Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Emma
“ C an I have the peanut butter cereal again?”
“Absolutely you can.”
I grin at Maddy, who is sitting at the table in her dog-patterned pajamas with her stuffies on the chairs on either side of her. In the ten days she has been with me, mornings have quickly become my favorite time. Watching her stumble her way into the kitchen, all sleepy eyes and wild red hair, picking her breakfast cereal, doing all the regular morning things that come with having a child around, is an unexpected joy.
And the best part of it is that every day, she comes out of her shell a little more. Says a few more words. Gives me more of her thoughts. Asks for a little more of what she needs.
It hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. The first few days at her new school have been a little rough. The closer it gets to the time her bus comes the quieter she gets, and Rachel Parker, who is with her after school, tells me that Maddy seems to withdraw into herself a little more when she gets home. But by the time I pick her up at Rachel’s after work, she’s happy and smiling and talking about whatever adventures she and Rachel had.
I’m tired. More tired than I have ever been in my life. I miss my evening runs, and I’ve had to get used to leaving the office at a certain time every day instead of staying until I’m done. It’s been an adjustment having another person in my house—for there to be noise and talking and things to do when I get home instead of the quiet downtime I’m used to.
But there has also been joy. So much joy in seeing this little person learn to trust me and my friends. To treat my home like her home. To see her steal snacks when she thinks I’m not looking and fling her backpack in the living room instead of placing it by the front door. Yesterday when I asked her to go get dressed for school, she practically flew up the stairs instead of walking quietly, and I cried actual tears.
It's possible my emotions are just a little close to the surface these days.
“Do you think Jeremy will come over tonight?” Maddy asks, as I set her cereal bowl and a glass of orange juice in front of her.
I smile at the question. That’s another thing that has changed over the past ten days. Jeremy has become a near constant fixture in my life. We’ve run together on the trails three times this week after I put Maddy on the bus. He meets me at the entrance to Frick Park with the French vanilla coffee I love and some kind of ridiculously sweet concoction for himself, and every run ends with him grinning and pressing me against my car, kissing me right out in the open. A kind of claiming. Then I drive to work red faced and hot, heart racing from more than the exercise.
Twice in the last week, he’s come over here in the evening with grocery bags, announcing he’s making dinner and needs Maddy to help. Both times he’s pressed a beer and a bag of M&M’s into my hands and pushed me gently towards the living room, telling me to sit and unwind from the day while they cook. I only did that once. Because you haven’t lived until you’ve watched a hot ass man with muscles everywhere and dark scruff and a thigh tattoo show a seven-year-old girl how to make chicken tacos.
And then made out with the hot ass man on the couch after he reads Harry Potter to the seven-year-old and puts her to bed. Both times he’s been here since that first night, he’s left me vibrating with lust and need and making a beeline for my bedside table. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t something satisfying about a good old-fashioned couch make out session like we’re teenagers again. I was too quiet and shy and bookish to have any of those when I was an actual teenager, so it’s fun to have them now. Even if I might actually die if he doesn’t get his hands on me for real soon.
He wants it too—I can feel it—but there is also a wealth of uncertainty and hesitation that makes him want to stay in this place. Like he doesn’t trust himself not to panic and run the minute this goes any further. But I’m okay with where we are.
Because here isn’t such a bad place to be.
Even after spending this short amount of time together, Jeremy and Maddy have an easy rhythm. Watching them together is something of a revelation. He is so gentle and patient with her, and she clearly adores him.
It’s like recognizing like. The broken boy and the lost little girl, kindred spirits of loss and loneliness and heartbreak, finding comfort in each other. I want to wrap my arms around both of them and promise to keep them safe and whole for the rest of their lives.
I try not to get too far out over my skis. Jeremy and I are still feeling this out, and this isn’t Maddy’s forever home, but it’s hard not to want to give both of them forever.
I settle in across the table from Maddy with my coffee mug in hand.
“I’m sure he would love to come over, but we have plans after school today.”
Maddy’s nose scrunches up while she thinks about that. “I’m not going to Rachel’s after school?”
“Nope. You’re not going to Rachel’s, but Rachel is coming with us.”
“To where?” Maddy shoves a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.
Before I can answer her, there’s a knock on the door.
“I think there’s someone here who can tell you all about that. Want to get the door?”
“Sure!” She jumps out of her chair and makes a beeline for the door, flinging it open.
“Molly!” I hear Maddy exclaim from the entryway.
“Hey, Maddy girl.” Molly’s voice filters in through the kitchen. Aside from Jeremy, Molly is Maddy’s favorite person. Since Molly lives next door, she’s been meeting us in the mornings to hang on the porch until the bus comes. She and Maddy talk about fashion and clothes and art, and yesterday Maddy even brought out her drawing stuff so they could color while they waited for the bus.
They walk into the kitchen together, Molly holding her own coffee mug. She grins at me and takes a seat at the table, giving Maddy all of her attention.
“So Maddy girl, want to take an adventure with us today?” Molly asks.
Maddy bounces up and down in her chair. “Yes! To where?”
“So, you remember our friend Hallie who you met the first day you came here?”
“Yep. She’s getting married to the really nice guy. The one with yellow hair. Rachel is his mom. He came over to her house on Monday when I was there. He has a sister who is also your friend.”
Molly nods. “That’s right. Julie. Hallie and Ben are getting married next week, and you need a dress.”
Maddy screws up her face, thinking. “A dress for what?”
“For the wedding, silly.”
Maddy gasps, her eyes getting big. “I get to go?” she whispers.
“You bet you do. You’re Hallie and Ben’s friend, and all their friends have to be at their wedding.”
I’m glad Molly has this handled because the sheer joy in Maddy’s eyes has emotion burning my own.
“I’ve never been to a wedding before,” she says. “Will there be a lot of people there?”
Molly takes Maddy’s hand in hers. “There will, but you’ll stick with us—Emma and me and our other friends too.”
“And Jeremy?”
At Maddy’s innocent question, Molly turns and gives me a wicked grin that is…less innocent.
“Jeremy will definitely be there. He’s Ben’s very best friend.”
“He’s my best friend too,” Maddy says confidently.
“Is he now?” Molly murmurs, kicking me under the table.
I kick her back because it feels like the thing to do.
“Yep.” Maddy eats the last bite of her cereal and sits back in her chair, eyes still on Molly.
“Well, that’s great. So anyway, you need a dress for the wedding so after school today we’re going shopping.”
“You and me?” Maddy asks.
“You, me, Emma, Hallie, Julie, and Rachel too. We have another friend, Allie, who might also come. She’s a very busy doctor so it’s not always easy for her to get away, but she’s going to try. We’re going to go to a store and try on dresses and go out to dinner and have ourselves a proper girls’ night.”
Molly takes the last sip of her coffee and gets up to refill her mug from my pot while Maddy digests that information.
“I think I’ll like a girls’ night.”
I smile at her. “I think you will too. It’s fun to spend time with your girlfriends.”
“I’ve never really had a girlfriend.”
Emotion swamps me, and I can tell from the look on Molly’s face and the way she takes Maddy’s hand and squeezes it gently that she feels the same. When I ask her if she’s met any girls in her class, Maddy just shrugs and says nothing. It’s so hard to be new, and she’s been new so many times. I make a split-second decision.
“Do you remember Ms. Casey telling you she has a daughter who is a year older than you?”
Maddy nods.
“She’s friends with Hallie too, and she’ll be at the wedding. Do you want me to see if she wants to come try on dresses with us too?”
“Is she nice?” Maddy asks.
“I promise, she’s the nicest.”
“Then I guess that would be okay.”
“I’ll ask Ms. Casey. Why don’t you run upstairs and get dressed for school and I’ll make the call.”
Maddy looks at Molly. “Want to come help me pick out my clothes?”
“You bet I do, Maddy girl. I’m thinking sequins.”
Maddy nods, a serious look on her face. “Definitely sequins.”
The two of them get up and head upstairs, while I pick up my phone and dial Jen Casey.
The sound of giggling behind the dressing room curtain is the best thing I’ve ever heard. As soon as we got here after school, Molly took charge and ordered the rest of us to take a seat while she helped Maddy and Jen Casey’s daughter, Maya, in the dressing room.
The two girls bonded immediately over sequins, lace, and hot pink shoes and were best friends before we even picked a single dress off the rack.
“It’s such a nice sound,” Julie says from her seat next to me, tipping her head towards the dressing room.
“I’m hearing it more this week than I did last week,” I say, picking up a cookie from the plate in the dressing room. “A little more every day.”
“You are doing such an amazing job, Em,” Hallie says from the couch across from us. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”
I shoot a look at the dressing room while Rachel hisses something at Hallie about language and little ears.
Jen laughs. “Would you believe that one of the hardest parts of parenting is trying not to say fuck all the time?”
“I absolutely do believe it,” I say, popping the last bite of cookie into my mouth. “Yesterday Jeremy burned his finger on the stove when he was making dinner, and you should have seen Maddy’s face when he said fuck .”
I realize my mistake immediately as five sets of eyes slide towards me.
“Jeremy, huh?” Allie says, leaning back and crossing her arms all casual like.
“At your house?” Rachel asks, a sly grin on her face.
“He was making dinner?” asks Jen.
Julie and Hallie, who know he’s been at my house this week, just grin at me, knowing how much I hate being in the center of attention, unwilling to come to my rescue.
Bitches.
“He’s…been at my house a couple evenings this week. He and Maddy hit it off.”
“I just bet they did,” Rachel says thoughtfully. “Like twin lost souls, the two of them.”
“And is Maddy the only reason he’s been coming over?” Allie asks, knowing full well what the answer is.
I huff out a breath thinking, what the hell?
Might as well let it all hang out.
“We’ve kind of got a thing going on.”
Everyone asks a question at once, and I sit there and let them burn themselves out. Once they finish, I say it all at once.
“It’s new and I don’t know what it is or where it’s going but it feels…right. I don’t know how to explain it better than that. I think maybe we need each other.”
“I told you he was yours,” Rachel says.
I nod, unsurprised that she’s bringing this up again. “You did.”
“I told you Maddy would need you both.”
“Are you just here to gloat, Mom?” Julie asks, smirking at Rachel.
“I don’t gloat, Jules. I just tell it like it is. Jeremy has always held a piece of himself back from everyone. I think Emma and Maddy together are what it’s going to take for him to finally let it all out.”
She smiles at my surprised look.
“Don’t look so surprised, Em. That boy has been mine since the day I met him, just like you have. I know everything there is to know about all of my children. What Jeremy needs is love and patience and kindness. And maybe, eventually, a little kick in the ass if he doesn’t get there fast enough on his own.”
I laugh even as I turn her words around in my head and give her the absolute truth of it.
“I have all of that for him.”
She nods, looking satisfied. “I know you do.”
“Em, what do you…”
“Emma!” Maddy cuts off whatever Hallie was about to say, flying out of the dressing room in a cloud of pink tulle and throwing herself at me, wrapping her little arms around my neck. This is the first time she’s hugged me like this, and my eyes immediately blur with tears. Looking over her shoulder, I see my feelings mirrored in everyone else’s eyes too.
I try to pull myself together as she steps back, but the sheer joy on her face makes it impossible.
“Do you like my dress?” She throws her arms out and does an honest to god twirl, and it’s the most carefree I have ever seen her.
“Maddy, it’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen.”
She grins at me. “Molly went to find me pink shoes in my size, and she said if you say it’s okay, she can take me to get my ears pierced. Maya has her ears pierced and so do all the girls in my grade. I want mine too.”
“It’s definitely okay.” I look over at Molly standing in front of the dressing room, doing nothing to hide her own emotion. Tears stream down her face, and I have never loved her more.
“Molly is the best at picking earrings.”
“I know.” Maddy nods wisely and I smother a laugh.
Before I can answer her, Maya comes out of the dressing room in a purple dress, and then it’s a whirlwind of shoes and hair bows and two friends smiling and laughing together and making silly faces in the mirror while we all take pictures.
“Okay, ladies,” Rachel says, bending down so she’s eye level with the girls. What do you say we buy these dresses and then take ourselves to dinner and eat dessert first?”
Two pairs of eyes turn into saucers as they nod furiously, and we all laugh. Rachel guides them to the dressing room and helps them take off the dresses, then insists on paying for it all.
“None of my children have given me grandchildren yet, so this is the closest I can get for now,” she says, giving both Hallie and Julie a pointed side-eye, making us all laugh again.
And then, with my friends by my side and my little girl’s hand in mine, we walk out into the fall sunshine.
Jeremy
How was dress shopping?
Me
[pic attached]
That is…a lot of pink.
But seriously, our girl is going to be the most beautiful girl at the wedding.