by ID Johnson
“Yep,” he said, “and I hardly ever saw her since.”
“That must have been very hard on you,” Melody said, stroking his hair.
“Yep,” he repeated. “She lives in California now. She has a new husband. And two dogs.”
“Do you ever talk to her on the phone?” Melody wasn’t sure exactly what she should or should not say.
“Not anymore,” he replied. “I just kinda hope Santa brings her a new little boy, one that she can love.”
“Oh, Michael,” Melody said, wrapping her arms around him. “Listen, sweetie, sometimes grown ups have problems that other people can’t ever understand. You should never think that she couldn’t love you, Michael. I’m sure she loved you—that she does love you. How could anyone not love such a kind, sweet, smart, friendly kid like you?”
Michael set the picture on the bed and wrapped his arms around her neck. “Do you love me, Miss Melody?”
“Yes, I do. Very much,” she said, and she meant it.
“Good. You’ll never leave me, will you?”
Melody hesitated. What if Reid decided she shouldn’t see Michael anymore? She would hate to make a promise she couldn’t keep, but she also knew exactly what he needed to hear in that moment. “I will always be your friend, Michael.”
“Hey, you two!” Reid called from the hallway. “This tree isn’t going to decorate itself.”
Melody let Michael go and straightened her hair. “You ready to go put the ornaments on?” she asked, grinning at him.
“Yep!” he replied, a genuine smile beaming from his face.
“Great. Why don’t you put that away, and let’s go back into the living room?”
Michael scurried off to put the picture away, and Melody worked her way off of the pirate ship. He was still in the closet when she stepped out into the hallway, nearly colliding with Reid. “Hey,” she said with a grin. “That pirate ship is very impressive.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” he said, his hands shoved deep into his jeans pockets. “That was a little consolation prize for moving him across the country, leaving his grandparents and all of his friends behind.”
Michael came flying out of his room and slipped past them, clearly no longer upset about his mom or anything else. “Come on!” he shouted.
“All right,” Reid said, shaking his head. “We’re coming.”
Melody put her hand on Reid’s arm before he could turn around, realizing she needed to say something to him before the moment had passed. He looked at her hand where it rested on his bicep, a question forming on his face, but she didn’t pull away. “Listen,” she said, “I think you should know what Michael was just talking to me about.”
“You look very serious,” he said, a worried tone to his voice.
Melody folded her hands in front of her. “He showed me a picture of his mom.” She waited for that to sink in, and Reid’s forehead crinkled, but he didn’t say anything. “He asked me if I thought his mom might ask Santa for another little boy, and if I thought it was okay if he asked Santa for a new mom.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Eventually, he ran a hand through his hair and asked, “How did you respond?”
“I just told him that sometimes grown ups do things that other people can’t understand, and I’m sure that the reason his mother left had nothing to do with him. I said he has lots of people that love him, and maybe someday, he might have a stepmom.”
“And what did he say to that?” Reid asked, scratching his chin.
“He just said that he loved me, and he hopes that I will never leave him.”
Reid’s eyes widened, and he put his hands back in his pockets. There was another long pause before he said, “Well, I knew he had been thinking about his mom a lot lately, but I guess I didn’t realize it was bothering him so much.”
“I hope my answers were okay. I really didn’t know what to say.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure they were. It is hard to answer his questions anyway, let alone when he’s talking about such intense topics.”
Melody nodded. “I just thought you should know.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks.” He offered her a meager smile, but Melody didn’t know if it was sincere. She wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned it at all.
“Come on, guys!” Michael shouted from the living room.
“I guess we’d better get in there,” Reid said, turning, the smile no longer frozen in place.
“Right,” Melody replied, following him down the hallway. She honestly felt like now might be a good time to come down with the flu or break her arm so she’d have an excuse to leave, but when she entered the living room and saw Michael standing with an excess bow on his head, an ornament in each hand, she knew she’d have to stay. He’d asked her to help with the tree, and she would find a way to push her own grown up problems aside and give him an afternoon of tree decorating to remember.
Once they got started, it was easier to push the awkwardness of both her conversation with Michael and the relaying of the information to Reid aside and concentrate on having fun. Michael requested Christmas music, and even though Reid was hesitant at first, somehow picking up on Melody’s preferences, she insisted that he turn some on so that Michael could decorate his tree with full effect. So Reid had found a kids’ Christmas station on Pandora and refrains of “Frosty the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” filled the room, which were Christmasy but not overly sentimental.
Michael loved the tinsel and wore a lot of it on his head. As Melody placed a handmade wreath that Michael had created the year before in preschool on the tree, the little boy flung a handful of tinsel at her, and before she knew it, they were in a three-way tinsel tossing war. By the time she and Reid both surrendered, the room was covered in tinsel, and none of them could stand up straight from laughing so hard. Melody had decorated dozens of Christmas trees in her lifetime, but she honestly couldn’t remember ever having so much fun in the process.
Once they were finished and all of the ornaments were in place, Melody realized it was late afternoon, and she needed to get home. She’d let her mom know where she was hours ago, but she had some pictures to post on the website, and she needed to clear a couple of more boxes out of the spare room. She hurriedly helped Michael and Reid pick up the bigger clumps of tinsel and hang them on the tree, but the room would definitely need a good vacuuming, and Reid insisted he would take care of that later.
“I think I better get home,” she said, looking at Michael with an apologetic expression.
“Awww,” Michael exclaimed, his shoulders slumping. “But we are having so much fun.”
“I know,” Melody said. “But I have work to do.”
Michael’s lips puckered in a pitiful display of sadness. “Fine,” he finally said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
His face lit up. “At carpool?”
“Yes.”
“And can I go to your house?”
“No,” Reid answered before Melody even got a chance to respond. “You’re not being rewarded for getting kicked off the bus.”
“I never get anything,” he lamented, crossing his arms over his chest.
Melody held back a laugh. “I think you should remember Santa is watching, and be nice to your dad,” she said, stooping to whisper near his ear.
“Okay,” he said, but his expression didn’t change.
“No hug goodbye then?” she asked.
That was enough to change his attitude, and as she dropped to her knees, he wrapped his arms around her neck. “Thanks for decorating my tree with me.”
“Thank you for inviting me,” she said, squeezing him back. “Be good tonight, okay? And I’ll see you after school.”
“Okay,” and that time he seemed to mean it.
“Michael, go lay your clothes out for tomorrow. I’m going to walk Miss Melody to her car, okay?”
“All right, Dad,” Michael said, and as Melody stood back up, he gave her another wav
e and disappeared down the hall.
Reid took her coat off of the hook and held it open so she could slip inside. His fingertips lightly brushed her shoulders, and despite the fact that she was fairly certain he was upset about the conversation she’d had with Michael earlier, she still felt tingles at his touch. He pulled the front door open, and she went through, thankful it wasn’t as cold as it had been recently.
“Thanks for everything you did for Michael today,” Reid said as he walked with her across the porch and into the yard. “It really meant a lot to him.”
“Thanks for asking me to stay,” she said, pulling her keys out of her coat pocket. “It was a lot of fun.”
“It really was,” he agreed. “I think I might be vacuuming up tinsel for the next three months.”
Melody giggled. “I think I might be finding it in my hair for the next three months.”
They were standing next to her car now, and Melody suddenly felt very awkward. Part of her wanted to bring up the discussion of earlier, to apologize for the conversation she’d had with Michael, but she felt like she needed to let it go, that he would rather just pretend it didn’t happen. It was also really bothering her that she still didn’t know why his wife had left, and even though she knew it was absolutely none of her business, she wanted to find out so she could give Reid the same sort of reassurance she’d offered his son. No matter what had happened, she was certain it couldn’t have been his fault.
“If you have any problems getting him tomorrow, just give me a call.”
“I will,” she assured him. “And I’ll let you know when I drop him off at Ms. Karen’s, too, so you don’t worry.”
“Thanks, Mel,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.” He opened the car door for her, and even though it was evident he expected her to climb inside and leave now, he didn’t seem like he necessarily wanted her to go.
“Yep, see you soon,” she replied, sliding into the driver's side and pulling the door shut. She waved as he backed away from the car, and she placed the key in the ignition, put on her seatbelt, and reversed out of the driveway. He stood in the yard and watched her go, and Melody wondered if that gesture meant the same thing to him as it had to her. One thing was for certain, the more time she spent with Reid, the more confused she became about his intentions. Despite the perplexity, she knew for sure that would not prevent her from attempting to spend as much time with him as possible.
Chapter 9
It turned out Reid had not been exaggerating about the parent pick up line, and even though Melody was there before 2:30, there had to be close to three dozen cars in front of her. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to sit in this line for a half-hour or more, but then, here she was, like a lemming, her car in park, waiting to shift into gear and scoot up whenever anyone else nudged a bit forward. For the most part, the line was stationary, and she could have used the time to read the book she had brought with her or work on editing some photos on her iPad, but once she was sitting in the line, she found her mind wandering, and rather than making the most of her time, she reviewed the changes her life had taken over the last week and a half. Never in a million years would she have expected to be sitting outside of an elementary school waiting to pick up a precious child who—for some reason—had claimed her as his own.
She contemplated the situation with Reid as well. There were times when she thought he might be interested in her. He had told her just yesterday that she always looked nice, and it didn’t seem to have been stated in one of those polite tones people often use when they feel like they should be giving someone else a compliment that they don’t really mean. Still, he seemed so distant at times, particularly after she told him about her conversation with Michael, and she wondered if he thought it was odd that his son had become so attached to her so quickly. Perhaps it was even more odd that the feeling was reciprocated.
Once the line began to move, a large smile formed on her face. Even though she was allegedly just doing Reid a favor, she was actually looking forward to spending a few minutes with Michael. She would’ve been more than happy to take him home with her, but she knew how Reid felt about that. Nevertheless, she’d get to be the first one to hear how his day went, and she was anxiously awaiting a chance to see his smile.
As she neared the front of the line, she picked up the card Reid had given her with Michael’s name on it, rolled down the window, and held it out for the staff member standing on the sidewalk to see. Using a megaphone, the woman shouted to a group of teachers waiting outside of the school near a set of five cones. All of this was fascinating to Melody; when she was in school, the bell rang, and all the children dispersed. There was no systematic parent pickup lane. If it was a day her parents were picking her up, she just walked out into the parking lot and looked for her mom’s or dad’s car. If she was riding the bus, she got on the one she knew stopped near her house. Now, everything was so much more complicated.
But the system worked, and when she pulled up to the second cone, Michael was standing there waiting for her with a young woman who hardly looked old enough to be a teacher. She pulled her car to a stop, and the woman said, “Your mom’s here, Michael!” and ushered him to the back passenger side of her car.
Melody was so shocked at the comment, she didn’t know what to say. By the time she’d regained control of her voice, the woman was saying, “Have a good night, Michael!” and closing the door.
Michael was exclaiming, “Miss Melody! Miss Melody!” and she wondered if he had heard what the teacher said and chose to ignore it or if he hadn’t caught it. Deciding there was nothing she could do about it now, Melody followed the car in front of her out of the parking lot and double checked her speed as she drove through the school zone.
“Did you get your seatbelt buckled?” she asked smiling at him in the mirror.
“Yep! And guess what! My friend Hailey said Santa is going to be at the library on Saturday. And there’s a parade, too. On Friday. At lunch today, Tommy was eating noodles, and one of them came through his nose. It was really gross. Dad was supposed to give me chocolate chip cookies in my lunch, but we must have been all out because there was a brownie instead. I can have one sweet for lunch and one at Ms. Karen’s if it’s small and that’s it. But sometimes Ms. Karen gives me two. In science today, we talked about our five senses. Did you know that people can smell good, but not as good as dogs?”
As he continued to rattle off what seemed to be every single thing that had happened to him throughout the day, Melody struggled to keep up. She wondered how he could possibly talk so quickly and pause so infrequently for air. She was able to say things like, “You did?” and “That sounds fun,” but as far as a complete sentence or question, it wasn’t happening. She wanted to ask Reid if he was always like this after school or if he was just saving it all for her. Of course, when he was on the bus, he would have no one to share any of this with, except for maybe whomever he happened to be sitting by, and that other child probably wouldn’t want to hear about how Billy had fallen down at recess because he forgot to tie his shoes and Mrs. Clifton the recess monitor says you should always check your shoes before you take off running at recess. Maybe the fact that Michael didn’t have to ride the bus after all was really a blessing in disguise. She was glad to give him the opportunity to share his day while it was still fresh.
“Miss Melody?” Michael finally asked as they turned onto the street where Ms. Karen’s house was located.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Are you going to the parade on Friday?”
“I sure am. I go every year.”
“Do you wanna go with me and Dad? It’ll be so much fun!”
Looking at him in the mirror, she could see the anticipation written all over his face. “That does sound like fun. I usually go with my mom.”
“She can go with us. Your mom is fun, too. She bakes yummy cookies.”
He licked his lips, and Melody giggled at him before returning her
attention to the road. “She does bake yummy cookies. Tell you what, sweetie, ask your dad about it. If he wants me and my mom to meet you up there, I would love to watch the parade with you. But your dad might have other plans.”
“He doesn’t,” Michael said, his voice sounding certain. “But okay.”
Melody thought back to all the times she’d actually ridden on a float in that parade. Her dad used to help organize it every year when she was younger. One year, she’d even ridden in a convertible with the grand marshal. All of those memories seemed quite distant now as she came to a stop on the road in front of the house she believed to be Ms. Karen’s.
“Is this the right place?”
“Yes,” Michael replied, his voice sounding less chipper. “Are you sure I can’t just go home with you?”
Melody was already unbuckled and checked for traffic before pushing her car door open. “Sorry, buddy. You already know the answer to that.” She stepped out and opened the back door for him. Reluctantly, he grabbed his backpack and melted out of the door onto the road. Melody had to hold back a chuckle at his antics. “I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”
“I never have a great time,” he muttered as she followed him up the driveway to the door at a snail’s pace.
“Your dad will be here in a couple of hours.”
“It’ll take forever.”
As they neared the front porch of the home, which had the street appeal of a large cottage, the door opened, and a woman who looked to be in her mid-to-late forties stepped out, a smile on her face. She looked tired, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, and she wore a warm up suit that looked like it saw more activity from chasing toddlers than actually jogging. “Michael! You’re here!” she exclaimed, and if the smile was forced, Melody couldn’t tell. “You must be Melody. I’m Karen. Nice to meet you.”
Melody hadn’t realized that Karen was her first name until that very minute. “Oh, hi. Nice to meet you, too,” she said, taking the hand the woman offered. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”