by Ava Miles
No, she couldn’t have.
Opening the drawer was like opening a ticking bomb, but he did it. He had to know if anything was out of place. Sure enough, the one picture of Mandy he’d kept was lying at an odd angle, not straight like he’d placed it. He’d burned plenty of them in a fit of anger, but this one…this one captured the woman he’d fallen in love with his first year out of college. He’d been excited about having a “real” job as a comic book artist, and Mandy had been equally filled with passion for music. They’d loved bandying song ideas and lyrics back and forth, and she’d made him laugh by improvising lines while playing her guitar. Occasionally, he’d return to his desk to find she’d written fake dialogue for one of his comic book panels, and the two of them would bust up laughing. He picked up the framed picture, studying that woman. How had he not recognized it when the partying and recreational drug use they’d indulged in over the next two years of their relationship had led her down a dark path of chemical abuse? If only he’d seen it early enough to put a stop to it…
But then there would be no Jess, and she was everything.
He fell onto his butt and had the odd compulsion to cry. His baby girl had snuck into his office and somehow found the picture he’d kept of Mandy, the one he’d hoped to share with her when she was older, old enough to better understand why her mother wasn’t in her life. He’d shown it to her when she’d asked upon entering kindergarten, when it had become more confusing why everyone else had a mom and not her, but he hadn’t kept the photo out. The experts had said it was a fine balance, keeping the reality around without encouraging hope the missing parent would return.
Anxiety squeezed his diaphragm. How had she found the photo in there? Jess knew his office was off limits. Worse, why was she sneaking around and lying to him about looking at a picture of her mother?
Man oh man, he needed to talk to Mark. His friend was the one who’d helped him figure out what to tell Jess about her mother—truthful and kind but short on details.
Bottom line: how could he tell his daughter her mother hadn’t wanted her? That she’d tried to OD on oxycodone upon learning she’d gotten pregnant despite using birth control. He’d begged her to have the baby, and when begging hadn’t worked, he’d told her he would pay her for the time. She’d insisted on having an abortion, but he’d upped the ante by taking out a loan, and like a surrogate, she’d had the baby and left without once holding her daughter.
Left as if their time together had meant nothing, and the child they’d made together meant even less.
If someone had told him that as an adult, it would have cut him to pieces. How was a little kid supposed to handle that news? She wasn’t. He wanted to wait until she was in junior high or high school. Then he could sit her down and they could discuss the whole thing in a truthful yet kind way.
In the meantime, he was doing the best he could to love her and be everything she needed in a parent. But today…
Today he would grieve for his daughter.
Shaking himself, he rose and left the office to find his daughter. She was in her room, fingering her collection of bows and barrettes.
“You’re dressed!” he said, forcing a smile. “What’s the hair accessory of choice today?”
When she didn’t say anything in response, only extended a yellow bow, he had to force back tears. She was hurting, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Can I put it in your hair?” he asked, crouching down next to her. “I know I don’t do it as good as you do, but—”
“Okay,” she whispered, ducking her chin.
He picked up her brush and was trying to get a hold of himself when she edged back and settled against him in that perfect gesture of trust, something he never failed to be grateful for. This little person trusted him. She knew he would slay any dragon for her. She knew he would help her climb to great heights and make sure she didn’t fall.
Trust.
It was a superpower second only to love if you asked him.
He began to brush her hair softly. The fine, curly brown hair was so much like his, but her eyes were all Mandy. He didn’t reach for the bow she held, focusing on showing his love for his little girl by brushing her hair.
“Daddy?” she whispered softly, letting the hand holding the bow fall to her side.
“Yes, honey,” he said, his heart filled with both love and hurt.
“I love you,” she said in that same soft voice. “Thanks for being my dad.”
He had to swallow the lump in his throat. What had brought his on? “Thanks for being my daughter. We do a pretty good job, don’t we? Me being your dad and you being my kid. I mean, it’s like a special bond between Batman and Robin or something.”
“Or Elsa and Anna,” she said, a half smile on her face.
Like most parents who had watched Frozen or sung “Let It Go” a thousand times with their kids, he had the odd urge to stab himself with a fork. Man, he was so glad that craze had (mostly) passed. He’d gotten really good at the troll voices though.
“I thought you and Haley were like Elsa and Anna,” he said, running his hand over her hair.
She lifted her shoulder and handed him the bow. He did his best to position it evenly on her crown like she liked. When he was finished, she turned and threw her arms around him. He rocked her, trying to assure her everything was okay.
“How about we go to the park today?” he asked. “I don’t know what the Bradshaws have planned, but maybe we can take Haley with us. What do you think?”
“Can Sadie come with us?” Jess asked.
He lost his balance at that and ended up falling on his butt, Jess cushioned in his arms. “Ah…I think she has plans. I mean…on Sundays she goes to church and then has dinner with her family.”
“Dad, why don’t we go to church?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye.
Had there been some meteor shower directed at parents today? “Well, not everyone goes to church, and we don’t because… I feel it’s more important to decide what’s right on your own rather than to have someone else tell you what is. It’s called being spiritual.”
“Is that what we are?” she asked. “Because I need to tell some of the other kids at school. They keep asking, and I know we’re not Baptist or Methodist or Church of Christ.”
“Exactly!” he exclaimed, grabbing onto that thread. “You see, everyone believes in their own way. It’s like seeing life through…ah…their own superhero goggles.”
“You mean like Batman seeing in the dark?” she asked.
Crap, how had this turned into an existential discussion about superheroes? “Sorta. You see, Batman believes he can only do good when it’s dark whereas Superman believes he can do it any time.” That was simplistic, but it worked.
“But they both have to keep their identities secret,” she added, fully versed in all things superhero thanks to him.
“Yes,” he said, “but you see, what they’re trying to learn is that they can do good things anytime, even as Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent. They don’t need a mask or a false identity. They don’t even need to use their superpowers.”
“Because you don’t have to have superpowers to do good things,” Jess said, smiling a little now. “Everyone can do something good if they decide to. Like Han Solo.”
Oh, Lord, they were moving from superheroes to Star Wars. Someday, some guy was going to thank him. “Exactly.”
“Princess Leia could have been a Disney princess,” Jess said, moving her hands to readjust her bow.
Riley refrained from going into all the reasons why Princess Leia really was a Disney princess since George Lucas had sold the franchise to that company.
“She certainly is brave,” Riley said.
“Yes, and all princesses are brave,” his daughter informed him. “Daddy, let me up. I need to see if my bow is straight.”
She looked in the mirror and cocked her head. He held his breath. Getting her bow straight was up there with tying her shoe
laces evenly.
“Okay, we’re good,” she said. “Dad, do you know how happy Mrs. Bradshaw is to have her brothers and sisters in her life? She talks about how happy she is all the time and how she never imagined them ever being this nice. It’s really great to see her that way. Haley is so happy too. I mean, she’s got all these aunts and uncles now.”
Dread was rolling through his belly. “Mrs. Bradshaw deserves to be happy.”
“Haley even has cousins! Did you know that, Dad? One is in kindergarten and another might be our age. Mrs. Bradshaw said they’ve finally invited Haley over for a play date. Isn’t that great, Dad?”
“It’s great,” he replied, trying to decide whether he should say anything more—like Paige is really lucky because her mother was even more of a bitch than yours.
He really needed to talk to Mark. There was something stirring here.
“Dad, I know you said Sadie had plans, but maybe she can come over for dinner tonight?” She turned around and hugged him. “It would be so much fun!”
“It’s a school night,” he told her. “And please call her Ms. Sadie.”
Was it too early to have her hang out with him and his daughter? The way he was feeling about her… He probably needed to talk to Mark about that too. He was going to owe him a case of beer for all the psych support.
“I’ll go to bed on time, Dad, I promise,” she said, gripping his T-shirt to get his attention.
“Honey, Sadie has plans all day. She’ll be tired. Let’s shoot for another time, okay? I mean…I’m just getting to know her.”
“Well, I want to get to know her too,” Jess said, her lip firming up. “Haley really likes her and so does—”
“This is how dating works, Jess,” he told her. “I get to know her first, and if I decide that I like her enough, I’ll introduce her to you.”
“But I’ve already met her, Dad!” Jess said. “And she’s Haley’s aunt.”
His stomach felt like it had a rock in it. “The Bradshaws are just getting to know Sadie and her family. Didn’t they just have another sibling outing for coffee last week? They need to take things slow—like I do with Sadie.”
“But when you know someone is good and special, you don’t take things slow,” Jess said. “You just know.”
What Disney movie did she pick that up from?
“This isn’t a fairy tale, Jess,” he said, kicking himself. He was about to tell her this was real life and some people sucked so you had to be careful out there. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to say things like that. He liked to encourage her imagination, her belief in magic.
“Fine.”
“I’m sorry I said that.” He lifted her chin when she looked down at her feet. “I just want you to understand that it takes time to get to know people sometimes. Like in dating. That’s all.”
“But I can’t get to know Sadie if I don’t spend time with her,” Jess said.
“Ms. Sadie.” He was going to be disarmed by a kid’s logic. “I know it seems a little unfair, what with Mrs. Bradshaw and me getting to know Sadie better right off the mark. But you need to trust me on this. I want to make sure—”
“That she’s going to be around for a while,” Jess said in an aggrieved voice. “I know how it works, Dad.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Yes, other kids at school talk about it. You date a woman to see if you want her to be your girlfriend, and when you do, then I get to meet her. But I’m just saying that we don’t have to wait that long because she’s Haley’s aunt. I mean, even if she doesn’t last as your girlfriend, I’ll still know her because of Haley. I mean, Dad. You know she’s my BFF.”
The awkwardness was amping up, and soon it would be on par with things like the chicken pox or measles. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Jess, if Sadie and I end up not…” He trailed off, not knowing how to phrase it.
She socked him in the chest. “I’m tougher than I look, Dad. It’s not like I’m starting to wish she might become my mother someday. I mean, I already have one of those.”
That made his head reel. “Jess—”
“Dad, you are making this way too complicated. I’m going to go play princess in my castle.”
He sat back on his heels as she left the room.
Chapter 11
Teaching people about quilting had been a learn-as-you-go process for Sadie.
In the beginning, she’d focused too much on techniques and mastery. She’d quickly learned it was the fastest way for people to lose their enthusiasm. Their whole bodies would lock up from stress and frustration. She’d taken an entire Saturday over a year ago to reflect on what she’d first loved about quilting. For her it had been the colors of the fabric and the piecing of the squares into some form of a pattern. Her pattern…
That had cinched her beginners’ curriculum, and it had been more successful. Students’ enthusiasm stayed high once they got over their fear about creating their own patterns. To help make it easier, she’d made the precut squares of fun fabric colors and patterns. The students found it easier to tackle using the rotary cutter and a cutting mat once they had some confidence and a feel for how a quilt came together.
Any kind of knowledge came piece by piece, she’d found, just like the process of making a quilt.
As she looked up from her current baby quilt to see Paige walking into Oodles of Spools with a bright smile on her face, she couldn’t help but grin in return. Putting aside her project, she gave a knowing wink to Ada, who was unwrapping the cookies she’d brought, and went to her sister.
“Hi, there,” she said, pulling her into a hug.
“Hey.” Paige squeezed her tightly in return. “I have to tell you. I pretty much floated on a cloud after our last outing.”
Sadie and her siblings felt the same way. J.P. had spoken to their mother privately, and it had gone well. She’d told him she was happy for them, that she wasn’t surprised they’d sought Paige out.
“That sounds like how we felt,” Sadie said. “A few people are eager to invite you over to meet the rest of the group and your niece and nephew now that we’re more…comfortable with each other. You think about it and let us know. There’s no rush. If you’d like to have another smaller group meeting, we can arrange for you to meet J.P.’s family on your own with Haley. We don’t want to overwhelm you.”
Paige waved to Whitney as she came in, and Sadie did the same.
“I finally have ultrasound pictures,” the woman said, holding them up and bouncing in place. “We’re having a girl! We found out today! Thank God. I wanted to kill them when they moved my appointment.”
Everyone cheered, and the photos were passed around the room.
“We didn’t have this kind of technology in my day,” Mae said, lowering her glasses a touch on her nose. “For nine months, you wondered whether your baby was a boy or a girl. That was some nice dreaming.”
“But hard on the clothes-making or buying,” Leanne commented. “And picking out a paint scheme for the nursery.”
“I smoked my way through three pregnancies,” Ada said with a dark laugh, “and they all turned out healthy as horses. Now everyone watches what a woman does during her pregnancy. It’s like someone dosed the women and their babies with a fragile pill or something. I feel for the younger generations. They’re more scared than I was.”
Whitney blinked for a moment and then laughed. “They really do put the fear of God in you. I’ve even tried tempering my sneezes. It’s like I’m afraid the baby will fall out or something.”
“They can’t fall out,” Leanne said. “God made a good plug to keep everything in.”
“Leanne!” Mae chided.
“Well, it’s true,” the woman said. “I mean, your water isn’t going to break until it’s good and ready to. Mind me on this one. And you aren’t going to really dilate until that baby is ready to pop.”
Mae touched Leanne on the arm and gave her a pointed look.
“All I’m saying,
Whitney,” the woman continued, “is that you have nothing to worry about. I hate how much young people seem to worry these days.”
Sadie had heard this proclamation before, so she took Paige’s hand and led her to the circle. “Congratulations, Whitney! We’re all so happy for you.”
“Yes, we are,” Paige added softly. “Congratulations.”
“Are you going to change anything for your baby quilt now that you know it’s a girl?” Sadie asked.
Whitney shook her head. “No, I thought about it for a sec, but I still like my original idea and I think my skills are strong enough to pull it off. There’s going to be a highway of gold squares, flanked by the soft green ones on either side. It represents our baby having a golden path for life. Sadie helped me design it once I told her what we wanted to convey.”
“I just tried to pick out squares that I liked, ones that seemed to match,” Paige said. “And then I got nervous and felt like I needed to watch y’all the past couple weeks, but I think I’m ready to show you what I have.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to do, Paige,” Ada said. “Sadie is giving you access to your own charm pack, so to speak. She’s letting you pick out what you like and then she’ll help you put it together in a design that works for you.”
“A charm pack?” Paige asked.
“Think of it like one of those pre-packaged meals you can buy where all the ingredients arrive. You only need to follow the instructions.”
“Ah…” Paige said, her brow wrinkling.
“Sadie, you take Paige on back and see what she has, and I’ll work with Whitney if she has any questions,” Ada said.
It was a relief to have long-time quilters like Ada and Mae in the class. Beginners came and went, she’d found, but a few of the more experienced ladies had become anchors even though they still paid the class fee like everyone else. Plus, her quilters had formed a kind of community, something she hadn’t envisioned at first. Quilting circles were becoming increasingly rare, she’d discovered. Sadie liked to think she was preserving her own form of that treasured tradition. Not that she was going to ask Paige to pay the class fee. After all, Sadie had invited her.