Chapter 40
CHAPTER
FORTY
Elliott
The pictures are lined up on the kitchen table. Four of them. Baylor insisted on drawing two more the moment she got back from school.
“Do you think she’ll like them?” Baylor asks me for the third time.
“She’ll love them.”
It’s obvious to me that now that the moment of meeting her mom is drawing near, Baylor’s excitement has shifted into nervous energy.
“What if she doesn’t like art?”
“Everyone likes art, kiddo.”
“Kyle in my class doesn’t. He thinks coloring is boring.”
“Kyle is five. He’ll come around.” I ruffle the hair on top of her head, and she immediately smooths it down with her hands.
She’s wearing a dress she picked out herself—the same color blue as her eyes, with little yellow flowers on it. It’s a summer dress, so I tried to lead her to something more suited to the fall, but she wasn’t having it, so I backed off. We’ll be inside anyway, so I figure there’s no harm.
I don’t feel ready for this. I told Emelia as much last night. I told Roy I wasn’t ready when I saw him at the hardware store today, and I told Ansel and Hollis I wasn’t ready when they called earlier.
I’m not ready to welcome the woman who left my daughter back into the house she left her in.
But I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for my little girl.
A knock sounds on the front door.
“She’s here!” Baylor runs out of the kitchen and through the family room to the front window. Her nose is pretty much pressed to the glass. After she’s taken a good look, she glances back at me over her shoulder. “Daddy, is she nice?”
Her question steals the air from my lungs.
I’d like to tell her she’s the evil witch and we should lock the doors.
“Yeah, kiddo, she’s nice.” I wrap my hand around the knob, draw in a deep breath, and swing open the door.
Kate stands there wearing a pair of jeans, a pink sweater, and slide-on flat shoes. There’s a gift bag in her hand, a smile on her face, and she looks terrified. If I could muster up an ounce of sympathy for her, I might feel bad, but I can’t. She did this to herself.
“Hi,” she says, looking past me to where I assume Baylor must be.
“Come in.” I try to keep the contempt from my voice for my daughter’s sake.
She steps inside, and I watch her take in the room, cataloging everything—what’s remained the same, what has changed since she walked out of my life. She looks like someone who’s doing her best not to fall apart.
I look at Baylor, who’s quiet now. She stands there with a wide-eyed expression of intense focus, studying this strange woman she’s been told is her mother.
Kate doesn’t move any closer to Baylor but crouches a bit so she’s closer to Baylor’s height. “Hi, Baylor. I’m Kate.”
Baylor looks at me, almost as though she’s looking for permission, so I nod.
“Hi.” She pauses for a beat, then lifts the corners of her mouth a bit. “I made you pictures.”
Kate’s face does something I’m not prepared for. It breaks open the way the ice on the lake does when the weather changes. Her chin trembles, and she presses her lips together. “You did?”
Baylor nods. “They’re in the kitchen. I can show you.”
Kate looks at me, and when I don’t object, she looks back at our daughter. “I would love that.”
She follows Baylor into the kitchen—the kitchen she used to cook in—and I follow them.
Baylor approaches the pictures on the table with all the seriousness of a gallery owner, picking up the first one. “This is Daddy and me. He likes to take me in the boat, and sometimes we go fast.”
She tips a glance my way, and I give her a smile and a nod.
“It’s beautiful,” Kate says from where she stands beside the table.
“This one is Karisma. She’s the newt in my class. One day, she went missing, but Desi found her on the bookcase.”
“She’s very cute,” Kate says.
I lean back against the counter with my arms crossed, watching, trying to hold on to the anger I’ve been carrying since she showed up, but I can’t find it. In this moment, all I can concentrate on is my daughter showing this stranger, her mother, all the pictures she’s drawn, with so much pride.
In this moment, I know that however this turns out, I made the right decision to allow Kate to see her.
“This one is our house,” Baylor says, picking up the third picture. “This is where Daddy and I live, and this little one is where Emelia stays. Except she stayed in the big house for a bit because a tree fell on her house.”
“Who’s Emelia?”
Baylor tips a glance at me, and whatever she sees there, she must interpret as permission. “She and Daddy are friends. She’s really nice.”
Kate just nods as Baylor picks up the last of her pictures.
“This is everyone in our family. That’s Daddy and me, and Uncle Roy, and Uncle Ansel, and Uncle Hollis. Then that’s Aunt Sutton, and that one is you.”
Suddenly, the kitchen gets really quiet.
“That’s me?” From the wobble in her voice, it’s clear Kate is struggling to keep it together.
“Daddy told me what color your hair is, but I couldn’t do your face until I saw you. I can finish it now,” she says, gesturing to the faceless figure in the center of the group.
“I’d really like it if you finished it.”
Baylor nods in a casual way that belies the weight of the moment. “Okay. Your eyes are green.”
Kate nods. “They are.”
“Mine are blue like Daddy’s.”
“I know.”
Baylor studies Kate for a long moment, assessing I’m not sure what. Then, “Do you want to see my Barbies?”
“I would love to see your Barbies.”
Baylor holds out her hand for Kate to take. She glances at me. When I nod, she takes her daughter’s hand to be led out of the room. But before she disappears around the corner, Kate looks back at me over her shoulder with an expression that holds gratitude, and grief, and fear, and hope.
They go down the hall to Baylor’s bedroom, where I listen from the hallway, giving them a moment to themselves, but one I can still oversee.
Forty-five minutes later, Kate is at the door, saying her goodbyes. “It was really great to get to spend some time with you today, Baylor. I had fun.”
Baylor beams at her mother. “Me too.” She spins around and fixes her eyes on me. “Daddy, can she stay for dinner?”
Something hard and painful lodges in my throat. “Maybe another time, kiddo.”
Her shoulders fall a little, but she seems to accept it. “Will I see you again?”
Kate’s gaze moves up to me.
“We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you say goodbye? I want to talk to Kate outside before she goes.”
Baylor takes a few steps forward and wraps her arms around Kate’s legs, the way she does with the people she loves and trusts.
Kate’s eyes close as if she’s savoring the moment, and she rests her hands on Baylor’s back. When her eyes open again, there are tears, one sliding down her cheek. She quickly wipes it away before Baylor sees.
“Thank you for letting me spend some time with you.” She says the words to Baylor, but she’s looking at me.
I nod.
They separate, and Kate reluctantly opens the door.
“Why don’t you go play in your room? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Baylor nods and walks across the family room to the bedroom hallway, looking back over her shoulder several times.
I follow Kate out of the house, over to her car.
“Thank you, Elliott. That meant so much to me.”
Pushing my hands into my pockets, I nod.
“I think I did okay. I mean, she seemed comfortable with me, right?”
“She was happy to finally meet her mother.”
Kate presses her lips together. “I was so nervous that I wouldn’t know what to say or how to put her at ease. You were always better at that kind of thing than I was. You could always figure it out.”
My jaw sets. “I figured it out because I stayed.”
Her head snaps back from the blow. I’m not trying to be a dick, I’m really not, but sometimes it feels impossible to set aside the resentment I feel for her abandoning our child.
She drops her chin and nods. “That’s fair.”
Neither of us says a word.
Eventually, she raises her head. “Can I see her again?” Her eyes are filled with hope.
Why does it feel just as hard to say yes to another visit as it did to the first one?
“Yes, but I want to give it some breathing room. Not tomorrow. The next day. I’ll reach out to you.”
Her hands press together as if in prayer. “Thank you, Elliott.”
The sound of a vehicle nearby reaches us, then Emelia is pulling into the driveway. I see her eyes widen when she takes in the scene, likely registering who I’m standing here with. She turns off the car, then steps out, managing a small, awkward smile at us.
“Emelia, this is Kate. Kate, Emelia.” I motion between the two of them.
“Nice to meet you,” Emelia says.
“Likewise.” Kate studies her.
“I’m just going to…” Emelia points toward the bunkie, ducks her head, and makes her way down the side of the house.
I watch her until she disappears inside the bunkie, thinking of the drawing Baylor did of the three of us that’s now hanging on my fridge.
“You’re in love with her.”
My head snaps back in Kate’s direction, forehead creasing. “What?”
“C’mon, Elliott. I’m not blind. You used to look at me like that.” There’s a healthy dose of regret in her voice.
I don’t remember ever feeling anything close for Kate that I do for Emelia, and isn’t that the problem I won’t address?
I’m not a complete asshole, so I don’t bother telling her that I’ve never looked at anyone the way I look at Emelia. “I’m not interested in your opinion on my personal life.”
Kate raises both hands. “Understood. I’m going to go before I wear out my welcome.”
“Probably a good idea. I’ll let you know about Thursday.” I don’t wait for her to get in her car before I turn around and walk back toward the house.
When I get inside, I head straight for the kitchen. I need a beer.
Baylor’s pictures are still on the table. I pick up the last one, the one with everyone she loves in stick figures made with wobbly crayon lines, and on the edge, an outline with no face, waiting to be filled in.
I set it down, and I don’t cry, though it’s close.