Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Elliott
The day after Emelia and I sleep together, I’m reliving it all in my head when the bell at the school rings and the kids stream out the doors.
I spot Baylor leaving the school, and the moment I see her, I know that something is wrong. She doesn’t run over, excited to see me, like she usually does. In fact, she looks up at me, then back at the ground as she slowly makes her way over.
“Hey, kiddo.” I ruffle her hair.
“Can we go?”
Baylor is always ready to go when I pick her up, but it’s usually because she’s either starving and wants to get home to have her snack or because she wants to see Emelia. Today, she mentions neither, and my fatherly instincts kick in.
She doesn’t even bother handing me her backpack like she normally does.
We walk over to the truck, I make sure she straps herself in, and then I get in the driver’s seat. I keep checking on her through the rearview mirror, and Baylor looks pensively out the window for the first half of the drive, saying nothing.
“How was your day?”
She meets my gaze through the rearview mirror, then bursts into tears.
My stomach lurches, and I pull the truck into the parking lot of the veterinarian’s office. I barely come to a stop before throwing it in park, and I’m out the door, coming around to the passenger side. I open the back door and unfasten her seat belt. My little girl lunges into my arms.
I pick her up and rub her back up and down, up and down, while she cries. “It’s okay, kiddo. It’s okay.”
I don’t know what happened or what’s wrong. I have no idea what might have upset her this much, but I hate seeing her cry.
She cries for another minute, then murmurs something into the side of my neck that I can’t make out.
“What happened today?”
Baylor pulls back to look at me. Her big blue eyes still swim with tears, and it feels like a kick in the gut.
“Did something happen at school?”
She nods, sniffling.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
She nods again.
It’s the longest minute of my life before she talks.
“My friends at school were asking me why I don’t have a mommy and where my mommy is.”
I swear my knees almost give out.
“I told them that she had to leave, and they didn’t believe me. They said that mommies don’t leave their kids.” Her bottom lip quivers. “Why did Mommy leave me?”
I never cried when my father went to prison, and I never cried when Kate left. But I swear to god, I could burst into tears, because there’s nothing I can do or say that’ll make this okay for my little girl.
I cup her cheek. “The most important thing for you to know is that it’s not because of you or anything you did. Your mom just couldn’t be a good mommy to you, so she felt she should leave.”
She looks at my face, turning the words over, but she can’t understand the complexity of the situation. “Did she love me?”
My heart cracks in two. “Very much.”
And I believe that Kate did love her. I hate Kate for walking out on our daughter, but sometimes I think she might have done it because she loved Baylor and knew she couldn’t be what Baylor needed.
That maybe she understood she’d never really be happy, she’d always be searching for more, and that perhaps it was better to cut the cord when Baylor was young, rather than wait until she was older and they had an established relationship.
“I know I can’t be your mommy, kiddo, but I want you to know that you’ll always have me. No matter what, that will never change, okay?”
She nods.
Up until this point, I’ve barely talked to Baylor about her mom. In fact, I’ve never even shown her a picture of Kate, or shown Baylor any of the pictures of her with her mom during the first six months of her life. I’ve always thought that was best. She’s so young. I didn’t want to confuse her.
But now I think of Emelia and how she felt growing up, knowing nothing about her mother.
It makes me think that maybe in a few years, when Baylor is a little older and better able to understand and communicate her emotions, perhaps it would be a good idea to see if she wants to hear stories about Kate and see some pictures of her.
“I’m sorry your friends upset you. There are a lot of kids whose mommies couldn’t take care of them, Baylor. You’re not alone. We just live in a small town, so there aren’t any here. That’s all.”
She perks up a little, as though she thought she was the only little girl in the world growing up without a mommy. And from her perspective, I guess it would seem that way, especially now that she’s in school and sees all her friends’ moms pick them up every day.
Baylor wraps her arms around my neck and squeezes tightly. “I love you, Daddy. I don’t need a mommy ’cause I have you.”
Tears prick my eyes as I squeeze her back. “Love you too, kiddo.” I walk us back to the truck and set her in her booster seat. “Feel better?”
She nods and gives me a small smile.
“How about we go by Deacon’s and pick up a treat before we head home?”
“Yeah!” She kicks her feet with excitement as I refasten her seat belt.
Thank God, she’s smiling now, excited for the sugar rush.
It always amazes me how resilient kids are and how quickly they let things go. We adults carry shit on our backs for years, sometimes all our lives, but kids have this innate ability to let go of things.
“All right, let’s go.”
I get back in the truck and drive us to Main Street, where I find a parking spot in front of the art store beside the Birdhouse Bakery.
When we get inside the shop, Deacon is behind the counter, adding some baked goods to the display.
Baylor runs up to the glass case. “Hi, Deacon.”
He straightens and nods. “Baylor, how are you?”
“I was sad, but my dad made me feel better.”
Deacon meets my gaze, then looks back at Baylor. “I’ll bet he’s good at that, isn’t he?”
“The best! What’s that one?” She points at the small, round pastries he just added to the display.
“That’s a new one. It’s called Emelia’s Compass.”
My stomach swoops. Deacon gave Emelia a pastry. I’m not sure how to feel about that. He’s never given one to someone who wasn’t a resident of Echo Lake.
Baylor’s mouth drops open, and she turns to face me. “Daddy, Emelia got one!”
“I see that.”
“What’s that thing on top of it?” Baylor presses both hands to the glass and practically presses her nose against it to get a better look.
I set my hand on her shoulder and draw her back. Every time we’re in here, I have to remind her not to get her fingerprints all over the glass.
“That’s candied ginger. It’s really sweet, but it can have a bit of a bite to it.” He meets my gaze, and for some reason, I feel the urge to look away.
Baylor continues to think about it, not fully deciding. “What’s a compass mean?”
“A compass is something that people use to tell what direction to go. If they’re lost, they can use it to find their way,” I say.
“Exactly. From what I can tell, Emelia’s still figuring out which way is north. Hence the name,” Deacon clarifies.
I’m not sure what to say. I think Emelia knows exactly what direction the compass would point her toward—back to Boston. So rather than respond, I prompt Baylor to decide what she wants.
She takes a beat to make her decision, then finally decides to try Emelia’s Compass.
I suppose I should’ve seen that one coming.