by Claire Adams
“Alissa,” he said. “That is very big of you, but I don’t think you really mean it.”
“It doesn’t matter how I personally feel about it,” I said. “I know what it is like to grow up without one of my parents, and as much as I want to say that pain goes away when you are an adult and able to understand everything better, I can’t. It still hurts today that I didn’t have the chance to grow up with my father because of the divorce. As an adult, I know what kind of man he was, and I know I was better off without him, but that doesn’t take away that pain. I can’t in good conscience lie to you about that, nor can I sit back and let that happen to Kayla because I want to be selfish. This time, selfish is something I don’t have the luxury of being because a child is involved, and I want what is best for her.”
We sat there talking for several minutes, and he listened to everything that I said. I could tell that part of him wanted to fight me on this, but I could also tell that the other side of him knew that I was right. The calm and even keel of his tone cut right to the core of me, and even though I knew I was doing the right thing, I wanted him to scream and fight for me. I wanted the romantic gesture so badly right then, but I knew just as much as he did that this situation was not the right one for a selfish choice. I learned very quickly after falling in love with Kayla that a parent didn’t have the luxury of making selfish choices, especially when it had the ability to really affect Kayla long term. I had to be resolute and strong in my choices, and I knew that it was not only a good thing he wasn’t fighting me, but a sign as to where his mind was as well.
After a few more minutes, everything that needed to be said was said, and I sat there for a moment, quiet. I wasn’t sure what else I needed to say, and I knew that the conversation was drawing to a close. I could feel my throat closing up and tears pulling at the sides of my eyes, but I couldn’t let Ryan know that. It would be unfair to him. He needed to think I was fine and make his decision based on what he thought was best, not affected by feelings for me.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I asked.
“All right,” he said sadly.
I hung up the phone before he could say anything more. As the screen of my cell touched down on the coffee table, I burst into tears, pulling my knees to my chest and sobbing into my hands. That was the hardest thing I had ever done, and I hoped to God it was the right choice. I had just let go of the man I loved and the family I wanted the most.
Chapter 33
Ryan
A week had passed since the Fourth of July, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on. Christina wanted to come back, Kayla was ecstatic that she was still around, and Alissa had completely removed herself from my life. I missed Alissa, a lot, but I knew that until I knew for sure what I wanted to do about the situation, bringing her into it was a mistake. I had hurt her enough through all of this, and I couldn’t even start to imagine what she was feeling like, being the woman on the other end of things.
Still, I had to keep my guilt in check and understand that I was trying to make a choice based on what was best, not necessarily what I wanted the most. I hadn’t allowed Christina to move back in yet. I wasn’t ready for that. She pressed the issue a little, but I told her again and again that I hadn’t made up my mind yet, and that moving her in would give Kayla a false sense of hope. She had already damaged our daughter enough. I wasn’t going to let my choices do that any further. What if she moved in, got back into Kayla’s life, and then decided she was wrong and ended up running for the hills again? There was no way that I could put Kayla back through that again. This time, there would be no Alissa waiting in the wings, and I didn’t blame her in the least.
In an attempt to see how this would work out if Christina did come back, I planned a bunch of family outings, letting her know this was about Kayla, not about us. It would be an interesting day, considering I had asked Christina to accompany us to a baseball game. I didn’t just choose that spot because Kayla and I loved baseball so much. I chose that spot to see how Christina would react to it. She wasn’t being forced to go anywhere, but I did expect for her to put on a brave face and act like she cared and was happy to be there, despite the fact that I knew she absolutely hated baseball and everything about it.
It was easy for her to go on outings she enjoyed, but I wasn’t worried about how she acted when she was happy. I was worried about how she acted when she was put into a situation that wasn’t all about her and what she liked. I wasn’t trying to please Christina or court her in any way. I was trying to really understand why she just showed up out of nowhere and decided she wanted to come home. As much as I wanted to believe her, I had a hard time swallowing the “I just needed to get me straight” card that she was pitching to me. I knew that a baseball game in the hot mid-July sun was the perfect way to see how she handled uncomfortable and stressful situations. I wasn’t willing to just take the same old Christina back into our lives.
She didn’t start the day off very well. When I asked her to come with us, she groaned slightly before begrudgingly agreeing to go. I chuckled to myself, knowing that she was feeling tortured. Poor Christina, being forced to go to a baseball game where we could all have a really good time and be there for each other. This alone had already put me in a bad mood, and when she arrived, I could tell she wasn’t comfortable in the least. She started off on the wrong foot by wearing heels and a dress, which baffled me, since she knew we would be climbing rows of stairs. Her hair and makeup were pristine as always, something I used to find attractive, but after realizing the pure beauty of Alissa, it felt like too much. She was trying really hard to get my attention when she needed to be focused on the attention of her daughter. I rolled my eyes and shook my head as she strutted through the front door like a supermodel, making her entrance on the runway. I could tell she noticed my reaction and toned down the dramatics of it just a bit.
Kayla came down wearing her jeans, home team t-shirt, Chuck Taylor’s, and carrying the baseball doll that Alissa had gotten her for her birthday. Just seeing the doll made my chest ache, but I took in a deep breath and pushed past it, not wanting Kayla to notice. Christina asked Kayla about the doll, and she proudly told her that Alissa got it for her. I could see the irritation and suspicion on Christina’s face, but I didn’t give two shits about how she felt about it. We were divorced, and I was living my life.
When we got to the ballfield, Kayla was off the wall with excitement. She jumped around, waiting for us to get out of the car, holding her doll close to her chest. She loved ball games so much, and I was really excited to be there with her. Christina kept a pleasant look on her face but struggled slightly walking across the gravel parking area in her heels. I stifled my laugh, not trying to provoke her. I was enjoying her misery, but I wasn’t trying to be a complete asshole.
During the game, Kayla was yelling, clapping, and following along with the game. Christina, on the other hand, looked absolutely miserable and slightly annoyed by the screaming fans, splashing beer, and constant buzzing of some sort of insect. She turned her nose up at the opportunity to have a beer and hotdog and settled on a soft pretzel that she picked at as if I had handed her a slab of raw meat. Up until then, I hadn’t really seen the snotty Christina poke her head out too often, but I could tell she was still in there and bursting to get out. I glanced down at Kayla to make sure she wasn’t noticing and then directed her attention to the mascot coming on the field, glancing over with irritation at Christina. She sighed and put the pretzel down, forcing a smile when Kayla turned excitedly toward her to point out the antics on the field. I was starting to get a bit irritated with her personality, but I was going to let her do her thing.
“You okay?” I asked, trying to be nice. “You are acting really standoffish.”
“I’m fine,” she said, taking in a deep breath. “I’m just not a big fan of baseball games. You know that. I’m not really sure why you chose this for bonding purposes.”
“It’s time that you re
alized the world doesn’t revolve around you and that your daughter actually has her own interests,” I said shortly before turning back to the game.
“I am very aware that Kayla has her own interests,” she replied calmly. “You do remember that although I’ve missed a lot this last year, I did raise the girl from when she was a baby?”
“Then realize that she is going to be her own person, and you either sacrifice your preconceived notions and try to enjoy these things or be pushed out little by little,” I said. “She won’t always be eight and just happy to have you around.”
I was getting irritated with her inability to relax and enjoy the game. Immediately, I looked over at her seat and realized she was sitting where Alissa sat the first time I brought her to the game. Alissa was so cute with her cheering and excitement, and I regretted the fact that I hadn’t had the chance to bring her and Kayla together to the ballfield. They would have had a blast, dancing with the mascots and yelling at the referees. I knew there was no way that Christina was ever going to get to that point with baseball, and the best I could hope for is that eventually, she would relax enough to stay pleasant during the games. All she was doing this time was strutting her stuff and soaking in all the men’s attention around us when she got up and walked around in her heels.
I took a deep breath and sat back in my chair, deciding that I needed to stop trying so hard to control the situation. It was going to be what it was going to be, no matter how hard I tried to protect Kayla. She was going to get hurt at some point, but I was trying to make it so it was the least impactful as possible. I wanted Kayla to have her beautiful childhood and not lose that happiness she had just gained back weeks before. I watched as Kayla tried to talk to Christina, pointing out different things and really trying to involve her in the game. Kayla knew her mother was not a big fan of the game, and it meant a lot to her that she would even come out with us to watch. Christina looked incredibly uncomfortable, almost like Kayla wasn’t even her daughter. She was short, perfunctory, and everything she did lacked emotion. I could see the forced smile on her face as Kayla called out to the ref for a bad call.
It concerned me that Christina was struggling to treat her daughter as if she were her own. It came naturally to me, and in the past, I thought it came naturally to Christina, but I may have been completely wrong about that. She looked like a very nicely dressed robot, responding with short bursts, head nods, and fake grins, her shoulders tensing every time Kayla would lean over and hug her tightly. It didn’t look like Kayla noticed, but it definitely was visible to everyone else, especially me. I tried to work the situation out in my head, trying to understand that Christina had just spent over a year away from her daughter. It couldn’t be easy just jumping right back into the old routine. It was amazing how much difference a year made in the life of a child, and Kayla was almost a different person than she was when Christina left. I think she was expecting that five-year-old child that was just happy to be clinging to her mom and playing at the park.
The family rhythm was definitely an adjustment, especially since I had completely changed our lives to a more sensible and manageable lifestyle, not full of the glitz and glamor that Christina had come to be accustomed to. We had picnics, watched movies, and ate dinner together at the table with no cell phones or computers. Kayla and I went to ball games and play areas, and we didn’t care about what other people thought of us. It was like Christina had walked into a completely different world after being with Dale, and I knew that had to have some kind of adjustment period.
I was trying to be sensitive to that notion, but at the same time, I had to remind myself that none of this would be an issue if she hadn’t run off and left us for the last year and a half. She wouldn’t have to feel out of sorts with her own daughter. This struggle she was having was all self-inflicted, and although I would try to make it easier for Kayla’s benefit, it was really hard to feel bad for Christina at all. From the looks of it, too, she hadn’t even noticed that it was all up to her to prove to me she was really in this for Kayla. Instead, she looked bewildered and off-kilter, and it was starting to give me pause.
Chapter 34
Alissa
It felt really good to be back at my mother’s house with the smell of food cooking in the kitchen and her perfume wafting through the halls. It had been two weeks since Christina had come back, and I hadn’t talked to Ryan at all since the conversation about him trying for Kayla’s sake. Every day, I wanted to pick up the phone and call him, but I didn’t. Coming to see my mom was a good distraction. We were sitting in the living room, talking and drinking wine like we usually did. Bella had been having some issues with morning sickness, so she had sat this one out, deciding it was safer if she stayed at home hugging her trashcan and cursing her husband’s part in her pregnancy. Bella was definitely not enjoying her newfound body like she thought she would.
I watched as Mom slipped through the pages of a photo album she had put together from their trip around the world. There were so many different places, and the photos spanned across multiple continents. I had to admit that I was pretty jealous of their trip and reminded myself that I would get there one day. Beyond just the beautiful scenery, I was incredibly taken aback by how happy she looked in every single one of her pictures. I could tell she was more than in love and more than ecstatic to be with my new stepfather, and it filled my heart with warmth knowing that kind of love was still out there, and it was possible. My mother was old school about relationships like me, and it took her a bit to open up to the idea of someone other than my father, but once she let herself go, she became this amazingly happy and easygoing woman that I remembered from my childhood.
“We really did have so much fun,” she said, shaking her head and smiling at the pictures. “Oh, and look there. That monkey was stalking me the entire time I was walking down the beach. It was hilarious, and our tour guide made sure to throw him some extra treats for enchanting me.”
“You look so happy,” I said, turning the pages. “I just can’t get over how in love you two are, and how you spent the last several months traveling all over the globe. It’s so damn romantic. I hope that one day, I will have the same thing.”
“Well, being a mother, I worried about you girls constantly while I was gone,” she said. “In fact, had I known that there was a relationship brewing for my youngest and a baby on the way for my oldest, I probably would have decided to stay home and be there for you two.”
“Don’t be silly.” I laughed. “We are grown women. We missed you terribly, don’t get me wrong. But you deserved every second of that trip.”
“I don’t know,” she said, tilting her head. “I leave for vacation, and you start dating your brother, and your sister gets knocked up. Doesn’t sound like you two have everything under control.”
“Mom,” I said, gasping.
“Oh, honey, I’m just kidding.” She laughed. “Besides, Ryan is technically your stepbrother, no blood relationship. You are both consenting adults, so I had no issue with it at all. I just wish I could have been here to help you through all the hard stuff. And as far as your sister is concerned, it’s her third marriage and first baby, so I would say that was a win. I have a good feeling about this one, and that baby will definitely bring some much-needed grounding into her life. Don’t get me wrong, though. I do admire her free sensibilities. I just want to see you both happy.”
“I know.” I sighed. “As far as Ryan is concerned, I can’t stress enough that it is over between the two of us. Christina, Kayla’s mom, came back into the picture, and that was that. It was really hard for me to accept that it might be the best thing for Kayla, but I saw how bad that little girl struggled without her mom close by. I told Ryan that he owed it to Kayla to try to make it work, and at least see where things could go. I couldn’t be the one responsible for breaking up a family, and I knew that if I played any role in it, Kayla would never forgive me. Things would never be perfect like they were, just hours before Christi
na showed up, and there was no way around that fact. Christina has the upper hand in this situation, and I knew that it would be better for me to back away gracefully than scratch and claw for something that I wasn’t sure I had any control over at all.”
“Good for Kayla? Yeah, right. That woman wouldn’t know how to be a parent if she wrote the book herself. She is a good-for-nothing person that left her husband and baby behind, and then expects to walk right back into their lives like nothing ever happened. She deserves to be single and alone.”
I laughed a little to myself, surprised by my mother’s reaction to it all. She wasn’t the kind of person that would normally spite others for her own thoughts and feelings. She definitely had an opinion about Christina. That was for sure, but I wasn’t completely sure that it was unbiased since she saw how in love I was with Ryan at the party. She was a mother bear that wanted to protect her cubs, something that I always loved about her, even when it wasn’t what aligned with my own thoughts. She always taught us to be moral and do what we thought was right, which is what I had done for Ryan. Only then, I started to get second thoughts about it. I brushed the feeling off, assuming it was due to the fact that I really missed them, and I was struggling being away from the two of them.
“I know.” I sighed. “I don’t like her any more than anyone else does. I just know how important it is for a little girl to have her mother in her life. Kayla was so lost when I started to come around, and the way she is now, well it is like night and day. A mother is really important in a child’s life.”