Luke to Lulu: “Everytime I see you, you look a little bit different. You’re changing a little bit every day, aren’t you? Oh, Lulu, I want to be here to see these little miracles. Don’t want you to think I’m not trying to, cause I am...I’m trying. Yes...yes...maybe you can know the words to change you’re mamma’s mind, cause I don’t. But I don’t want you to think I think she’s wrong or anything...because I never claimed to be any great prize as a husband or a daddy. I’m sure nobody’s role model - I wish I were sometimes. But you know, she married me. You know, she signed on for the duration. She said that I am, at least I was, okay..forever. Til death do us part. We’re all still alive. Ain’t nobody dead yet. We’re all still breathing. And we love each other...”
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Luke: You know honey, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Laura: There are a lot of things that don’t make sense these days. Our 12 year old son nearly blowing your brains out on the front porch doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either.
Luke: Agreed. No argument. But we take a bad situation and we work it out. We make it better. Like we always have.
Laura: That’s what I’m doing.
Luke: Without me. You’re keeping me from my wife and my children.
Laura: No. No, you can see them anytime.
Luke: Visits don’t cut it! This is my family Laura. I need to be here. And if I’m reading between your lines correctly, you’re looking at this as a permanent situation. And I’ll tell you right now sweetheart, I can’t accept that!
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Luke: Our children’s well being is not your exclusive domain darlin’. Now I was just for two weeks, out in the woods with our first born and he didn’t come back with one emotional or physical scar.
Laura: You’re an exceptional father, Luke. That’s why you’ll accept this.
Luke: That’s where you lose me. Lucky and I took a good hard straight on look at this under the stars Laura. And he knows that I don’t want him following in my footsteps out of some kind of blind hero-worship. He knows that and he knows I don’t want my daughter doing that either when the time comes. But if you make me into a martyr in his eyes, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
Laura: A martyr? Is that how you see yourself?
Luke: I love my kids! I want them safe! I’ve done a damn good job of doing that so far in the face of some pretty good odds. My good, decent, reliable brother in law couldn’t stop that school van from turning over, Laura, he couldn’t save his child. Are you blaming him?
Laura: I’m not blaming anyone for anything.
Luke: Alright, are you punishing him?
Laura: Oh for god’s sake! I’m not going to listen to this!
Luke: Don’t you think I go through hell when my kid wakes up in the middle of the night with a nightmare, desperate to know he hasn’t shot and killed me. Or when you look like that. Baby, I would die for you! And I would die for those kids!
Laura: That’s the point! You almost have!
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Luke: It’s like magnet this house. The kids. You. All I want is to be here.
Laura: Luke as horrible as it is, it doesn’t change what’s happening in this house. And in a way, it only me more determined to want to protect Lucky and Lesley Lu.
Luke: And that leaves me out of the picture.
Laura: Having you stay here in the house isn’t an option. That was the decision I made.
Luke: It’s bad enough being shut out. I won’t be irrelevant! At no time during any of our discussions about this did I agree to let you be sole arbiter of our children’s future!
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Ruby: Let me put it to you this way. Laura has being saying yes to you for years. Isn’t she entitled to a no now and then?
Luke: No, she’s not. Not when it separates me from my kids. Forget what it’s doing to me, which is plenty. What do you think it’s doing to them? Ruby, my daughter doesn’t even know me. And Lucky is like a freight train, slamming into adolescence.
Ruby: Heaven help us.
Luke: Oh please. It’s a confusing time for him, he needs his dad. Alright, I’m not the most perfect picture of fatherhood on the planet. But I’m who he got. I’m it. Is that so bad?
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Mike: Well, my money’s on you working it out with your wife.
Luke: Well, thank you Mr. Corbin, I appreciate that vote of confidence.
Mike: I haven’t known you long, but I recognize a man who won’t quit. Tenacious. That’s you.
Luke: You might say that.
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Lucky: Babies change things, don't they?
Luke: Oh, you sure did.
Lucky: Yeah?
Luke: Oh yeah - yeah
Lucky: Did you mind?
Luke: Mind?
Lucky: I mean, I'm sure mom loved it because it's pretty obvious about what mom thinks about babies....what did you think?
Luke: I thought it was cool...I thought that you were one of the two most amazing things that ever happened to me.
Lucky: What was the other?
Luke: That your mother fell in love with me in the first place.
Lucky: So, you were glad when I came?
Luke: Oh yeah, sure! I was also scared. Mostly scared.
Lucky: Of what?
Luke: Well, that I wouldn't get it right.
Lucky: Oh, you mean like being a dad?
Luke: Yeah, I didn't have much to go on, ya know.
Lucky: So, what did you do?
Luke: I tried to listen to you.
Lucky: To a kid? To a little baby?
Luke: Yeah. And as you grew up, I tried to listen to you. And I listened your mother and I tried to remember all the things that I didn't have when I was a kid that I wanted. And I've tried to give them to you. I'm still trying.
Lucky: You do good dad.
Luke: Thanks. So do you. Right now, there are only two things in my life that make any sense at all. That's you and that sweet little round mama of yours.
