like I”m walking towards a trap.

“So you think fate would send a smart girl your way, give you a child with her, throw all these impossible odds at both of you, but getting her back is gonna be easy? Nice try, but I don’t think so.”

“Then what do I do?” By now, I’m drunk enough to see Kate through beer goggles. As far as I”m concerned, she’s a mage sent to advise me. I want Lisa back, and I want my baby, too. If there’s a flaw in my plan, I better listen to good advice while it”s in front of me.

I wake the next day with a wretched pounding that has my senses everywhere at once. The sunlight burns my eyes as I shove my head into a pillow, rolling back over the day and night before.

Looking over at my comm pad, I realize I’ve only got an hour before I see Zhara. I run to the showers, trying to wipe the hangover away with the water that runs down my scales. Kate’s words come back to me, despite everything I did to try to black them out.

“You can’t half-ass this.”

She’s right.

Lisa is a smart, capable woman who has single-handedly given me a whole life. I have a real future here, and if I don”t fuck this up, more amazing things could come. Whatever I do from this point forward has to be more about just getting her back.

It’s about them. Both of them.

“A smart girl needs a true partner.”

When I think back on all that I missed with Zhara and all that my fated mate took on by herself, my heart swells. Fate chose well for me. Lisa has the heart of a Kaleidian warrior and shows it with everything she does. She’s not just smart. She’s brilliant, and fearless, too. If I mean to have a real place with her, I have to match her at every turn.

So I make sure not to be late and to show up clean, neatly dressed with food in hand. I even packed her lunch.

“You have to eat more than a cup of noodles at break time. You need protein,” I insist, pushing a bag her way.

“Somebody’s pretty extra today. What’s going on?”

I was warned about this. Lisa won’t accept help easily, like any woman who’s been on her own. If I want to show her true partnership, it’s through consistency. I have to be this Kaleidian every day.

“Nothing unusual here,” I try to assuage her suspicion. “Just doing my part.”

“Hmmm.” She seems unsure as she accepts the sack lunch. She looks inside, inspecting my handiwork, and seems pleased as she leaves for the day.

Somewhere in this house, I find a baby carrier and hold it up to my girl.

“Who’s up for a walk?”

She squeals with delight, mouthing her fist with her gums.

“Sounds like a yes.”

I take my girl to the mirror and, after several failed attempts, manage to strap her close to my chest. I check my back and see my spines poking out of the fabric. I feel like an idiot. But this is the path to Lisa, to Zhara, to everything I want in my life.

Despite my hangover, I rally with the baby on my chest and step out into the evening sunshine.

“Gah, gah, gah, gah,” Zhara says, kicking wildly from my chest.

“That’s right, Zhar,” I say, flexing my scales in the sunlight. “We need sunshine. Every day, okay?”

While she doesn”t say anything back, I feel a swell of pride remembering times with my parents. They had so much to teach me about my Kaleidian heritage. We left the planet when I was a boy, but I’d love to return with her and show her that bright green world. It’s hard to fully picture it now, but maybe there’s a future for all three of us back on Kalei.

As we make our way to the local park, I set Zhara down in the sand pit and take a seat on the bench. Looking around, I see that not only am I not alone, but there are dads here with their kids, too.

A ball comes near my bench, and a Vakutan dad comes to retrieve it.

“Here you go,” I say, throwing it to him. As I watch him leave to play ball with his kid, I find I can’t wait to be out there someday with a son of my own. I can hardly hold space for that thought. A girl and a boy.

It all feels strangely normal. I see that this really could be it for me, and nothing would make me happier. I’d love to work in the morning, and trade evenings with Lisa so that we could both enjoy our work and our baby, too. This could really work.

“Gah, gah, gah!” Zhara screams from the sand, throwing fistfuls in every direction.

I can”t help it as I pull my comm pad from the baby carrier and start snapping away. Lisa has given me so much. She’s given me so much more than I ever knew I wanted.

She comes home to a clean house that night, with Zhara playing on the floor. I know I should leave, like before, but instead, I beg her to sit and watch a holo-vision program with us.

“I’ll rub your feet,” I offer, making space for her on the couch. She looks so peaceful, moaning slightly at my touch, and I realize I just can’t wait anymore. Her skin feels perfect in my fingers.

Lisa’s already given me everything. But I can’t help myself. I want more.