Chapter 19 #2
“I’ll drive the speed limit, Hal,” Danny says with the ease of a very part-time parent. “Don’t fret. It makes those lines in your forehead crease.”
Mia giggles.
“I am not fretting,” I say calmly, employing crisis-deescalation training mode to my voice. “I am being a good mother.”
“You’re the best mom,” Mia assures me.
I’m not sure I want her to be the one having to do that. I always want her to be oblivious to my parenting, like it’s so firmly in place she just lives her life within the structures and habits we’ve established for her good.
“I’m a good mom,” I tell her. “And you’re awesome sauce.”
“In a pan!” Mia shouts.
Danny’s eyes flick between the two of us.
“Okay,” I finally say. “Be safe and have fun.”
“We will!” Mia says.
I reach into the van and pull out her booster, handing it over to Danny.
“Thanks for this,” he says. “I don’t know how to do this right.”
I simply say, “You’re welcome.”
If he wants exoneration, he’ll have to look elsewhere.
I didn’t know what I was doing either, but I figured it out.
That’s what you do when you’re a parent.
You figure it out because another person’s well-being and future depend partly on your ability to figure it out.
And you mess up. Goodness knows I have. But you stick with it.
That’s how it works. Whatever it is Danny’s doing, it checks none of those boxes.
Stale bread.
But Mia’s happy. And if I thought she were in any kind of real danger, she wouldn’t even go to this park with him, let alone back to Maryville.
I watch as Danny figures out how to install the carseat. Mia helps him. I stand back, arms crossed, out of the way. Then she climbs in and I walk around to her side of the car, leaning in and placing a kiss on her cheek.
“I love you,” I say softly so it’s just between the two of us.
“Love you too, Mommy. So much.” She puts her hand up to my cheek, the same way I do to her so often.
“Have fun,” I say for the umpteenth time.
“We will!” Mia shouts as I shut the door and step back.
Danny smiles cordially over the roof at me before he slides into his seat and pulls away. I stand there, staring after them, arms still crossed until they’re out of sight.
My phone rings in my pocket. It takes at least two rings for me to realize it.
I pull it out and smile at the number on my screen.
“Hi, Mommy! We’re driving!”
“I know,” I chuckle softly and swipe at a tear.
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” I chuckle again.
“Oink.”
“Oink who?”
“Are you a pig or an owl? Make up your mind.”
She busts up laughing and I laugh along with her.
“I’m saving the ice cream one,” she says.
“Good call. Pace yourself,” I say, my smile settling somewhere deep in my heart.
“I will. I’ve got one about baseball. You’re gonna love it.”
“I know I will.”
“Better start getting some to tell me, Mommy.”
“I’ll be on the hunt right away.”
“Okay. Bye!”
“Bye, sweetheart. Love you.”
The phone clicks and I pull myself together.
I climb into the quiet of the van and drive back to work alone. Everything’s emptier. She’s only been gone a few minutes and the spaces she should be filling whoosh with an airy hollowness. Her classroom, this van, our house, all vacant of her silliness, precociousness and intensity.
Back at the station, I slip into the kitchen hoping I can enter the routine without a fuss.
Greyson looks up from his station laptop where he’s logging something.
“Got a minute, Hallie?” he asks in a formal tone.
“Yeah. Sure.”
He stands and pushes his chair back then he walks to the door leading out into the bays without another word. His movements are so authoritative and professional, Patrick doesn’t even bother looking up from his book. Dustin appears to be napping in a recliner.
I follow Grey out. He steps over to the engine, and I think he’s about to go over something I missed during checks this morning. I wouldn’t be surprised. My head might not have been fully in the game.
Instead, he leans on the engine, looks down into my eyes and asks, “Everything okay?”
I smile a half-smile up at him. There’s no hiding here.
He’ll ferret me out. I don’t know how or what we do about this, but I know one thing, no one can see through me like Grey does.
No one seems to have access to the places he enters so freely and easily.
And no one handles my heart with such precision and care.
I take a breath, never tearing my eyes away from his, keeping my distance because I want nothing more than to sink into his arms and to let him hold me.
“Mia’s with her dad this week. It’s fine. He’s fine. I’m just not used to her being gone.”
“Oh.” His brows tug inward and his lips thin. “How long?”
“Four days. He called out of the blue to tell me his family is having a gathering and his mom suggested it would be good to have Mia there.”
“His mom.”
“Yep.”
Greyson shakes his head. And in that one gesture he captures all my thoughts and feelings.
“Four days.”
“Yeah.”
“Our next four days off?”
Our. “Yeah.”
“That’s inconvenient for you. Did you have plans?”
“I did. We did. Lots of them.”
He nods.
The kitchen door to the bay opens. I instinctively step back from Greyson, even though there’s already a good yard between us.
Dustin comes into the bay. “Hey! What are you two talking about? Is it about dinner and how I wasn’t invited? You’re feeling bad, aren’t you, Hallie? Don’t worry. You can make it up to me. How’s this week?”
I laugh.
Greyson grumbles under his breath.
“We were actually talking about something I wanted to tell you about too,” I say.
Greyson looks a little shocked.
I smile assuringly at him. It’s time.
“I actually need to tell both you and Patrick something.”
Dustin sticks his head back through the kitchen door. “Yo. Patrick! Come out here. Hallie wants to tell us something.”
Greyson looks at me with a question written on his face—making sure today’s really the right day.
I am emotional. But my whole point in not telling them was to wait until they accepted me onto the crew and included me as an equal.
At some point, that happened. Maybe it was the pranks.
Maybe it was the way I show up on calls.
Maybe it was just a matter of time. But I’m one of them now. And I want them to know.
Patrick comes out. “What’s up?”
I preface my reveal by saying, “I feel weird not having said anything to you yet.”
Dustin guesses. “You’re a spy!”
I laugh. “Why would I be a spy? And what would I be spying on?”
“Maybe there’s a sleeper cell in Waterford,” Dustin says, his expression stone-cold serious.
I laugh harder. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
“You are a spy! Man. I should have known. The way you bench press? That’s not real. Nope. That’s spy-level.”
“No. It’s …” I take a breath and spill the words in a tumble. “I have a daughter.”
Dustin and Patrick’s faces are twin expressions of confusion.
“I’m a mom,” I repeat to break whatever spell just descended on them.
“You have a daughter?” Dustin echoes.
“Yes. Her name is Mia. She’s seven. Her dad and I separated after her first birthday.”
“She lives here in Waterford?” Dustin gets this boyish look on his face—brows raised, smile wide.
“Yes. She lives with me. And for now, my mom lives with us too. My sister also lives here in town.”
“Mia,” Patrick says softly.
“Can we meet her?” Dustin asks with the tone of a child asking if he can have a puppy.
“I’d like that. She’s with her dad for the next few days. His family has a thing. But she’ll be at Pie Day. That’s the day she gets back.”
“You’ve got a daughter,” Dustin says, his voice full of wonder.
Then he turns on Greyson. “You knew about this? You went to dinner at her place. That means you met the daughter—Mia. Man, this is so unfair. Hallie. You know Patrick and I should have met her first. She’s going to think all firefighters are grumpy old curmudgeons.”
I laugh.
Greyson doesn’t.
Instead, he says, “I’m her coach.”
“She plays baseball?” Dustin is practically giddy.
“She does,” I say. “Baseball is her passion.”
“I want to come to her games,” Dustin practically whines. “Don’t you, Patrick?”
Before Patrick can answer, Greyson says, “No. No one’s coming to the games.”
I stifle a giggle. He’s just so serious and stern.
“Why not, Grey? We’ll behave.”
“No games.”
Dustin looks at me. “He’s always like that about the games. I want to come as a show of support. He says no.”
“Maybe he gets enough of you on shift,” Patrick says.
“Enough? Of me? Impossible.” Dustin flexes.
“Yeah,” Greyson deadpans. “Impossible.”