We enjoyed dinner together and I think even Emmy liked the food. She ate three pieces of pizza. Afterward we decided a movie night was in order since I was too tired to do anything else. We let Emmy pick the movie. We had a variety of old Disney princess movies from when Ashley was younger, but she didn’t even look at those. She skipped straight to our Nicholas Sparks collection, which surprised me. I wasn’t sure a nine year old should even know about Nicholas Sparks movies. She chose A Walk to Remember, which was probably the tamest of the lot, but still a tear jerker and not what I would call a little girl movie.
“Have you seen this movie before?” I had to ask.
She nodded her head yes.
“Are you sure your dad will be okay with it?” All I needed was a lecture from Easton.
Without speaking she answered yes again, so we went with it. I hoped she was telling the truth, but just in case, I fast forwarded through the first part with all the swearing.
The girls settled in on the sectional while I went and made fruit kabobs. I splurged and drizzled dark chocolate over them. I was hoping to entice Emmy. Of course, I wasn’t getting involved, right? Again, there was something about her.
I deposited the goodies on the coffee table and sat on the other side of Ashley, but for some reason I couldn’t help but keep looking over at Emmy. I wanted to gauge her reaction, see what interested her, and what made this quiet little girl tick. I reminded myself I was staying out of it.
She kept swiping at her hair, trying to keep it out of her face. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I got up, grabbed a brush and an elastic band.
“Emmy, why don’t you come and sit in front of me for a minute, darlin’?”
She looked hesitant, but complied.
I gave her a big smile. “I want to braid your hair. Is that okay?”
She nodded. It was apparently her favorite mode of communication.
It had been forever since I combed a little girl’s hair. I had missed it, so I kind of took my time as I brushed out her knots, tangles, and smoothed out her long locks. I smiled over to Ashley during the process. She rolled her eyes at me and smiled back. She knew how much I missed her being a little girl. Emmy had a lot of hair like Ashley, but it wasn’t as thick. I pulled it back and fishtail braided it.
I stroked her smooth hair one more time. “All right, you’re all set.”
She went back to sit next to her sister. I took up a kabob. Ashley followed suit and offered one to Emmy. Emmy took one, but she only looked at it.
“Try it, silly,” Ashley encouraged her.
She took a bite of the banana with some chocolate on it. She seemed to like it, but came to the strawberry and hesitated. I wasn’t surprised. Kids with texture issues generally didn’t like strawberries. I got up, sliced a banana for her in a bowl, and drizzled chocolate over it. I handed it to her. She looked relieved, and maybe a little happy.
“You are such a softie, Momma,” Ashley commented.
I hugged her tight to me. “I guess that makes you a lucky kid.”
She laughed. It was one of my most favorite sounds.
“Hey the girl in the movie kind of looks like Ashley,” Emmy said after several silent minutes of watching the movie.
She shocked both Ashley and me by speaking. We both looked at her and grinned. She even smiled back. We made some progress, but I wasn’t getting involved.
At eight o’clock Easton called Ashley to check in on them. Ashley told him they were with me and all was well. Well, it was all well until Easton decided it was a good idea to pick Emmy up at my house. I figured Ashley would take her home when it was time. Easton didn’t need to come over. I almost went to hide out in my room, but I reminded myself I had to quit running. I had to set a good example for Ashley, even if it meant facing the one person that hurt me more than anyone ever had. The person that betrayed me and used me. I really needed to quit thinking about it.
A little after nine, and after a rousing game of Sorry, Easton showed up in scrubs. For a tiny second, I remembered the first time I ever saw him; he was wearing blue scrubs just like tonight. I reminded myself to quit remembering and to quit thinking—basically I needed a lobotomy.
Emmy was happy to see her dad and greeted him with a hug.
He hugged her back as tight as he could. “Your hair looks pretty.”
“Taylor did it for me.”
I didn’t want him to know that.
He looked my way from the front door. I stood near one of the square columns that framed the dining room area.
“Thank you,” he mouthed.
I turned from him and walked back to the family room to clean up from our fun evening. I made my appearance, right? I didn’t have to play hostess to him. I surveyed the family room and all the boxes that still needed to be unpacked and the pictures that needed to be hung up. I suddenly felt exhausted. I picked up our dirty dishes and made my way to the kitchen. I could still hear them all talking in the foyer. I wasn’t sure why they were lingering, but since they were, I decided to do the same in the kitchen. It needed to be cleaned anyway. I wiped down the counters and started in on the dishes, despite being tired. I hated waking up to a dirty kitchen, and I already felt like the house was in disarray.
As I filled the dishwasher, an uninvited guest joined me.
“Taylor,” he said.
I took a deep breath before I turned around. Why hadn’t he gone home already? “You’re still here.”
He smiled and I noticed that his smile was a little different than I remembered. It looked like he had perfectly capped teeth now.
“I wanted to say thank you for taking care of the girls tonight.”
“Well, one of them is mine.”
“I know, and you’ve done an excellent job with her, she’s terrific.”
“Yes, she is.”
Insert a giant awkward pause. What else was there to say? It was late and I was ready to call it a day, but he stood there looking at me. And then to make it more awkward, we spoke at the exact same moment. I started to say goodnight and he started to say something. I didn’t hear what in the confusion of it all.
He grinned. “I’m sorry, what were you going to say?”
“Oh, I was saying I’m sure you want to get home.”
His grin faltered. “Yeah, it’s been a long day.”
“Well, goodnight.” I turned back around to finish the last of the dishes.
“Ashley said something about some leftover pizza.”
I closed my eyes. Was he for real? I was his ex-wife, not his or his daughter’s caretaker. I was only here because of our daughter. I took another deep breath and turned around.
He looked maybe a tad embarrassed. As he should. Seriously, the nerve of him.
“I mean, you wouldn’t want me to eat fast food or anything, would you?” he asked.
“What you do is none of my concern unless it involves Ashley.”
He wasn’t deterred by my callousness. He walked toward me and took one of the stools that lined the island. I watched him because I couldn’t believe his audacity. First, I helped take care of his daughter and now he wanted me to take care of him, too? He had always been confident and self-assured, but this … this was plain arrogant.
“Don’t you think me eating correctly involves Ashley?” he asked with feigning innocence.
I leaned against the island and more toward him. I had a feeling we would be arguing, again. “How do you figure that, Easton?”
“Kids want their parents to be healthy, right?”
“They also want their father’s to visit them more than once every few years or so.”
You would have thought I suckered punched him. I could see the pain in his now red face as he sat there with a stunned look on his face.
As he took his time trying to formulate a response or even an excuse for his absenteeism in our daughter’s life, I took a moment to look him over and, unfortunately, he looked good. I was kind of hoping he would have let himself go or he
would have gotten ugly or something. But no, he had to get all distinguished looking.
The hurt my words caused got to me, and since it didn’t look like he could come up with anything to counter my jibe, I went back to why it wasn’t my job to feed him or take care of him. “You look pretty healthy to me.”
He took the out I handed him. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“Are you experiencing health issues?”
“No … not yet.”
I was so tired of this conversation and him. I was going to feed him so he would leave. No, I was going to wrap it up so he could take it with him. In a huff I grabbed a plastic container, went to the refrigerator, and filled it up with slices of both cheese and veggie pizza, sealed it up and set it on the island in front of him. “I hope you enjoy it.”
I swear I could see a hint of amusement in his eyes at my apparent frustration with him, but he seemed determined not to let my unkind feelings deter him. I turned around and began rinsing off my dishes again.
He didn’t get the hint. “Wow, this is great. I forgot how much I missed your cooking.”
I took several deep breaths this time before I turned around. “That was to go.”
He kept on chewing, but I could see the merriment in his eyes. He finally swallowed. “Can’t we at least be friends, Taylor?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Chapter Three
I woke up tired and sore. I’d had a hard time falling asleep. My ex-husband was once again keeping me up. The first couple months after we split up, I’d had a hard time sleeping. I would lay there and cry as I looked across the bed at the empty space next to me. I would foolishly wish that he would sweep in and tell me he loved me, it was all a misunderstanding, and he couldn’t live without me. He never came and he never asked me to come back, so I filed for divorce. Now, once again, I was missing rest because of him. How did he expect us to be friends after everything? There was way too much toxic water under that bridge. It’s like he had conveniently forgotten that he broke the most sacred trust that there can be between two people. Or that he neglected his daughter for fourteen years. Sure, he sent a check every month and called her on a regular basis, but it didn’t make up for missing out on his daughter’s life.
I stretched and reminded myself to quit thinking about him. I slowly climbed out of bed and walked to the master bathroom. I really did like this little house. The master bathroom had a claw-foot tub and a beautiful wood vanity. I decided a bath would be a good thing this morning. I soaked my tired muscles, shaved my legs, and pampered myself a bit. After drying off I sat at the vanity and looked into the large oval mirror. At forty-two, I was at the stage in my life where I looked in the mirror every day and thought, I’ll never look younger than I do right now.
I began to comb out my medium length copper blonde hair. It was more copper now than blonde, but at least there were no grays. All in all, I couldn’t really complain. My blue eyes still looked bright, and living in the humid south had kept my skin smooth. I bought lots of extra moisturizer now that I was living in the arid west. I was also drinking more water. I had forgotten how dry it was here, but my hair kind of loved the extra volume. It was nice not to deal with the humidity when styling my hair. So I guess there was one good thing about living back here. I didn’t know if good hair could tide me over for the next two years, but at least it was something.
I was looking forward to my Saturday with my daughter, even if we were only unpacking. The whole sharing her with her dad thing was definitely going to take some getting used to. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard if I thought he was worthy. I knew when we divorced I would have to share her, but I was saddened that he so easily gave me full custody. He didn’t even ask for a set schedule to see her. He never asked for her for holidays. It was like she and I never really existed. The only times he saw her were when he would come back to our alma mater in Birmingham for conferences or specialized trainings. Well, except for once. When she was five, I agreed to let her come and spend two weeks here with him and his new wife. That lasted all of about two days. Ashley called me crying about how horrible Kathryn was to her and that was that. I demanded Easton fly her back home immediately.
Now I worried he was using her for babysitting purposes. I worried that he didn’t love her and he wasn’t being sincere about getting to know her. But I tried not to think about it, because it would drive me crazy if I did. More crazy than I was for moving here. I still couldn’t believe when I told Ashley about her dad’s offer that she accepted it and wanted to come. She was a smart girl; she said she didn’t want to regret it later in life. So here we were.
I let Ash sleep in while I started in on unpacking and decorating the living room and dining room. They were the first rooms that came into view when you entered the house, so I figured I better get them in tip-top shape. As I unpacked, I reminisced as I pulled out each book, framed picture, and photo album. With happiness I remembered night upon night of reading to Ashley before she went to bed, or the day she got her braces off, or the year she won the school spelling bee. I had at least a million happy memories of her and of our life together. I also looked longingly at the pictures of Grams and Harry. They were my saviors. They were balm to my wounded soul.
They too were part of the reason I was here. Grams said it was time for me to face the past, to put it to rest, as she said. She hated Frank probably more than me, but she said she was afraid of how it would affect me if he died and I never made peace with him. More importantly, she felt I needed to reconcile my feelings for Easton. She and Harry liked him, even loved him. They weren’t thrilled with how we started off by eloping, but when we lived in Birmingham, they had become quite close to Easton. They too had held out hope that we would work it out after I first left him. They couldn’t believe he’d had an affair, but like I said, he never came for me and never asked me to come back. Grams never said anything, but I always got the feeling they thought I made a mistake leaving Easton.
Look at me, thinking of that man again. Surely, as time wore on here, I would get better at not thinking about him. One could only hope. I decided sleeping beauty needed to be up. I couldn’t be trusted alone with my thoughts.
Unpacking was much more fun with her. We had the living room and dining room knocked out by mid-afternoon. I was quite pleased with the results. It was southern living charm meets the west.
Before we started in on Ashley’s room, we took a snack break and kicked up our feet for a moment. It was then I found out my day with my daughter was not meant to be.
“So, Momma,” Ashley said warily. “Dad plays in a city baseball league and he wants me to come watch him play tonight.”
I sat up from my relaxed position on the couch and looked at her sitting on the overstuffed chair.
She was smiling sweetly at me. “So, would that be okay?”
My heart sunk even as I pasted a smile on my face. “I suppose so.”
Her face brightened and she gave me her devious grin. “Will you come with me?”
I didn’t even need to think about the answer. “No.”
She was not to be discouraged. “Please, Momma. I don’t know anyone here yet, and I don’t want to be there with Emmy by myself.”
“Your dad will be there.”
“Yeah, but he’ll be on the field playing. Please, Momma?”
“Don’t you think it would look a little strange if I came to watch your dad play?”
“Oh Momma, lots of divorced people still do things together. And besides, I think dad would like it if you came.”
“What makes you think that?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s just the way he looks at you and talks to you.”
“And what way is that?”
“It’s like he wants to get to know you again.”
I made it a point to never disparage or speak ill of Easton in front of Ashley. At times like these, it was hard, but I bit my tongue and smil
ed at my girl.
She decided to up her game. She came and snuggled with me on the couch. “Come on, Momma. You know someday soon I’ll be off at college …”
That was her favorite new line to get her way. It worked like a charm. “Fine, I’ll go with you.”
She hugged me tight and kissed my cheek. “You’re the best Momma ever.” She ran away to get ready.
“Remember that,” I yelled out to her.
Again, this hadn’t been in the brochure of what to expect when you move back to the same town as your ex-husband. My brochure read that contact would be minimal and kept only to events like school related activities that involved your child. It said nothing about dinners, picnics, baseball games, etc. I wanted my money back.
At 6:30 I found myself driving over to Palmer Park with Ashley. She told her dad we were both coming and would meet Emmy and him in the stands so that Emmy could sit with us. The whole way over, I thought about faking an illness. I felt a little ill. I wasn’t ready to be out among people here.
My nerves were on edge as we pulled into the semi-crowded parking lot. It had been ages since I had been to this park that was half park and half baseball fields. I knew Ashley wouldn’t remember, but her dad and I used to bring her here when she was little. She used to love to swing. I told myself not to think about it and flipped down my mirrored visor to add some lip gloss to my full lips. I checked my hair and called it good. Ashley did the same. She had been raised right. We both did teeth checks for each other to make sure there was no coloring from the stain on our lips before we exited the car.
It was weird; on the walk to the field, I felt naked, like everyone was staring at me. I knew they weren’t, but I hated feeling so vulnerable. At forty-two, I shouldn’t feel like I was walking into a new school for the first time. We met up with Easton and Emmy. Emmy was still wearing the braid from the previous night, but it looked like it had been slept on. I wondered if I should have Ashley talk to her dad about taking care of girls. At least she smiled at me. Her dad did, too.
Taylor Lynne: The Women of Merryton - Book Two Page 3