Chapter 48 Adult Christmas #2
She gives me a look. “Dad. I showed it to you the day after your cookie swap.”
She did? I don’t remember that at all. But that doesn’t matter. I can find a fucking apron. “Right. I remember perfectly now,” I lie, then yank open a kitchen drawer, hunting for an apron for my kid. Not there. It’s not in the pantry, or a drawer, or a cupboard.
My shoulders tighten. I really should have done this yesterday. Hell, I should have done it last night. But once the snow started, I was…totally in another place. Focused only on romancing Isla.
Liar. You were in another place the second Isla showed up.
Now, I’m frazzled, hunting for the apron I know we brought with us.
I root around in the kitchen while Mia trots to her room. “I bet I left it there.”
“Let’s hope so,” I say, as frustration grips me.
Normally, I’m on top of things. I remember skating lessons and school fairs. I remember homework assignments and school projects.
But you were late to pick up Mia the day of the Christmas tree farm.
Still, it’s just an apron. It’s just one little thing I forgot. It’s no big deal…
I slam a drawer harder than I should. Scrubbing a hand along my beard, I blow out a breath, trying to clear my head.
But when Mia emerges from the bedroom, her face ashen, it doesn’t feel like just an apron. Because she’s not holding an apron at all. She’s holding a photo.
“Dad,” she says quietly, “look what I found in my closet.”
Dread courses through me. There’s no way the next sentence can be anything good. Not as she carries a five-by-seven white wooden picture frame that looks horrifyingly familiar. Those were the picture frames Regina bought for everything. White was her favorite color.
I swallow past the stone in my throat. “What did you find, cupcake?” I try to hide the worry I feel.
She advances toward me, her eyes wide, and dear god, are they shining? Is she about to cry?
She turns the photo frame toward me. “It’s you, me, and Mommy.”
My heart feels like a rusty blade is digging into it over and over. I hear the hurt in her words. “It’s the three of us before the Christmas gala, the year before…”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. The year before Mom left.
She hands me the photo frame. I have steady hands, but they’re trembling now as I take it.
I fight off a grimace as I look at the photo then reflexively, my fingers tighten as the memory claws its way up.
I’m wearing a tux, hoisting a three-year-old Mia on my hip, dropping a kiss to her mother’s cheek.
Regina’s wearing a simple white dress, her eyes closed, but it looks like she’s smiling.
There are no clues in this photo to show a family about to splinter. There’s nothing in here, no code, no hint that says a year later, one of us will leave.
The photo is a lie. A shiny, happy lie.
I don’t know what to say. I’ve had five years of raising my daughter solo. I’ve guided her through the ups and downs of her mom leaving, and right now, I have nothing. I have to say something though, so I just shrug and mutter, “It’s a nice photo. Let’s put it away.”
Just like I put Christmas away for years.
Mia’s lip quivers. I feel like such an ass. But she’s not my daughter for nothing. She’s persistent. She’s resilient. And she’s seriously fucking surprising since the next thing she does is give a little shrug and say, “Why don’t we take a new one with you, me, and Isla?”
I grind my teeth as alarm bells sound in my head.
She’s getting attached.
She’s wanting more.
And I don’t even know what to say. “Let’s talk about that another time. We need to find that apron,” I grumble.
Mia’s eyes light up. “I know where it is! I was telling Isla about it when we decorated the tree. It’s in my suitcase still,” she says, then smacks her forehead, rolling her eyes at herself.
Grabbing my hand, she tugs me into her room, races to her suitcase, and flips open the top. She fishes it out of the zipper compartment. “Here it is,” she says. “It’s almost like Isla remembered where it was.”
Like she’s her…new mom.
Where the fuck did that come from?
I stand stupidly in Mia’s room with that thought echoing like a gong in my mind as Mia heads back down the hall, then gasps. “Dad!”
What now?
I stifle a groan and trudge back down the hall. She’s staring at the tree, beaming and pointing. “There are all these new gifts.”
“Yeah, I…put them out last night,” I say carefully, but it feels like I’m navigating a minefield. With my own kid. What the hell is even happening to me?
“From you and Isla!”
I didn’t even sign both our names on the tags, just mine. But now I feel like a dirtbag for excluding Isla. And I feel like a bigger dirtbag for the lie I’m about to tell. “Just from me, cupcake.”
I mean, it’s mostly true. I don’t need to tell Mia Isla shopped with me. Except. Fuck. I can’t do this. “Isla went shopping with me and helped pick them out,” I admit, since it feels wrong not to tell her that.
Mia’s eyes widen again. “Will she be here on Christmas morning? Oh, I hope so! We can make pancakes. And I even have a gift planned for Isla. I came up with it last night when I was out with Grams and Gramps. I need your help for it, but I know you’ll love it.
I have gifts for you and a gift for them and a gift for Wanda and a gift for Isla, and it’s going to be amazing.
I might even make her some cookies tonight because I know she likes cookies like I do. ”
Then she snaps her head toward the clock. “We really better go.”
Yeah, we really better. But the thing is, I feel like I can barely move.
She’s planning a gift for Isla.
She wants Isla to be here on Christmas morning. That’s peak family time.
She wants to re-create a photo.
Last night, I thought I was just scheduling another date with Isla—but it’s not that simple. Dating as a single dad never is. Because I invited Isla into my daughter’s life. I invited my daughter into the secret of fake-dating Isla.
And now, Mia wants her in her life for real.
And what the hell am I supposed to do if it doesn’t work out—like the last one didn’t, and left Mia heartbroken?
She kept asking for months if her mom was coming back.
I had to keep telling her I don’t know.
Then I don’t know turned into I don’t think so.
And eventually, No.
Mia learned to find her strength again in books. She asked me to adopt a dog to complete our family.
Last time when a romance didn’t work out, it wasn’t my fault Mia was heartbroken.
This time, the blame would fall squarely on me.