by Laura Burton
Stepping closer, I let my smile slip away as I furrow my brow.
There’s something about her energy tonight. Something about the way I caught glimpses of her during the first half of the movie in which she actually seemed interested, how Nora was snuggled up to her for a good twenty minutes of it. And as I find myself wondering if she subscribes to that same can’t eat, can’t sleep, reach-for-the-moon, home run kinda love, I swallow hard and feel a certain surety climb my chest that maybe I’d made a mistake by giving her up so easily.
Blinking up at me from under ginger eyelashes, she smiles shy until she realizes I’m not smiling back. Her expression melts into something somber as if she’s sorry I gave her up so easily, too. Her eyes dart down to my mouth but as soon as she realizes she’s been staring too long, she glances back up to my eyes. “We should, uh—” she whispers, her voice dying off mid-sentence as she leans her head to the left, exposing more of her fragile collarbone.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice gruff with a certain emotion I haven’t felt in a long time. Something strange and off-centering to be experiencing right now in the middle of what’s supposed to be a lighthearted get-together. I scratch the back of my head and shift my weight.
But Hadley doesn’t move. Instead, she parts her lips, and for a split-second, I think about reaching over, pulling her into me, and kissing her just to feel her mouth against mine once more. Just to see what she tastes like on a Saturday movie night amidst the chaos of It Takes Two and couch snuggles for three and the popcorn bunch convening in the kitchen behind Nora’s back. But before I can mute the thought, I hear my daughter skipping from the living room and into the kitchen, her feet lively against the hardwood floor.
“Daddy, you’re missing the funny parts!”
Clearing my throat, I turn from Hadley and hold the popcorn bowl tighter. “The funny parts?” I say, forcing my tone to match Nora’s intrigue.
“Yeah.”
“Well, alright then. We’ve got our popcorn. We’ve got more brownies. Let’s get back in there,” I tell her, scooting her along. Turning back, I blink at Hadley as if to ask her why, how, to what extent things had gotten so strangely quiet between us a mere few seconds ago. “You coming?”
Nodding, Hadley plants her hand on the counter, seemingly steadying herself. “Yeah. I’ll be there in a second. Gonna grab some water first,” she says, nearly breathless.
As I leave Hadley in the kitchen to appease an eager Nora, I want nothing more than to waltz back in there and press my lips to hers just to feel her life against mine once more. My chest heaves with the thoughts of a first kiss, second chance of sorts, love rekindled if only we’d let ourselves have that.
Hadley
Stuffing another sheet into the top-loading washer, I nearly tumble right into the machine. The back screen door is open and lets the Sunday evening breeze sweep through my small house as I do laundry. I’d met Landon, Chelsea, and the rest of the girls early this morning for Oceanfront Yoga and spent the afternoon washing my car and wrangling the armloads of bed sheets we use to protect our yoga mats from the sandy beach into my laundry room.
The song “Hummed Low” by Odessa lazily winds through the house from where my Bluetooth speaker is stationed on the kitchen counter. Pepper tap dances next to me in celebratory circles, begging for a treat. I’m not sure why she thinks she deserves one at the moment, but she did take a generous nap this afternoon, allowing me to read a few more chapters of my book.
“What is it?” I chuckle. “Are you wanting a cookie?”
Without question, she drops her gray bottom to the tile floor I’d also mopped today, her face concentrating on my every move as I pour a capful of blue liquid laundry detergent into the washer, turning the dial to Bulk Load.
As I head to the kitchen and grab one of Pepper’s favorite chicken-flavored sweet potato treats, I hear a light knock on the frame of the screen door.
“Hello? Hello?” Nora sweetly sings. It’s her call that I’ve grown so accustomed to hearing, especially lately as we’ve become even closer friends.
“Hey, Nora,” I say as I come around the corner.
She bounces like a little rubber ball as she peers in from the shade of my back patio. “Hi!”
“What are you up to?”
She tugs at the hem of her bright gold ruffle jersey shorts that leave a sprawling pattern of pink roses across her. The white T-shirt she wears is a bit mussed up from apparently having spent a better portion of a few hours outside. “Can you come out and play?”
Though I’m exhausted from today’s activities, a glance at the clock on my wall tells me I can spend at least a half-hour with her before I should start cooking dinner. I have an early night tonight because I’m joining Landon and Chelsea for a bike ride around the island bright and early in the morning “I sure can. What are we doing today?”
Setting her face in earnesty, she purses her lips. “I’m trying to work on my back walkover. Can you spot me on the trampoline? Daddy says I can’t go on it without an adult. I just can’t get it,” she huffs, her hands now forming tiny fists.
Trampoline? Is now the time to tell her that I used to be deathly afraid of such beasts? The jolting motions paired with my disdain for heights always helped fuel my ultimate nightmare as a kid— the ocean turning into one huge trampoline with a shark slicing through it just for funsies. I even grew up next door to a friend who was obsessed with trampoline play, but I refused.
Swallowing hard but also not wanting to turn the little girl down, I trail Nora out the screen door, through my yard and over to hers which is exponentially bigger. “Is he here?” I ask, suddenly wondering if she’d been playing out here all by herself. “Your dad?”
“Yeah,” she sighs. “He had to go do emails for candy work. And I want to be able to do one for tumbling with Miss Donna. All the others can do it already except me.”
“Have you landed one on the tramp yet?” I ask, double-stepping to keep up with her topsy-turvy energy. Even saying the full word— trampoline— out loud makes my heart race like a stampede of horses.
Barefoot and fierce, she shakes her head, her dark hair dancing down her back like the flames of wildfire in the oncoming evening. “No, but Coach Brady says I can get it finally if I keep trying, so I am.”
As we make it to the trampoline, she doesn’t hesitate for a second as she climbs her way up the step stool and throws herself onto the bouncy mat. “Are you coming?”
Standing here watching this brave girl as she orbits the track like a bounding bunny, I’m completely shaken. “You don’t want to work on them in the grass where it’s nice and soft? And stable?” I add, yanking my hair up into a messy bun to keep me from bursting into an even more afraid mess than I already am.
“No. It’s bouncy and fun up here,” she says. “See?” She drops to her bottom and pops right back up like a kernel of corn blooming over the intense heat of a stove. “Why? Are you scared?!” she giggles.
“Very funny! And no,” I lilt, kicking my shoes off before climbing the stool. “Just thought it might be easier.”
She whips her head back and forth. “It’s easier up here than on the ground.”
“Holy seasickness,” I grumble as I stand, trying my best to right myself as Nora jumps circles around me. Trying to find my sea legs, I steel my stomach.
“It’s okay if you’re scared. Daddy says that’s part of growing is facing your fears like this if you are.”
Her words wash over me in a sweet sort of sentimental emotion as I steady myself, not wanting to draw any negativity into her play with my own irrational fear.
“You can sit there with your arms like this,” she finally says, kneeling to demonstrate how she wants me.
“Alright.” I follow her instructions, happy as a clam to be lower to the earth and sitting now.
Nora backs up to my right, standing as regal as ever as she concentrates on pulling off her back walkover. It only takes twenty quick minutes before she fe
els comfortable doing it for herself up here on the trampoline, and without a hitch, she pulls off her very own back walkover.
“Oh my gosh,” I clap. “Great job!”
“Thanks,” she pants, dropping to her knees. Crawling over in front of me, she blinks and smiles. “Coach Brady will be surprised when I do it in front of him next time at the gym.”
“I’m sure he’ll be proud of you. Your dad, too.”
As if on cue, we both hear Parker’s voice ricochet off the trees of his backyard. He can’t see either one of us due to the shed being in his line of sight from where he stands, but that doesn’t stop him from hollering. “Nora! Bedtime!”
“Noooo,” she whines, her eyebrows forming two angry caterpillars. Standing, she holds her arms out as if he can see her, but as far as we know, he could still be some figment of our combined imagination. “No, not yet,” she whispers to herself. “I finally got it, Daddy! Come watch!” Biting down on her bottom lip, she shoos me back from where I’d been spotting her a few minutes earlier and tries once more to flip herself on over.
His voice, on the edge of irritated now, echoes across the woods lining our backyards. “Ma’am, are you on that trampoline? You know the rules.”
“I’m just over here.”
Whispering, my eyes grow wide. “Maybe we should tell him—”
“Shh,” she giggles. “We can trick him.”
“Right now, Nora Gillian. If I catch you on that trampoline, you know what’s coming. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. You still need your bath.”
At hearing his reaction and realizing he’s not giving in to her show of innocence tonight, she slaps her fingers to her desperately shocked O-mouth.
“Uh oh,” I nervously laugh. He’s not messing around, and I’m caught right in the crossfire.
“He’s gonna give me a time out,” she whispers. In a last-ditch effort to smooth things over, she grunts and lowers herself from the trampoline, skipping halfway through the yard until she spots him. “Daddy,” she frantically sings, waving him to the back corner of the yard. “Please come watch my flip! It’s the first time I got it on here.”
“Now, look at me. Nora Gillian Shaw, you know better than to be on that thing alone.”
“But I wasn’t,” she purrs.
Grabbing his hand, she leads her dad over to where he can see the trampoline in full view now. “It’s after eight o’clock, and you need your— hey,” he says, quickly cocking his head as if he hadn’t realized I’d been out here with his daughter for the past half hour. “I didn’t realize you were here—”
“Yep, hi,” I smile, suddenly feeling his eyes bore through me. And it’s almost as if the weight of our encounter in the kitchen the other night is flowing between us in this very second.
In fact, I’d be lying if I said kissing him that night hadn’t crossed my mind, but I heard him loud and clear at Drake Park when he dropped the bomb about casually being involved with someone who’s not me. And besides that, I’m not supposed to be focusing on love or anything similar to it anyway. At least now isn’t the time for it. I decided that for myself.
Hadley
“But it’s summer, Daddy. And I’m not tired yet,” Nora huffs as she climbs back up the trampoline ladder, graceful as anything.
“Okay, sleepy squirrel,” he whines, matching his daughter’s same tone of voice.
“Watch me!” Without a single ounce of spotting from me, she perfectly lands her back walkover for about the sixth time tonight. “Did you see? Did you watch me do it?”
“I did.” Parker claps and fights a strong grin. “Great job, Honey.”
“Thanks. Hadley helped me get it. Now you try,” she squeals, hopping over next to me on the perimeter of the trampoline. She plants her hot palm on my shoulder to steady herself.
“I can’t do anything on here,” I chuckle with a neurotic shake of my head.
“Daddy can do stuff like flips. Do it, Daddy!”
“No,” Parker suddenly chortles. “I don’t make a habit out of getting on this thing.”
“Please, Daddy? You were on last time I was out here. Please! Do it for us! You can do it!”
“That’s okay.”
“Pretty please? Hadley wants to see you do your special flip.”
Parker laughs, louder this time, obviously flustered now under the pressure of his girl. “Oh. Is that so?”
“Don’t you?” Nora asks, whispering in the heat of the evening.
I nod and poke at the hot mass of hair on top of my head that is my bun. “I do. I’d love to see your special flip actually.”
Parker rolls his eyes and shakes his head as if to tell me he knows I’m posturing.
“Dad-dy! Dad-dy! Dad-dy!” Nora chants, now clapping her hands.
“Okay. Alright, fine,” he says, giving in to the celebration.
Nora and I both cheer for Parker as he effortlessly eases himself up and onto the trampoline, his weight suddenly shifting both of us, sinking us toward the middle of the track until we make room for him.
Pulling his gray T-shirt down tight, he shoves his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts to check for change or a wallet or his phone. Finding nothing and without waiting for our attention, he takes four giant bounces, forms an enormous ball mid-air, and somehow magically lands back on his feet, the sudden punch of the mat nearly sending all three of us catapulting into the woods that backs his yard.
Nora squeals in delight, melting into her own puddle of laughter. “That was so good!”
“Holy moly,” I say, my stomach having lurched at the journey, my legs turning to jelly once more.
“There,” he says with a slight bow, playing into Nora’s world. “Now, it’s after eight which means it’s bedtime.”
“Aww. Can’t we just wait out here some more until the lightning bugs come out?”
“No, ma’am. Come on. Don’t you want your bedtime story?”
Nora pushes her bottom lip out and nods, her dark eyes growing round with a manufactured type of sadness. “Can’t you tell me my story out here? Just for tonight?”
Parker runs a hand over his face as if he’s just about had it with the both of us this evening.
Now feeling like a complete intruder on their relationship, I stand, my legs still wobbly from the motion of the trampoline ocean. Heading toward the ladder, I nearly topple over after not taking into account the leeway on this mat. Regaining my balance, I wipe off the seat of my shorts. “Actually, I should get going. Probably need to let Pepper out.”
“Please stay, Hadley. Please, Daddy? Can’t you tell us a story together? Pretty please? It can be like the movie night except with a story on here.”
Turning back, I watch Nora, her dark and enticing features doing a number on both of us now.
Glancing over at me, Parker shrugs as if he’s given up on trying to fight her over a little extra family time. “Are you busy for the next—” he glances down at his watch, “fifteen minutes or so?”
Trying my hardest not to fall into an amused smile, I softly blink, suddenly feeling even more ready for my own bedtime than Nora apparently is. “Sure. I could use a good story.”
Nora drops to her rump on the trampoline as Parker and I settle down on either side of her as she sings out into the night about how happy she is. “Can you tell us a princess story?”
Parker chuckles, clearly not interested in any princess other than the one his daughter is proving to be. “Really? A princess?”
Nora nods ferociously.
“I suppose I could do that.”
It never ceases to amaze me, but watching these two together, I always tend to grow a soft spot in my spirit for them.
“K, let me think. Once upon a time,” Parker starts, kicking his legs out in front of him as he leans back on his hands to situate himself. “There was a king and a queen who lived in a driftwood hut on the outskirts of Beluga Bay.”
Rolling off of my knees, I cross my legs in front of me, ready to
disappear into what an imaginary world for Parker looks like.
“Oh, wait!” Nora scrambles to her feet and leaps down from the side of the trampoline. “I have to go get something!” she shouts, running toward the house. “Wait for me!”
“Well,” Parker laughs as she disappears inside the French doors. “Didn’t really get to tell the whole story now, did I?”
Stifling a laugh, I shrug. “You ever expect you’d be turning tricks on a trampoline at the ripe old age of thirty-seven?” I ask.
“Never in my wildest.”
Smiling, I wipe my forehead. It’s balmy enough out here to still feel the suffocating heat of the North Carolina afternoon as she tries her hardest to fade into night. But furrowing my brow at remembering the beginning of his story, I suddenly find myself impressed. “Beluga Bay?”
He chuckles and nods, plucking a stray piece of grass from his knee and flicking it into the unknown. “Oh, I didn’t come up with that. That’s the name of her favorite Raffi album.”
Raffi. Suddenly feeling overwhelmed about how clueless I am regarding childhood and what it means to actually be a parent, I exhale into the darkening night. The cicadas purr from the surrounding trees, their lullaby making my eyelids grow heavy as I watch Parker study my shoulders, and I suddenly feel an urge to fix things. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
“What?” he asks, his facial expression lifting in concern.
“The thing in the kitchen. Whatever did— or didn’t— happen.” Clenching my teeth together, I try to will myself to continue apologizing for whatever feelings I’d accidentally let on for him, not realizing there was still anything there at all.
Before I can continue, Parker shakes his head and clears his throat. “I want to tell you something, alright? And I don’t mean to scare you off or to make you uncomfortable or whatever it is I might do by telling you this. But when I say it, I want you to know it’s true.”