32. Sarah
With a determined push, I sent Emily soaring higher and higher on the swing. Her infectious giggles filled the air, and I couldn”t help but smile at her pure joy. But as much as I wanted to fully embrace her happiness, there was a cloud hanging over me. Michael was due to arrive any minute now, and I couldn”t shake off the uncertainty of what our meeting would bring. I had already spoken with Emily about ”meeting my new friend”, carefully choosing my words until I knew for certain whether Michael would be leaving or staying in our lives. Putting my own heart on the line was one thing, but I refused to let it affect Emily in a way that could impact the rest of her life. My priority now was protecting her, not dwelling on my own feelings or Michael”s.
He appeared from the far end of the park, his car pulling to a stop as he scanned the playground with keen eyes. My heart felt like a jackhammer, its beats pounding through my veins as if my blood were molasses instead of fluid. Emily”s delighted shrieks for me to push her higher faded into the background as I gripped the chains and brought her to a slow halt. Wrapping my arms around her, I held her close in a loving embrace before she could squirm away.
“Mommy’s friend is here, baby,” I announced as I brushed my daughter”s damp hair out of her face. “Do you want to meet him?” The tousled curls clung to the sides of her temples, glistening with sweat in the warm sun. She lifted her head and nodded eagerly, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand.
“Where he at? I not see him.” She put her hand to her eyes as if shielding them from the sun and turned to examine the playground, but even if she’d have known what he looked like, she’d not have seen him. He came from behind her, carrying a small teddy bear in one hand.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from him in this interaction. Things were in the air between us, though the way he handled the conversation at my parents’ house after I ran out of his house was better than I expected. In my heart, I believed Michael had the best intentions, even if his follow-through was marred by selfish desires on his part. He wanted to be a father, and a good one at that. I just didn’t think he understood what that might mean for his future. What I’d chosen for my future because of that very reason.
“Hey,” I said, waving with a stiff arm as I stood. Emily turned around to face him and backed into me. If I could see the expression on her face from this angle, I was sure it would be shock and shyness. She was outgoing once she got to know people, but first impressions were tough for her.
“Hi,” Michael said, squeezing the teddy bear. “I brought her something.” He looked intimidated, not the typical bold, assertive man I’d come to love deeply. I had a hard time reading what was going on inside his head.
“Emmy, can you go down the slide? Show Michael how fast you can go.” I nudged her, and she walked slowly away before grinning mischievously and racing off. Michael stood next to me shoulder-to-shoulder as we watched her climb the stairs to the slide. “I told her you’re my ‘new friend’. I don’t want her to know you’re her father yet. I want to take it slowly. I want this to be all at her pace, as she’s comfortable.”
He didn’t respond immediately, but when he did, I felt my shoulders release some tension. “I understand completely. I think that’s a great idea.”
Our hands were only inches apart. I wanted to reach for him and hold his hand to draw comfort from him, but I didn’t know how he felt about me. His reaction yesterday could’ve been sheerly an instinct to comfort me and not fully anchored in his true emotion. He’d had a lot of time to think about things since then. It was possible he’d come to a decision that I wouldn’t like.
Emily zoomed down the slide giggling and smiling, and when she got to the bottom, she tumbled forward, rolling through the mulch. I watched as she stopped and slowly stood up, but I noticed Michael’s body lurch forward slightly before he stopped himself and eyed me.
“You’re not gonna…” He swallowed hard, and I smiled.
“She’s okay. That’s why they put mulch down, to cushion their fall. Watch.” I nodded at her, and she stood and dusted herself off then laughed and waved at us before running back to us.
Breathless and exuberant, she said, “I did! You seen it?”
Michael bent forward with tears in his eyes and thrust out the teddy bear to her. “I saw that. It was fantastic. You went so fast you did a somersault.”
Emily took the bear from his grasp and hugged it but cheekily said, “No, it not summer. Mommy said it fall. But I not fall. I roll and roll!” She spun around, and her chunky, dark hair flew away from her face. “See?”
Michael snickered and ruffled her hair. “Show me again. How do you get so high up there?”
“Hold dis.” She handed him the teddy bear, then took his hand and pulled him away from my side. He glanced at me and shrugged before following her, and I stood watching, chewing my fingernails as he helped her up the slide and then stood at the bottom to catch her.
Tears blossomed in my eyes too, burning their way down my cheeks. Their first interaction was priceless to me. Emily seemed right at home with Michael, and he appeared to adore her entirely. They did the same thing at least a dozen times, each time with giggles and chatter. Eventually, Emily wanted to help her bear go down the slide the way Michael helped her, and I saw such a strong resemblance between them in their facial expressions and mannerisms, which intrigued me. She’d never been around him so it definitely wasn’t something she just picked up from him.
After fifteen minutes of time on the slide, Emily raced over to the swing, ordering Michael to push her the way I had been. “Now, you make me go high!” She triumphantly pointed at the sky, and he hoisted her into the safety swing seat.
“Honey, can you say please to Michael?” I helped him get her legs into the seat correctly, and she scrunched her nose up and shook her head.
“No, Mommy. I just tell him and he does it.” Her tiny shrug with hands raised made me chuckle, and Michael mirrored her pose.
“Yeah, Mommy. She just tells me and I does it.”
I rolled my eyes at his horrible grammar and stood aside for him to catapult her to the heavens in the swing. She roared with laughter and happiness, and all I could do was try to relax and make sure this day went smoothly. I didn’t know why I was so anxious about this in the beginning. Michael had enough sense in his brain and compassion in his heart to not start an argument in front of such a small child. My fear of things going poorly slowly dissipated as time passed, and forty minutes later, Emily was sick of swinging and slides and raced off to play in the sandbox with a few other kids a bit older than her.
I walked over to one of the benches where I could watch her easily and sat down, and Michael joined me. I wasn’t sure what to say to him. This play date wasn’t about me and him. It was about him meeting his daughter, and they had hit it off. So, I sat quietly even when she came running back and asked for his help and advice. Then she was off again, and he leaned back on the bench next to me.
“This was fun, Sarah. I don’t want it to end. Do you think you two could join me for dinner tonight?”
For the third time, he requested a meal with both me and Emily. The first two times this invitation was extended to me, I knew it wasn’t something I’d be comfortable with. But then I’d been hiding the secret of Emily’s parentage. Now, it was out in the open and my hesitancy was different.
Michael confessed to loving me deeply, and I’d told him I felt the same. But that was before this nuclear bomb I’d been hiding exploded in his face. Maybe this was his way of trying to let me know he still felt that way, or maybe it was his way of letting me down gently while attempting to weasel his way into my life and stake his claim to my daughter.
“I, uh… I’m not sure, Michael.” I squirmed uneasily. My heart wanted to believe that he had only the best intentions, but I just didn’t know. He’d been so upset when we talked about how we saw the future and the fact that I wasn’t interested in moving away from here. He didn’t understand it at all, but there was no way I could explain it. Only being a parent and knowing a child’s heart could do that. He had to see her with my parents to truly get the whole picture.
“Please. I promise I’m not trying to trick you into anything or put pressure on you. I really just want to keep spending time with you both.” His hand touched my thigh, and I bristled a little. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but the fear of having my little girl ripped out of my life was real. And so was the fear of being forced to share her with a man who lived in another country. I loved him, but I had no way of telling how deep his desire to move away ran.
“Alright, we can do dinner. But we have to take this at my pace. And I promised Mom and Dad we’d eat with them tonight, so you’ll have to meet my family too. Well, my mom, at least.”
I relaxed when his hand lifted from my thigh and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. The screen lit up with a call coming in, and I noticed the phone number did not look like the typical American format of numbers. He scowled at the screen and glanced at me.
“I have to take this. I’ll be right back.” He stood and walked away with his phone to his ear, and I got the feeling it was the people in London calling to talk about the job.
I tried not to be anxious or impatient, but that was all I felt as he stared at Emily and talked into his phone. If he took that job and left, she’d never get a chance to know her father. Because I couldn’t send her overseas, not even for partial custody.