Josh crumpled the neat sheaf of divorce papers into an uninteresting piece of abstract art remarkably similar to the balled fist currently strangling the life from them. The attorney that had just served him the papers was still making her way through the twisting trails and green foliage in the distance, though Josh had no idea how the conniving woman had even found him there in the botanical gardens... in the end it didn’t matter. Josh’s eyes were glued to the pink Post-It Miranda had obviously and lovingly put on the cover page, likely just before siccing her Armani-wearing attack dog of a lawyer on him...
Taking a breath, he reread the four words in her prim and proper cursive,
Go to hell, Josh!
Josh swallowed and let both hands drop to his sides, banging against the wooden seat of the bench he was sitting on. Part of his mind noted objectively that he had been right... The second time reading it hurt less, not much, but I may actually survive the next five minutes without exploding into flames... It's something, at least. After all, Real men don’t burst into tears–we spontaneously combust.
“... Damn straight, Joshy... but never on days ending in a ‘Y.’” He mumbled to himself, chuckling internally.
After seeing the papers and Post-It for the first time, Josh had jumped up in the quiet garden cove he’d been sitting in and reflexively moved to a fighting stance, looking for something to punch. His breathing had become deep, ragged gasps–his heart racing. Josh felt like he was on mile five of a three-mile run.
He opened his mouth and released a primal scream of rage. It was an unconscious thing full of fury and loss. Josh simply didn’t have the words to express or even identify the roiling mass of emotion and simply released the acidic, poisonous thing onto the world in an explosive bellow.
Startled songbirds squawked from the branches above and took to the air all around him. Several coeds turned toward his sudden outburst in the normally quiet botanical garden just outside of FSU’s satellite campus. It was the campus where Joshua Elias Tanner, FSU’s new forty-four-year-old part-time law professor, taught, among other things–criminal law and was where he’d apparently unconsciously determined was an excellent place for having an emotional meltdown.
His emotions were far from being fully expressed, but he simply snorted and dropped the paper ball and Post-It from his hands. Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, he exhaled and looked around at the lush greens of the botanical garden, then the stand of red bamboo behind him, and slowly let his frustrations go.
He looked at his watch, Almost time to get back to work...
The noon bells from the nearby Franciscan Mission rang out in agreement as they slowly tolled throughout the summer afternoon air over the southern tip of Jacksonville.
But Josh still needed a few minutes to get his head on straight, which he was going to take. He was in the break between his summer schedule’s generic torts and advanced personal injury classes. He straightened the Wayfarer shades that had been knocked askew during his sudden outburst and absently ran a glance over the streams of FSU students moving down the cobblestone paths around him as his brain continued to torment him.
Why are you even surprised? Of course she left. You and Miranda were over a long time ago. Stop beating your head against this wall– nothing you’ve done to change was ever for her anyway, was it?
That was... shockingly true.
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It hadn’t been from stepping back from his busy practice and taking a sabbatical teaching law, nor the countless hours of couples and family counseling they’d gone through... He couldn’t give Miranda what she wanted. No, that ship had sailed. Everything he’d done had been for the only real thing in this world that made any sense to him...
That’s right, Joshy, it’s all been for Sophie... Don’t you forget it!
Now, that truth was not shocking in the least. It was true the way breathing was true. As long as his four-year-old daughter was still willing to smile and hug his face when he blew raspberries on her neck... Everything else was going to be alright...
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes... But I won’t end up as one of those weekends and every other holiday day, dads! How can I willingly put her through the pathetic grudging single dad attempts at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or birthdays? She deserves so much more than what I had!
No matter how Josh sliced it, that kind of life would never be good enough for Sophie. Whatever the personal and emotional price Josh had to pay would be inconsequential to keeping her happy and in a solid home.
Josh still planned to see Sophie and her morning wake-up smile that could outshine the sun after an all-night thunderstorm.
Several more minutes ticked by, and Josh slipped over to the right side of the bench to avoid the sun’s rays as they peeked through the overhead cypress tree. Born and raised in the northern reaches of Chicago’s south side. Josh was a foreigner to Florida’s scorching summer heat. If he didn’t avoid the punishing rays he’d end up sweating through his shirt and meet his third-year students with dripping pits. Josh might be just a northern barbarian, as he’d heard whispered on more than one occasion by Miranda’s parents, but even he knew that pit stains were not a good way to instill confidence in his capabilities on the first day of the summer session.
Josh loosened his tie as his thoughts switched back to Sophie. Her small hand planted on his cheek, her forehead resting on his. Her giant, wide blue eyes when they said goodbye after their past weekend together…
Loudly, and with a naive lack of embarrassment, she’d said, “Don’t worry, Daddy... I know you love me! It doesn’t matter what Mommy says when she’s mad and talking with Aunty and Gran Gran...”
“Damn...” Josh groaned, rubbing both his temples at his psychic pain from the emotional fallout Miranda was putting Sophie through. Her carelessness at letting Sophie hear these things grated him like a face plant on 100-degree asphalt.
“Alright, alright.” Josh said aloud, running a hand through his hair and idly straightening the collar of his shirt. “That’s enough of a pity party for today. Pull yourself together and get back to work.”
In a heroic effort of will, Josh mentally wrenched at his emotional reigns in a way that would have made the most soulless of lawyers concerning matters of the heart proud.
A crooked smile crept upon his lips.
Thankfully, Sophie didn’t let the muck that he and Miranda threw at each other affect how she loved and dealt with them. She was also dead on about how her daddy felt about her.
Josh chuckled darkly. “Hell, I wish we could follow her example instead of forking over three hundred and fifty bucks an hour to that shyster of a marriage counselor.”
Josh dismissed the ridiculous but happy thought and stood from the bench with fresh determination in his steps as the 12:30 bell chimed behind him.
I may not know anything about having a good marriage, but one thing I do know is that Sophie deserves better than what we are giving her, his hand balled into a determined fist, and I’m going to fix that.
His working-class ‘northern barbarian’ brain would find a way to fix this mess. He might not have any answers on how to do anything right now, but he did have one thing that had carried him through every day of his life so far: The willingness to do whatever it took to fix seemingly insurmountable problems.
Josh would never consider himself a religious man, not by a long shot. But unintentionally–the only prayer that had ever mattered poured out of him. I swear, on everything that I have–everything that I am. I’ll fix this, Sophie.
* * * * *
In that moment, it was impossible for Josh’s mortal mind and human perceptions to recognize or feel, but, Karma, Balance, and Reality had heard this desperate man’s promise. And for reasons that likely would never be revealed, they’d taken notice of him, or rather not him, exactly–but his importance to a small human child named Sophie…
* * * * *