Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Penelope
With a lot of help from kids two decades younger than me on YouTube, I manage to get my phone to play on our television.
Hazel stands in the middle of the family room with the hula hoop around her waist and a half smile filled with dread on her lips. I’m pretty sure she’s feeding off my anxiety. We’re going to be a disaster together. I’ve never been more certain of that.
I’ve pushed all the furniture against the walls to give us enough room. Especially since Leighton, the kids, Callie, and baby Ellis are coming over tonight for dinner and playtime. A ritual we’ve started when the team is away for long stints.
“We totally have this.” I press Play on the video on my phone screen, then I pick up the hula hoop next to hers.
“Mom, maybe I just shouldn’t do it.” She sighs.
“You just need practice, and I can’t wait to try too.”
She humors me and lifts her hula hoop to her waist, and I do the same.
The video plays, and a woman who is clearly teaching for younger children comes on wearing brightly colored clothes, her hair in a big ponytail. She’s in the middle of a play area that’s as colorful as her clothing.
I really hope this video is the one that will help Hazel, because just the thought of asking Decker for his help makes me itch as if I have hives.
Which is a perfectly normal response when the person you’re asking happens to be someone you have very complicated and completely unresolved feelings for.
The woman named Riya talks about hand position and how to start at your back, swing it around, and sway your hips.
We both try. Neither of us gets very far.
Thankfully, Riya moves on quickly, and we’re on to doing other tricks with the hula hoop. This isn’t what I thought, given the title of the video: “Everyone can hula hoop, let me show you how.”
At least Hazel likes jumping through it like a jump rope. “This is fun, Mommy.”
I pick up my phone to find another video but stop when I see her smiling and actually enjoying herself. Maybe we can get this going without her having to actually circle it around her hips. She trips at the exact moment hope springs to life inside me.
Hazel falls forward, and I drop my phone, rushing across the room to grab her. She catches herself, but her knee hits the edge of the coffee table, and her cry rings out through the room.
What a great start.
I pull her into me, falling to my butt and placing her on my lap. I don’t rush it. Now that she’s older, these moments where she lets me comfort her come less and less. I’ve learned to stay in them as long as she’ll allow me.
I lift her pant leg and see a bruise already forming, but no scrape or blood.
Small blessings.
“What if I can’t do it?” she says into my neck, her tears soaking the neckline of my shirt.
I run my hand over her back. “You’ll get there. I’ll make sure you do.”
Even if I have to hire a personal hula hoop instructor.
The doorbell rings, and she bolts up so fast, her head knocks my chin, banging my teeth together. I grunt, but she doesn’t hear me because her little feet are already padding toward the door.
“Wait.” I get to all fours and use the chair to help me stand.
“It’s Monroe!” she shouts, looking out the side window.
“Go ahead and open it,” I tell her once I’m closer.
Hazel swings the door open, and Monroe doesn’t wait to be invited in.
“Monroe.” Leighton has two pizza boxes in her hands. “We’re guests. Wait to be invited in.”
Monroe doesn’t pay her any attention though. She and Hazel rush to the family room, and I hear the clatter of the hula hoops.
“Sorry, we need more lessons in manners apparently.” Leighton cringes.
Lincoln and Lake step inside. They each give me a wave and a quick hello before slipping off their shoes and heading to the couch with their phones.
“Why did you bring pizza? I was going to order.” I take them from her.
“It’s on the way here. Callie is, like, two minutes away.”
Just then, an Uber pulls up along the curb, and Callie steps out, before taking out Ellis’s car seat. Callie’s always beautiful, but she does not look like a mom with a six-month-old.
“I need to talk to Foster. We need a bigger place so I can host, and you all have to come to me.” She laughs, hauling the car seat and what I assume is her diaper bag between the two parked cars in front of my house.
Leighton walks down the steps and takes Ellis and the car seat from her.
“But this is nice.” Callie smiles at Leighton’s back walking up the stairs. “Total honesty, ladies? I need a break, and the guys still have another series before they come home.”
We all step into the house, and I shut the door.
Leighton busies herself putting the car seat in the family room and unstrapping Ellis. Lake coos over her, and the two of them talk to her in baby talk about how she’s the cutest baby ever to exist.
Lincoln groans.
“Hula hooping?” Callie asks, dropping the diaper bag in the corner of the room. “I used to be so good at this.”
“You can have mine.” Hazel hands it to her.
Even Monroe struggles to get it going consistently.
Callie puts the hoop around her waist, and it spins three times then it falls to the floor. “So, motherhood took my abs, my sleep, and now apparently my hip mobility too?”
Lincoln laughs. “You’re as good as Hazel is.”
“Linc!” Leighton glares at the boy, then instructs Lake to sit so she can lay Ellis in her arms. “Do you mind if we borrow your kitchen for a second?”
“Of course not.” I nod in its direction and take the pizza boxes from her so she can lead Lincoln away.
“This is a cute place,” Callie says. “Are you rehabbing it?”
It’s probably a gut job, but I haven’t even thought about where to start. “Eventually. I bought it for the location, but I don’t want to deal with any renovations right now.”
Ellis fusses on Lake’s lap, and Callie grabs a pacifier and hands it to her.
It’s kind of them to bring Hazel and me into the fold. But then Lake smiles at Callie across the room like she already knows exactly what kind of mother she is, and I feel like an outsider again. Not unwelcome. Just not quite speaking the same language yet.
Lincoln sulks out of the kitchen, and Leighton watches from the doorway to make sure he says sorry to Hazel. He does, then he plops on the couch.
Callie grabs the pizza from my hands. “Girl time.” She nods for me to follow her into the kitchen. “Let me know if you need me to take her, Lake.”
“I didn’t get enough Ellis time,” Leighton whines.
We get some drinks, chatting about what’s going on with everyone’s life.
“Foster FaceTimed me last night. I swear if he makes it through this season without walking off the field, it’ll be a miracle.”
“He’s struggling with being away?” Leighton’s nose crinkles.
“Yeah.”
“He pitched great the other night.” I open the pizza boxes and get out the paper plates.
“It’s him not being home with Ellis.”
“And you,” Leighton says.
Callie nods. “Both of us, but mostly Ellis. Every time he comes home from the road, he props her up on his legs. Then he proceeds to tell her he’s sorry he had to leave for work, but he thought of her the entire time.
And he tells her about anything funny her uncles did.
Then he always professes his love for her.
” Callie laughs and shakes her head. “Who would have ever thought that once you peel back all the layers, he’s this sweet little vulnerable peach? ”
We all laugh.
“Next year will be better. Hayes had a hard time last year, but now that we have a year in the books, it’s been a little easier. But he still insists on doing everything for all the kids the first day back.”
Listening to them discuss the schedules, the way they’ve built whole lives around men who are away more than they’re home during the season tugs at something I don’t like to examine very often.
There was a time I imagined I’d know what that felt like.
I was even anticipating it. But that was a different life.
I made my choices, and he made his. There’s no point in sitting here and mourning them.
“I’m starving!” Lincoln shouts out from the living room.
Leighton’s jaw tightens. “I’m not sure whether Lincoln or I will survive his embarkment into pre-adolescence.
” She stands and walks over to the archway.
“We’ll feed them first and then continue our conversation?
” She tells them all to come in, takes Ellis from Lake’s arms, and tells her, “You’re in charge. We’ll be in the family room.”
Lake groans, but then quickly tells Lincoln to only take one piece until everyone else has one.
I start to fix Hazel a plate, but Leighton gently sets her hand on my forearm. “Lake has it.”
The teenager nods and takes the plate for me. “Cheese or pepperoni, Hazel?”
Well, that feels nice.
Leighton laughs. “I’d never survive without her.”
Lake rolls her eyes, and the three of us and Ellis go into the family room.
As soon as we sit on the couch though, Leighton and Callie look at me with keen interest.
“So, did he call yet?” Callie’s nickname should be Calico, because her grin reminds me of a cat with a canary in its mouth.
The fact that my first thought is why would Decker call only proves that my attempt at moving on isn’t going especially well.