11. Gavin
ELEVEN
GAVIN
This had been a bad idea from the moment Penny asked to bring us dinner. It became a worse idea when I allowed it to happen.
Now, Penny was sitting at our kitchen table, opposite Josie, tucking into a meal she’d cooked.
She was sweet to Josie.
Her cheeks heated with an adorable blush every time our eyes met.
She slipped into our dinner and bath routine without a hitch, and the woman could cook .
The soup was soup, nothing special about it, but it was tasty and filling.
Everything was perfect. Comfortable. Enjoyable.
Which added up to making this one of the top five worst decisions I ever made.
“This is really good, Miss Pesco.”
She grinned at my daughter in a way I knew she probably grinned at every student to make them feel important, but she was doing it to my daughter. Making my little girl feel important and valued.
“Thank you.”
“And the bread is super great, too. I did a really good job with it, didn’t I, Daddy?”
“Of course you did, sweetheart. You’re an excellent sous chef.”
“What’s a sous chef?”
Penny leaned toward my daughter like she had a secret. “A sous chef is the second most important person in a kitchen. They’re the number two man in charge.”
“I’m second in charge, Daddy!?”
As if. There was only one person in charge and it wasn’t me. “Sure, munchkin. You bet you are.”
“Awesome.” She sighed and dove back into her food.
I risked a look at Penny. She was still smiling at my daughter but as if she felt my eyes on her, she twisted her neck. A quick little wink, like we both understood the joke I didn’t say and then that cute pink was brightening her cheeks before she refocused on her meal.
“Avery’s mom is a really good cook, too. She cooks every night for them.”
Something tight coiled in my chest as I peered at my daughter. She was often vocal, loved conversation and hated silence and could entertain a crowd of fifty without dropping a sweat. But she rarely talked about Avery’s family. Or her mom’s cooking schedule. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been over there, and she wasn’t over there enough to know Michelle’s cooking routine.
“That’s lovely,” Penny chimed in. “Does your dad like to cook? What’s your favorite thing he makes for you?”
If she thought that was enough to deter Josie from whatever squirrel she was currently chasing, Penny didn’t know my daughter nearly well enough.
“He makes good lasagna. But Avery’s mom makes good lasagna too and so does my grandma. Do you think you can make good lasagna?”
It wasn’t an inquisition. There was a tone behind her question, like Josie needed Penny to make good lasagna.
And it clicked. Too slowly. Far too slowly because Josie opened her mouth and said, “Yes, I think I make good lasagna,” and my daughter’s entire face lit up like the sun on a cloudless summer day.
“That’s great ! You could make it for us someday like all the good moms do!”
Shit on a stick. This was bad.
I should have known. This was exactly what I’d been afraid of happening.
I dropped my fork and it clanked to the table while Penny gaped at my daughter like she was an alien freshly landed from her spaceship.
“Josie,” I scolded, but the damage was done.
My daughter was bouncing in her seat with a wild and untamed glee. “It’d be so much fun, Miss Pesco!”
“I… what…” Penny’s brows tugged in and she shook her head. “Josie, sweetie… I’m your teacher.”
“And wouldn’t it be great if you could be both?”
“That’s enough,” I snapped and immediately regretted my tone when Josie’s happiness vanished, and her face crumpled up.
“But, Daddy…”
“Miss Pesco isn’t your new mom . She’s your teacher. And our neighbor.”
“Oh…” Penny whispered. “Josie…”
“It’s not fair!” Josie screeched and pushed back her chair. “Everyone else has one and I don’t, and I never get to do all the fun mommy daughter things like Avery and everyone else and all I have is you !” she screamed at me, face turning scarlet with her grief and her anger at the unfairness of it all and damn it…
There was nothing to say to it. I was on my feet, shoving my chair back with such force it slammed into the wall, and as I reached for my daughter to calm her down, she took off.
“No!” she screamed again. “Stay away! You’re just a dad and I want a mom !”
Her bedroom door slammed with the force of a shotgun. I cursed, staring at my bare feet as rage and anger and embarrassment, and Josie was right, the unfairness of it all, crashed into me.
I hadn’t done this to her, but there was no way to fix it.
“I’m so sorry.” Penny’s whisper was pained, but I couldn’t bear to look at her. Couldn’t bear to see another female upset. “I had no idea that’s what she was thinking when she suggested I come over.”
There was the quiet scrape of her chair and then the soft thud of her steps moving toward the kitchen.
“I’ve gotta see to her,” I told Penny.
“Of course. Go.”
“You should, too.”
If Josie was getting these wild ideas in her head, Penny’s presence would only make it worse. Right now, I had the weekend to repair the damage already done and no clue on how to start that.
Josie wanted the one and only thing I couldn’t easily give her.
“Right,” Penny muttered. “I’ll clean up and go then.”
“Don’t.” I needed her gone. Now. This had been the worst idea from the start. “I’ll take care of it and bring it over to you later.”
She huffed and shook her head, flashing me a look that wasn’t only filled with pain but also disappointment. “Fine.”
She scooped up her coat but didn’t bother putting it on before she walked straight through my living room and out the front door.
The silence that followed her departure was heavy and thick and weighed down on my shoulders. I dropped my head and stared at the floor beneath my feet, rubbing the back of my head as I figured out what to do next.
I stood in my kitchen, a messy area that had been filled with comfort and ease only moments earlier, and now?
Now I’d never felt more alone.
And maybe a little scared I’d shoved something good away from me.
As much as I wanted to rush into Josie’s room, scoop her in my arms, and pepper her with hugs and kisses and miraculously solve all the problems plaguing my little girl, I waited.
I’d long since learned that comforting Josie came on her timeline, and if she was too upset to speak, she’d only shove me away.
So as much as I hated it, I stayed in the kitchen and cleaned it up. Since Penny had brought over things ready to cook, there wasn’t much to do, but I poured her leftover soup into a container and washed the pot and baking sheet. The bowls and spoons were loaded into the dishwasher and after a quick squirt of soap, I started it.
My house was quiet, no lingering cries from Josie’s room and only the gentle and quiet hum of the heat kicking on and the dishwasher running. The silence left me to my thoughts and regret.
I could have handled the entire night so much better.
I also should have been smart enough to see what Josie was attempting to do given her fascination with wanting a mom.
But it wasn’t like a mom was something I could order off Amazon or add to a Christmas wish list. I hadn’t had the desire for years to get involved with anyone after Josie was born. One, I was too young, too focused on figuring out how to be a parent and graduating high school. I was holding back a two-year-old’s hair while she suffered through her first bout of the flu while my friends were off at prom. I was dealing with growing pains and ear infections while everyone else in town was at Friday night football games and field keg parties afterward. There hadn’t been time.
I’d lost the desire in general to date when so many of the women in town acted like the way to my heart was Josie. And when the last ran off back to college after a summer where I’d thought it was changing. But that didn’t mean my heart didn’t ache for my daughter, who so desperately wanted to be like every other girl in town.
I couldn’t blame her for desiring it. But how was I supposed to solve it? Jump the first new woman who moved to town just because I was attracted to her, and Josie liked her? Life didn’t work that way and I was never going to be the kind of man who paraded women in and out of my life to find someone I wanted to be with and risk breaking Josie’s heart more through it.
If Josie was willing to talk to me at all, she’d be thirsty after her meltdown, so I re-filled her water bottle from school and headed toward her room.
A quiet knock on her door got me a muffled, “What?”
I slowly opened her bedroom door. It was dark, her night-light on her dresser the only muted light in the room and it took me a minute to find Josie underneath piles of blankets and her stuffed animals.
“I brought you some water,” I whispered, stepping into her room. “Can we talk for a little bit?”
She sniffed, the sound making my chest pinch with pain, but she shoved off her blankets and finally revealed herself beneath the mountain of coverings and plush toys. “Avery’s mom takes her every Saturday to go get her nails done and you can never do mine right.”
In my defense, her fingernails were tiny, and my hands were huge. I’d learned to braid after hours and hours of excruciatingly painful practice, but nail polish was a different beast.
“I’m sure that’s really fun for them.”
“And she gets homemade birthday cakes for all of her parties and her mom bakes them, not her dad or her grandma.”
“I know, munchkin. That must be really wonderful, too.”
She sniffed and shrugged. “And she gets her sandwiches cut into hearts and dinosaurs and fun things and she gets little notes put in her lunchbox, too.”
“Well, those are things I can start doing, Josie.”
“I think it’d be more fun with a mom.”
Ouch . Okay. So this wasn’t the time to take her view of my limitations seriously, but it still hurt.
“I know. And I’m sorry you get so hurt when you think about the things you don’t have, Josie, and I know I’m not everything you need.”
“You’re not horrible, though.”
I chuckled at that and reached out to find her knee. I gave her a quick squeeze. “Thanks, kid. I’m glad I don’t suck.”
A tiny smile twitched at her lips, but she pushed it away, refusing to find a reason to smile.
“Listen, I know you really like your new teacher, and I think it’s even nice that she’s our new neighbor because she seems really nice, right?”
“And she’s pretty.”
She said it with the tone I was beginning to understand… like she was trying to convince me of it and instantly want her for my daughter’s new mom.
“I think it’s even wonderful you think that, and I bet Miss Pesco would enjoy hearing it from you.” No way was I admitting it. Not to my daughter. Not to anyone. Not ever. “But the thing is, I can’t just go find you a mom.” As I said it, her face crumpled, so I quickly carried on. “Someday, I might find a woman I love and a woman I want to be with, and I promise you, when that happens, I’ll make sure she loves you too and wants to be a good mom to you. I’ll have to love that woman because she’s a good woman and she’ll have to love me, too, and it’s not as easy as sharing a dinner together. It’s not, though, okay for you to put me in positions like you did tonight with Miss Pesco and think just because you like us both, that we belong together. Does that make sense?”
“Well, why wouldn’t you like her?”
The problem was I did. I liked everything I saw and learned about her. Liking Penny wasn’t the problem. Falling in love with her and having her leave was the fear. But I couldn’t say any of that to an eight-year-old who wouldn’t understand.
“It’s not that I don’t like Miss Pesco but liking someone and wanting to love them and marry them and spend the rest of my life with them are different things. You have to give me time for that, and I haven’t had that.”
Her nose scrunched up and her lips pushed out as she thought hard about it. I was about to give myself a pat on the back for the way I was handling this. I was doing all right. And she wasn’t more upset.
I counted it as winning.
“But you’re not even trying to find someone for us,” Josie said.
Or… not. She had me there.
“How about this. I can admit that finding a woman to love hasn’t been something I’ve done, but that’s only because I love all the time I get to spend with you. So I’ll agree to start considering the idea of maybe, someday, finding a woman who could love us both. But you , sweet little miss thing, need to stop trying to set me up with every woman you think is nice. Okay?”
“Fine,” she huffed.
“Pinky promise?” I asked and held out my hand, pinky extended.
She tucked her hands into her lap beneath her blanket. “I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of promise.”
“Fair enough.” I laughed and leaned forward to kiss the top of her head. “Now, are you going to stay in the dark room all night or are we going to watch a movie and have popcorn?”
“Popcorn!”
She flung off her covers and jumped out of the bed while I dutifully followed to give my daughter a better ending to the night than it started.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out how to again apologize to Penny for being rude and kicking her out of my house.
Maybe we could figure out a way to be friends.
It would, after all, be the neighborly thing to do.