Chapter 5
It’s Saturday morning, and my appointment with Jameson is in an hour. I struggled to get Jess, my ten-year-old daughter, out of bed this morning, and struggled even harder to get her fed, dressed, and out the door.
Thankfully, my dad lives only a few minutes up the road.
The clusters of trees lining the sides of the road get thicker as I turn onto his quiet street.
It’s an adorable little neighborhood. Everything is still so green, but I can smell the hint of fall in the wind as I step out of the car and walk up to the porch with Jess.
We moved around a lot growing up. My dad was in the Air Force.
He was always really busy, but he made sure to spend a lot of time with my brother, my mom, and me.
I remember going to baseball games, carnivals, beaches—all kinds of things.
We even lived in Germany for a couple years when I was really young, but I barely remember it.
As I got older, I realized how unhappy my mom was a lot of the time, but it was almost all on her end.
Through the tinted glasses of a child, I never realized it, but the more years that passed, the more the glass started to clear.
She never wanted to do stuff with the family, never helped with homework, always wanted to go shopping with her friends or have my dad take her on date nights.
No, my dad wasn’t perfect—no one is—but my mom was a selfish person by nature, and it’s only gotten worse the older she’s become.
So, it was no surprise when they got divorced a few years before I graduated high school.
A few years before I had Jessica. I don’t think she ever really wanted to be a mom.
I was technically a teen mom. I got pregnant with Jessica when I was nineteen, and my mother and I have barely talked since.
She didn’t want me to keep her, and I’ve never quite gotten over that.
She thought that I was going to live the same miserable life as her all over again—her words—because Jessica’s dad was also a young military guy.
As if her life was so terrible. On the rare occasion that we do talk, she’ll ask generic questions about how we’re doing, but there’s never any real interest there.
She’s never made any effort to be part of her granddaughter’s life. They’ve never even met.
My dad, on the other hand, followed me to Tahoe City when I fled here on a whim a few years back.
He had recently retired, and he’d taken on the role of grandpa so naturally since she was born.
I don’t know if I would have survived here without him.
He’s plowed snow, changed my tires, watched Jess when I needed to work—basically anything I’ve ever needed.
I can never repay him. And he met his current wife here not long after we came, so it worked out nicely for him.
She’s a better grandmother than my mom has ever been.
He was also there for me when I desperately needed someone to lean on, when Jess was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at five years old.
The hardest year of my life. The year I learned the hard way that I can’t count on many people besides myself.
Everyone talks a big game until it comes time to actually show up.
My mom never showed, and that’s when I was officially done being upset about her and her inability to connect. I had bigger things going on.
“Good morning!” my ever-cheerful stepmom, Ella, chirps as she steps out the front door and onto the porch.
She’s wearing a colorful poncho and leopard-print glasses, and she greets us both with her signature Ella bear hugs.
She’s like a warm homemade cookie wrapped in a person.
I’m not sure a better description of her exists than that.
“Good morning,” I grunt back with a smile as she releases me. “Thank you guys again. I don’t think I’ll be terribly long.”
“Oh, anytime, dear,” she dismisses me with a hand wave, “you know that.”
I give Jess one last hug and hand her bag to her, and she’s about to run inside when the door opens again. Her grandpa emerges, sporting a hot pink apron and a matching chef hat. He holds out a smaller, matching set for Jessica.
“Get ready, girly. We’re baking our tootsies off today!”
Jessica’s face lights up with pure glee.
I laugh, but deep down, my heart melts. He always goes all out with things like this.
Best grandpa ever.