32. Haley
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Haley
About a Year Later
The house still didn’t feel entirely real to me. Three bedrooms, a backyard with a swing set, a kitchen big enough to actually cook in. We’d moved back to the city six months ago, found this place together, and I’d insisted on paying half.
James had agreed. No argument, no negotiation. Just a nod and a signature on the mortgage papers.
A month later, I discovered he’d taken the exact amount of my half and put it into an investment account in Lily’s name.
The man was impossible. I tried to be mad about it and couldn’t quite manage.
The money was still mine, technically. Just earmarked for our daughter’s future instead of sitting in a joint checking account.
Our daughter. I still caught myself thinking of her that way. Not mine. Ours.
Today she was turning five.
The living room was decorated with yellow streamers and yellow balloons and a banner that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY in yellow glitter letters that were already shedding onto the carpet.
Yellow was her favorite color now. It had been purple last year, and pink the year before that, and I had learned to stop buying anything in bulk because her preferences changed with the seasons.
Megan was in the kitchen helping me arrange the cupcakes on a tiered stand. Daniel was in the backyard supervising a game that seemed to involve throwing water balloons at a target James had painted on the fence. The shrieks of children echoed through the open windows.
“She’s having the time of her life out there.” Megan peered through the glass door. “I think she just nailed Daniel in the chest.”
“Good.” I adjusted the placement of a cupcake. “He’s been teaching her bad words. This is karma.”
“What bad words?”
“She called her teacher a ‘butthead’ last week. Guess who she learned that from?”
“That’s not a bad word. That’s a classic.”
“Tell that to the note I got sent home.” I stepped back to survey the cupcake arrangement. “Do these look even to you? I feel like that side is heavier.”
“They look fine.” Megan grabbed my shoulders and turned me away from the table. “Stop fussing. Everything is perfect.”
The guest list was small. Megan and Daniel.
A few parents from Lily’s preschool who had become actual friends over the past year.
Rebecca, who had become less of a lawyer and more of a confidante.
Sean, James’s accountant, who had earned a permanent invitation to family events after everything he’d done.
My mother had RSVP’d no two weeks ago. Prior commitment, the text had said. Can’t make it. Maybe next year.
I’d stared at that message for a long time, waiting for the familiar ache to settle in my chest. The disappointment. The old wound of never being enough for Janice Shaw.
It never came.
I was surprised at how little it hurt. A year ago, that rejection would have sent me spiraling. Now it just felt like confirmation of what I’d always known.
My mother had made her choices. I had made mine. And the people gathered in this house, the people who had shown up for me and Lily without being asked, were enough.
They were more than enough.
“Hey.” Megan nudged my shoulder. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.” I shook off the thought. “Just thinking about how different things are now.”
“Good different?”
I looked through the window at the backyard.
Lily was running across the grass in her yellow dress, her hair flying behind her, her face lit up with joy.
James was chasing her, pretending to be slow enough that she could escape.
When he finally caught her, he swung her up onto his shoulders and she shrieked with laughter.
“Yeah.” My throat felt tight. “Good different.”
The party unfolded exactly the way children’s parties do.
Organized chaos, brief moments of calm, and enough sugar to power a small city.
Lily opened her presents with the focused intensity of a surgeon, examining each gift carefully before moving on to the next.
She thanked everyone with hugs that nearly knocked the smaller guests over.
The cake was a disaster.
James had insisted on making it himself.
Three layers of yellow cake with yellow frosting and yellow sprinkles, because Lily had specifically requested “the most yellow cake in the world.” It leaned dangerously to one side and the frosting was uneven and the sprinkles had formed clumps in weird places.
Lily declared it the most beautiful cake she’d ever seen.
We sang “Happy Birthday.” She blew out the candles. Everyone cheered.
And then the sugar hit.
“I want to open more presents!” Lily was vibrating with energy. “Are there more presents? Can I have more cake? Can we do the balloons again? Can we-”
“Okay, bug.” James scooped her up before she could launch into another round of demands. “Time for a reset.”
“I don’t want a reset! I want more party!”
“The party will still be here when you come back down.” He carried her toward the stairs. “But first we’re going to read a book and take some deep breaths.”
“I don’t need deep breaths! I need more cake!”
“You absolutely do not need more cake.” His voice faded as they disappeared up the stairs. “You need fewer sprinkles and more rest.”
I started cleaning up, gathering discarded wrapping paper and abandoned plates. The other parents took the hint and began corralling their own children. Hugs were exchanged. Promises to do this again soon. The house slowly emptied until it was just Megan and Daniel left.
“We should head out too.” Megan grabbed her purse from the counter. “Let you guys have some family time.”
“You don’t have to rush off.”
“We’re not rushing.” She kissed my cheek, then pulled back with a smile I couldn’t quite read. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”
“Why tomorrow specifically?”
“Just call me.” She squeezed my hand. “I want to hear everything.”
Daniel gave me a hug that felt oddly significant, like he knew a secret he wasn’t supposed to tell. Then they were gone, and I was standing alone in my half-cleaned living room wondering what the hell that was about.
Megan and Daniel were in on something. I could feel it. The meaningful looks, the specific instruction to call tomorrow, the way they’d both hugged me like it was the last time they’d see me for a while.
What were they planning?
I finished cleaning up the worst of the mess and headed toward the stairs. James and Lily had been up there for a while now. Either the book was really long or she’d finally crashed from the sugar high.
Instead, I found them waiting for me in the living room.
Lily was sitting cross-legged on the rug, her yellow dress spread around her like a flower. In her hands was a small velvet box.
James was on the couch, watching her with an expression I’d never seen before. Nervous. Hopeful. Terrified. Like she was a rare bird that might fly away if he moved too fast.
“Mommy!” Lily’s face lit up when she saw me. “You’re here! I was waiting forever!”
“You were?” My heart had started pounding. “What are you waiting for?”
“James said I had to be the one to ask.” She held up the velvet box importantly. “Because I’m the most important person in the family.”
“Ask what, baby?”
Lily stood up and walked toward me with the careful solemnity of a child who knows she’s been given an important job. She stopped in front of me and held out the box.
“Mommy, will you marry James?”
The world stopped.
I looked at the box in my daughter’s hands. At the ring inside it, a simple diamond on a gold band. Just beautiful. Just right.
I looked at James, still sitting on the couch, watching us with that vulnerable expression that made my chest ache.
“He said he wanted to ask you himself,” Lily continued, her voice serious. “But I told him that was silly because I should get to be part of it too. And he said I was right.”
Tears were streaming down my face. I hadn’t even noticed when they started.
“He also said if you say no, we’re getting ice cream anyway,” Lily added. “So it’s okay if you say no. But I really want you to say yes because then James gets to be my real dad and I can call him Dad instead of James and-”
“Yes.”
Lily stopped mid-sentence. “What?”
“Yes.” I dropped to my knees so I was at her level. “Yes, I’ll marry James.”
“REALLY?” Lily’s shriek was loud enough to shatter glass. “MOMMY SAID YES! JAMES, SHE SAID YES!”
“I heard, bug.” James’s voice was rough. When I looked up at him, his eyes were wet. “I heard.”
Lily threw herself at me, nearly knocking me over. I caught her and held on tight, laughing and crying at the same time. Then James was there, dropping to his knees beside us, wrapping his arms around both of us.
“I love you.” He said it into my hair. “I love you so much, Haley. Both of you. Everything I have, everything I am, it’s yours.”
“I love you too.” I pulled back enough to see his face. “I’ve loved you for longer than I wanted to admit.”
“Does this mean I can call you Dad now?” Lily was squirming between us. “Can I? Can I call you Dad?”
“You can call me whatever you want, bug.” James’s voice cracked. “I’ve been yours since the first time you called me Dada in the car.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“I know. But I do.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll remember it forever.”
Lily wiggled free from our embrace and grabbed the velvet box from where it had fallen on the rug. “You have to put the ring on, Mommy! That’s the rule!”
I held out my hand, and James took the ring from Lily. His fingers were trembling as he slid it onto my finger.
“Perfect fit,” he said quietly. “I may have borrowed one of your other rings to get the size.”
“You sneak.”
“I prefer ‘romantic strategist.’”
“Dad’s a romantic strategist!” Lily announced to no one in particular. “I don’t know what that means but it sounds important!”
I laughed, and then I was crying again, and then James was kissing me while Lily made exaggerated gagging noises beside us.
“Gross!” she declared. “No kissing! This is a family moment!”
“Kissing is part of family moments.” James pulled back with a grin. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“I’m five now. That’s very old.”
“Ancient,” he agreed. “Practically a senior citizen.”
Lily launched herself at him, and he toppled backward onto the rug, pulling me down with him. We ended up in a tangle of limbs and laughter, the three of us piled together on the floor of our living room.
Lily was laughing loudest.