Kaelyn nearly killed me when she came home from school, wanting to know how she was supposed to give her mommy her Mother’s Day present if she wasn’t here. They were making cards at school and she really wanted to give hers to Deborah. Which is sort of what we’re doing today since I’m going to be away at games this weekend.
“What are we doing here?” Kaelyn asks, looking around at all the bouquets of flowers.
“We need to pick some for Mommy,” I tell her.
“They have to be perfect,” she says decisively. Kaelyn tugs on my hand, pulling me with her as she sets out on a mission to find the perfect set of flowers. We spend an hour in the florist’s shop. Kaelyn has found something wrong with everything we look at.
“What about these?” I point to a batch of yellow roses.
“What do they smell like? I need to smell them, Daddy,” she says as if I should already know this. I should too, considering she’s had to sniff all the other ones. I grab it and hold them down for her. She makes a show of inhaling the scent, pursing her lips, and then scrutinizing every petal. “I like these the best.”
So, we buy the yellow roses.
I don’t visit the cemetery often because I don’t feel like she’s here. While I know Deborah would understand that, when I see the wilted stems in front of her gravestone, I feel guilty. I empty the container and place the roses inside.
“How can Mommy be here and in heaven at the same time?” Kaelyn asks as we sit down on the grass.
“Well, once you’re an angel, you can do things like that.” Hopefully, she’ll accept that answer. “Do you want to read what your card says?”
“Mommy will be able to hear me?”
“Yeah,” I nod.
“But she won’t be able to see my pictures,” she frowns.
I take a deep breath to calm myself. “She can. Remember how I told you that Mommy watches over you even though you can’t see her?” Kaelyn nods. “So, since she’s watching over you, she’ll be able to see what you drew.”
Kaelyn lays the card on the ground in front of us, holding it down as if it might blow away even though there’s not so much as a breeze. “I’ll put it here while I read it, so we can all see it.”
“Tell us what it says,” I encourage her.
“Happy Mother’s Day, and I drew a heart because I love her. Mrs. Wells had to help me with my ‘e’ because I almost forgot it. I thought I was going to have to start all over, but I didn’t.” She opens the card. “Then I drew some more hearts and all of us. Mrs. Wells showed me some pictures of angels when I asked. They had wings and a halo-thingy, but I didn’t think Mommy would like that, so I didn’t draw them. I drew her favorite scarf though.
“I forgot we were supposed to write something on the inside until I drew all my pictures and then I didn’t have any room. Mrs. Wells said I could write on the back though. She helped me with it.” She turns to the backside and reads what she wrote. “I wrote: I miss you Mommy and I wish you weren’t in heaven so we could make cookies. I wanted to add that Granny doesn’t let me have as much cookie dough as Mommy, but I ran out of room again.” Kaelyn looks at me, worried. “Do you think Mommy likes my card? Even though I didn’t have enough room and messed up on my e?”
“I’m sure she loves it, sweet pea. You did a good job.”
Kaelyn glances down at her card. “How am I supposed to give it to her, so she can keep it?”
Thinking quickly, I pick up her card. “We can fold it like this and stick it in with her flowers. Then, she’ll have it.”
She seems like she wants to object, but she doesn’t. Kaelyn stares at the headstone and we sit quietly for a few minutes. “Daddy, am I going to get another mommy?”
My head snaps to her. “What? Why are you asking?”
“Piper got another mommy.” Piper, the friend she stayed with last week. “Her daddy said she has her mommy and another, new mommy for when she goes to his house. Now she has two mommies.”
What the hell am I supposed to say to her? I swallow hard. “You’ll always have your mom as an angel, watching over you. That’s all I know.”
Kaelyn frowns. “But I thought you knew everything? Mommy would say I should always listen to you because you were smart and knew everything. How come you don’t know if I’ll have another mommy?”
“Because that’s something I can’t know.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Are you ready to leave?” I ask.
She nods and we stand. I take her hand. As we turn to walk back to my car, she looks over her shoulder at the headstone and waves goodbye.
***
THE DAYS SEEM to drag on and the week seems like an eternity. Sleeping seems to a memory of something I did long ago. Eating doesn’t seem appealing either. I’m living on coffee and wine, and I’m not sure how I’m even functioning at work. Stacks of folders are piling up, and each day I try to shuffle more paperwork out. I don’t even want to be at work, but I don’t want to be at home either. I don’t want to be anywhere because every little thing reminds me of Trent.
It shouldn’t because I barely know him. I haven’t fallen in love with him. I’m not tied to him in any manner. Well, that isn’t entirely true because we’re bonded together by a tragedy. It’s a Greek tragedy written of old, and I’m a part of it.
I care about Trent because my brother dramatically changed his life and his daughter’s. I care about Trent because he’s a good guy and good guys shouldn’t be planning their wife’s funeral after a few years of marriage. A little girl shouldn’t grow up without a mother. Deborah was a different kind of mother than I had. She was good and she cared.
Now, I’m officially alone. I should have a large pity party for myself because I’m an honest person and couldn’t lie to Trent.
There’s a loud knock on my front door. The time on my clock says it’s after midnight, and it’s never good news when someone comes calling at this hour. I peak through the lookout and see Macy.
“What’s wrong?” I swiftly open the door.
She holds up two large bottles of wine. “I’m not working tomorrow even though it’s Saturday and I’ve not taken a day off in over three years. My best friend hasn’t answered my phone calls, my texts, or the pigeon I sent earlier with a little scroll attached to his neck. I figured you found some new, hip, younger friend and were bar hopping and then I remembered you don’t bar hop. So, it hit me that my dear best friend bared her soul to Trent Baker and is now crying into her empty wine glass. Am I right?”
I laugh through the tears as Macy walks over the threshold and hugs me awkwardly with the bottles still clenched in her hands. “Have I told you lately I love you?”
“No, bitch, you haven’t.” She releases me, heading toward the kitchen. “And since you’ve rudely ignored me for over a week, we need to drink.” She pops open the first bottle of wine and pours us each a glass. “You told him the truth, huh?”
“I couldn’t let him find out from anyone else. I’m not a con artist and I owed it to him to hear it from me. I have enough respect for him and his daughter to be honest with him.” I gulp my wine.
“What happened?”
I scoff. “What do you think? He ran off and I haven’t heard a single word from him.”
“Have you called?”
I twist the wine glass in my hands several times before answering her. “I thought about texting him, you know, to make sure he’s okay, but I never hit send. I want to so badly, but I—”
“Do you think he’ll answer back if you did?”
“Let’s see.” I raise my voice as I continue, “Would you answer the sister of the man who killed your wife? No, you wouldn’t! Instead, you delete her number, put a restraining order on her, and make sure you hired security for your daughter!”
Macy’s eyes are wide. “Did he do that?”
I sigh and finish my glass of wine in two quick gulps. “No. No, he didn’t because I’ve cut all contact. It’s better this way.”
Macy’s stunned look changes to sadness. “You really liked him?”
“He’s a good guy and they are few and far between,” I say sadly. “Yes, I did.”
She pats my hand and pours more wine into my glass. “Well, I think this calls for a long night of bad black and white movies, popcorn, and wine. What do you say?”
“Perfect.”
The night with Macy helped a lot and when Monday rolls back around, I’m ready to head back to work. I have my career, which I love, and I’m going to focus on it. I need to move on. Trent is just another chapter in my life and it’s over, but my book isn’t finished yet.
When I leave work, I debate whether to go to the gym or not. I still can’t decide if I should change to a different gym. It sucks because this gym is clean and close to my house, but it’s possible I’ll run into Trent.
You can do this. I give myself a quick pep talk and park my car in the gym parking lot. I’m about ten feet from my car when I bump into someone.
“Sorry,” I mumble, stepping past him.
“Wait. Are you Mrs. Knowles?”
I look at the man strangely. He’s young, maybe twenty-one. His hair and clothes look like he just rolled out of the bed. “I’m Miss Knowles.”
He quickly digs into his messenger bag and pulls out a crumbled piece of paper. “Scarlett Knowles?”
“Who are you?” I suddenly take two steps back.
“Oh, right, sorry.” He sticks out his hand. “I’m Junior from the Memphis Paper Blog.”
“Junior? The Memphis Paper Blog?” I never heard of the blog and who goes by Junior?
“Yep. I’m one of their new bloggers and I want to ask you a couple of questions.”
I take another step back and cross my arms. “I’m sorry, but I doubt you have any topic you need to ask me questions about.”
“Well, you see.” He points to my name on the piece of crumbled paper. “Your name is on the list of visitors for Dominic Davis. I’m covering the trial and I’ve been doing some digging. I was wondering who you are.”
“How did you find me?” My name has been kept out of the papers. Not one reporter has made a connection to Dominic and me. Macy hasn’t even reported my name.
“Oh, um...I called your office and someone told me this is your gym.”
“Please leave me alone and any question you ask, my answer will be ‘no comment.’” I don’t know why I’m being formal, but I’m not going to talk about Dominic. The trial is over and the sentencing happens soon. Therefore, I don’t need to say anything.
I nod to the young kid, push past him without saying another word, and head into the gym. I should have gone back to my car and driven home, but I need to run. I miss running. It's the only time I can clear my head and think clearly.
Ten miles flies by as I pound hard on the treadmill. I keep my mind clear of the reporter who just cornered me. I don’t think about the potential destruction of my life. No, I’m not going to dwell on it all. I am going to start a new chapter in my life and it’s going to be the best ever.
I hop off the machine and pat my face dry with a clean towel as I head toward the locker room. Then it happens. The one thing I don’t need to happen, does.
Trent.
Our eyes catch each other and my heart drops. He looks beyond sad. He looks the same way I did when I first ran into him a few months ago.
I did this.
My deception in not telling him about Dom right away has set back the progress of putting his life back in order. I debate saying anything, but we’re walking almost the same path as I’m headed toward the locker room and he is coming toward the machine.
“Hi,” I finally choke out as we come closer. Should I say anything else?
“Hey, how have you been?”
“I’m well. Um...are you okay?” My nerves are bouncing as I talk to him.
“Sure. Are you? You haven’t been here lately.”
“Oh...yeah...well...I’ve been busy with work and stuff. I saw the highlights this past week, you’re doing well. Congrats.” My voice cracks a bit.
“Thanks. How are Joey and David?”
“Good. They still talk about their tour and David had three RBIs in his first game. You’d think he was Blake Foster.” I try to joke in hopes to calm myself down.
Trent offers a small grin. “Tell him good job for me.”
“I will. It was nice talking to you again Trent. I mi—” I stop. I can't tell him I miss him. There's no way. “I hope you have a good week.”
“Yeah, you too.”
I spin on my heels and rush away from him.
***
NORMALLY, I WOULD be at the park for practice right now. However, I get the day off because Kaelyn is graduating from Kindergarten. She was more excited about dressing up than anything else. This morning was one of the most stressful I’ve had in a long time. She wanted her hair curled. Curled! She had to find the curling iron for me because I didn’t even know where it was.
Let me just say, curling hair is freaking hard.
Not only that, but Kaelyn yelled and cried within the first ten minutes because I was “doing it wrong.” I probably was. When I asked her how I was supposed to do it, she shrugged. It was very helpful. I did get the hang of it though and managed to give her some decent curls.
Today has simply been too emotional. From the morning tantrums to the near curling disaster to attending the event without Deborah. Granny had a checkup with her doctor that she couldn’t get rescheduled, so I’m Kaelyn’s lone supporter. But she got her curls and is wearing the dress with the yellow flowers that I bought her not too long ago during daddy-daughter day, and she’s smiling. For that reason alone, the day will count as a success.
We are in my car after the ceremony and Kaelyn says, “Daddy, I need a favor.”
“What do you need?” I ask curiously as I pull into the line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot.
“We’re celebrating today, right?”
“Yes.” I’m still unsure where this is going.
“Well, then I think I need some ice cream. Can we go get some?”
“Hmm,” I pretend to think it over. “I don’t know.”
“Please,” she begs. “You can get some, too! I just have to have some ice cream, Daddy. We always eat ice cream when we celebrate. Please. I’ll love you forever,” she finishes as a last ditch effort.
I laugh. “You’re supposed to love me forever anyway. You don’t need to use your love against me, Kaelyn; we’ll go out for ice cream.”
She squeals with her excitement. Once we get out of the parking lot, it doesn’t take but about twenty minutes to arrive at our favorite ice cream place. The heat is ridiculous outside. Ice cream really does sound like the perfect thing to eat right now. The first thing I notice when I walk inside is we aren’t the only ones with this idea. The second thing I notice is that Scarlett is in front of us in line.
“Pick me up. I can’t see.” So, I pick her up for her to peer at the images on the menu.
At the sound of Kaelyn’s voice, Scarlett glances behind her. Her eyes widen, and I give her a small smile.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi,” she replies softly.
“Hey,” Kaelyn jumps in. “You’re pretty.”
"Thank you. You're beautiful. I love your...curls." Scarlett tries not to laugh, and I look at my daughter. What’s wrong with her curls? I thought I did a good job. "Did your daddy do them?"
“Thank you,” she beams. “He did, but,” Kaelyn drops her voice to a whisper and leans toward Scarlett, “he needs to practice more.”
She whispers back to her, "You should tell him to watch YouTube. I think it helped him before." She winks.
Kaelyn looks at me with the most serious expression and says, “Watch YouTube, Daddy.”
“Hey, you told me I did a good job. You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
She shakes head, her apparently terrible curls shaking with it. “You did good for your first tr
y.” And that’s all the attention I get as she faces Scarlett again. “What’s your name? My name is Kaelyn, and I graduated from Kindergarten today.”
Scarlett looks at me, waiting for permission to interact further with my daughter. Maybe I’m crazy, but I nod.
“I'm Scarlett and congratulations on graduating. Are you excited for first grade?”
“Yep. We won’t have naptime anymore, but we’re still supposed to have snack breaks. What’s your favorite kind of ice cream? Last time, I tried that green one, but it was yucky. I got the blue one instead.”
“I love the cherry. It’s my favorite.”
“Can I try the cherry one?” Kaelyn asks me.
“Yeah, you can taste it first and if you like it, you can order it. I’m sure it’ll be just as good with gummy bears and sprinkles.”
“What do you get on yours?”
“Sometimes I do chocolate syrup and sometimes plain. It depends on my mood. I’ve had a bad day, so I’m having a lot of chocolate syrup,” Scarlett explains to her.
“Why are you having a bad day? You should sit with us. I can help. Daddy always says I make his bad days better. She can sit with us, right?”
“Ah, yeah, sure, if she wants to.” Have I gone completely insane?
“Do you want to?”
“Um...you’re very sweet, but I think you should enjoy your day with your daddy. Thank you though for being kind to me. It did brighten up my day.”
“Are you sure? I won’t mind, Scarlett,” I say, my mouth blurting out words regardless of whether or not I’m sure about this.
She hesitates before nodding. “Okay. I’d like that.”
We order our ice cream and Kaelyn gets the cherry flavored ice cream with chocolate syrup. We claim a table with three chairs. Kaelyn immediately takes charge of the conversation.
“What’s your favorite color? I like yellow, pink, and red and blue because those are the colors on Daddy’s baseball team.”
“I like red and purple. Those are my favorite colors.”
“Purple is pretty. Daddy likes blue and my granny says she doesn’t have a favorite color, but I think it’s green because she wears green stuff all the time.”
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