Chapter 12
I pulled up to the curb in front of Mel’s house at exactly four-thirty and hopped out. I was exhausted from the emotional afternoon, but glad that Mom and I had our heart-to-heart. I finally felt like I was in control of my life now. I rang the doorbell and Mel answered looking exasperated.
“Hi.” I stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind me. “Where’s Holly? I figured she’d be all ready to go by now.”
Mel sighed heavily. “She can’t decide what to wear. Is she sixteen and I missed the memo?”
I snickered and shook my head. “Kids. Who knew they were so hard to figure out, right? I’m sure my mom feels the same about me right now.”
“What happened?” she asked leading me to the couch to sit, but I didn’t. Instead, I went to the stairs that led to Holly’s bedroom.
I held my finger up and yelled at the top of my lungs. “Holly, it’s Addie. Ellis said you should wear that shirt you have with the holly leaves on it so he doesn’t forget your name.”
“That’s dumb, Addie,” she called back down.
“Maybe, but he sees a lot of kids in one day, so help him out, eh?” I asked kindly and without judgment.
When I turned around Mel was laughing into her hand. “Seriously?”
I gave her the palms up. “Hey, it’s only funny if it doesn’t work.”
She giggled and put her hands on her hips. “No, it’s still funny. In fact, it will be funnier if she comes down wearing that shirt. Anyway, your mom?”
“She’s okay.” I leaned against the wall while I waited for Holly. “It turns out my dad isn’t such a great guy. He’s in prison. She really was protecting me all this time.”
She put her hand on my shoulder gently. “Why didn’t she just tell you that? It would have been easier for you to deal with if you’d known that.”
“I asked her the same thing. She said she could see I was determined and if she knows one thing about me, it’s that once I’m determined there’s no stopping me.”
“But you had the name and didn’t look at it. Or did you?”
“Nope, I didn’t. I tore it up in front of her. She said she knew I’d also come to the right conclusion once I calmed down. I know his first name is Sean. She let it slip by accident, but that’s all I need to know. The rest is ancient history.”
“She was taking a chance though. You could have looked at the name before you ever came to the conclusion,” she pointed out.
“You’re right, but to be honest, I doubt she wrote his real name down, not after what she told me. He’s in prison for murdering someone and this is his third time through the system. She probably wrote down Mickey Mouse or Ashton Kutcher.”
She laughed hysterically as we heard little footsteps on the stairs. “Well, I’m glad it all worked out for you. I’m sure it wasn’t good to hear those things about him, but now you know, right?”
I nodded once. “Now I know and I’m good. Is it okay if I take her to dinner when we are done with the class?”
“Sure,” she agreed immediately. Holly climbed down off the bottom stair wearing black leggings and her t-shirt that said, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas on the front with holly leaves scattered around.
“He’s not going to forget your name now,” I said, tickling her until she squealed. “Get your boots on, little lady.”
I herded her toward the door while Mel stood in the living room trying to gather her composure. At least I gave her something to laugh about today.
Once Holly had her coat on, Mel hugged her daughter and rubbed her back. “Have fun, Holly.”
“Thanks, Mom. I can’t wait to go back to the Rudolph Express!”
It was the first time I saw real enthusiasm in her in a long time. Maybe yoga was just what we both needed tonight.
“I’ll text you when we’re done eating and you can let me know where you want me to bring her?” I asked and she nodded.
“We should be done with dinner by seven.”
I gave her a thumbs up and Holly and I jumped down the three stairs to the sidewalk. Once she was buckled in the car, I turned the engine over and eyed her in the mirror. “Ready to ride the Rudolph Yoga Express?”
“Ready!” she called, clapping excitedly.
“Let’s do this!”
I pulled away from the curb and held my breath that this was the first step in getting our Holly jolly elf back.
I pulled the car to a stop in front of the yoga studio and left it idling. Ivy’s statement earlier today about his living situation ran through my mind. I could go park around back and see if she was right, but that felt wrong and underhanded. There would be plenty of time to deal with that once I didn’t have an excited eight-year-old with me. I put the car in park and shut the engine down before I turned in my seat.
“Ready, Holly Berry?” I asked, laughing when she huffed at me. She hated all of my nicknames, but eventually, I’d land on one she liked.
I helped her out and we waved at the man standing by the reception desk. He was waiting for us and the smile on his face was most definitely reflected back on mine. I hadn’t seen him since Wednesday night, but I also hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, or all the things he said to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, the feel of him on top of me, or the way he made me feel in general. All of that was tempered by the knowledge of what he lives with every day and how he must have a lot more to worry about than the average twenty-six-year-old guy. As he walked toward us, I said a silent prayer that I didn’t embarrass myself too much this afternoon. This was my first attempt at yoga and no one would ever call me flexible. Well, unless I’d had a few drinks, then I was all about flexible.
He held the door open and waved at Holly. “Hey guys, I’m so glad you could make it tonight. Are you ready for yoga?”
Holly glanced around the empty studio and turned back to us just as he kissed me on the cheek. “Why is there no one else here?”
“I thought we’d do a private lesson just for you. That way you can learn what you want to learn instead of what I would be teaching the whole class.”
She tapped her chin. “You mean like when I want to learn multiplication but Mrs. Hanson has to teach everyone addition first?”
He nodded and winked. “Exactly like that. Since it’s only you and Addie, you get to decide what we learn.”
She hopped up and down once and clapped her hands. “I looked some stuff up on my iPad and there are so many positions,” she said enthusiastically. “How do you remember them all?”
“You’re right,” he agreed, helping us hang our coats on the hooks and stow our boots under them. He moved us toward three mats that he had put down on the floor. “There are over one thousand poses to remember. Did you know we only need about ten of them to feel good about ourselves after we work through them?” He sat on the mat in the center, so we followed suit. “To start though, you know what we have to do, right?” he asked her, one brow down as he waited.
“Stretch!” she exclaimed.
“Uh, isn’t all of yoga stretching?” I asked completely perplexed.
He glanced at Holly and shook his head at her. “Boy, she’s got a lot to learn, doesn’t she?”
Holly returned the head shake. “That’s for sure. We better get started.”
Boy, I did have a lot to learn about yoga, but I learned it and I could tell it was going to be a physical activity I could enjoy, and not just because of the hot man teaching it. I hadn’t been this relaxed in a long time. It helped that there was a text waiting from Ivy saying that everything was fine. Then she sent a picture of the baby, and even though it was just a white blob on a black screen, my heart fell in love.
“After the day I’ve had, I didn’t realize how tense I was,” I said after we took a table at Pip’s Pizza. Holly’s face had fallen when I suggested the diner for supper, so I decided it was wise to keep her out of there. She asked for pizza, so pizza it was.
“Did you have a bad day?” Ellis asked while he poured glasses of pop from the pitcher and handed out plates. I took a sip of the pop and shrugged. “It was tense. I’ll tell you later,” I said, my eyes darting to Holly who was concentrating on not spilling her pop.
He nodded his agreement and patted Holly on the back. “What did you think of the lesson, Holly?”
She looked up, obviously having been lost in her own world. “I loved it. Thank you very much, Ellis. I like yoga. It helps me focus on something other than—”
She ended her sentence abruptly, sticking the straw back in her mouth. Ellis was about to ask her to finish the sentence when I gave him a head shake. He gave me a furrowed brow back, but I smiled and changed the subject to the wedding.
“I hear someone is getting married at the gazebo exactly one week from right now!” I said enthusiastically, tickling her side. “I bet you’re excited to watch the wedding with the lights of the tree shining brightly.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, setting the glass back down on the table. “It’s better than the courthouse. At least the tree will be there.”
“And your mom, Mason, and friends,” I added, waiting for her to elaborate, but she didn’t.
The pizza arrived at that moment and we all dug in, the cheese stringy, the pepperoni greasy, and the laughter infectious. Holly was pizza sauce from ear to ear and I helped her clean up once we had finished.
“I heard you were having a special sleepover at Ivy’s next week. You better order some of this pizza for late-night snacking.”
“I’m not going to Ivy’s house,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “They can’t make me.”
Ellis stood and pointed to the front to say he was going to pay. I nodded and focused my attention back on Holly.
“I don’t think it’s about making you go, Holly. See, when grownups get married, they do this thing called a honeymoon. That’s where they go celebrate alone as a couple after the rest of the party is over,” I explained. “You’ll only stay one night with Ivy. You get to spend Saturday afternoon and evening with me and then your mom and dad will pick you up on Sunday.”
She looked up at me with fire in her eyes. “Mason is not my dad and they won’t come back. No one ever comes back for me!”
I put a hand on her chest and back. She was shaking and I was worried she’d fall off the tall stool. “Holly, is that what’s bothering you? Are you worried that your mom and Mason are going to disappear, too?” Her chin trembled and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head. “Is that why you don’t want Mason to adopt you?”
She shrugged, but she lost her battle with the tears and sniffled. “It would be easier if he didn’t adopt me.”
“Easier how?” I asked, pulling her onto my lap to put my arms around her.
“Easier in my chest when he leaves one day and doesn’t come back.”
“I know you feel like that, Holly, but do you love Mason?” I wiped her eyes with a dry napkin while I waited for her to answer.
“Yes,” she said sullenly but with a quiver to her voice. “A lot. He loves me like I’m his little girl.”
I held her tighter and looked over her head at Ellis, mouthing get the car to him. He reached in my pocket and snagged my car keys, then left out the front door.
“You know that a piece of paper isn’t going to make any difference in how scared you are about him not coming back, right?” I asked gently.
“It does matter,” she said angrily.
“Can you tell me why a piece of paper matters?”
She struggled in my arms and I let her sit up so she could cross her arms over her chest. It was her signature move and I didn’t fight with her about it. “If he signs the paper then my last name changes to Hadley. If my last name is Hadley then when he doesn’t come back, I’m always going to have to hear his name every day and I don’t think I can.”
Yup, her issues went deep. Issues I wasn’t equipped to deal with by any means.
“Thank you for explaining it to me, sweetheart. What does your therapist say?”
She sighed and I could see all the fight drain from her little body. She was exhausted and couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. “She says it will be okay over and over, but she doesn’t know it will be. She says they’ll always come back for me, but that’s what Grandma and Grandpa said, too. They promised me they’d come back and they never did.”
I hugged her again and sighed. “You’re right, it’s easy to say, but she can’t know that for sure.”
“Which means you can’t either. Neither can Mom or Mason.”
I shook my head. “Nope, we can’t. The thing is sweetie, if we spend our lives always afraid of what might happen, we lose out on all the wonderful things that are happening at the moment. Do you understand what I mean?”
She shook her head and I forced myself to think like an eight-year-old. “Okay, think about how you’ve been staying home from school because you’re worried, right?” I asked and she nodded. “Maybe one of those days when you’re home worried about something you can’t control, a special guest comes to the school and you miss it.”
“A special guest like who?” she asked skeptically.
I held up my hands. “Like the humane society with all kinds of kittens and puppies to snuggle, or maybe someone from the community who has a really neat science experiment to show you. What if you stayed home because you were worried and Santa showed up at school? You’d miss out on those experiences because you stayed home to worry.”
“I don’t stay home to worry,” she said adamantly.
“Why do you stay home then?” I asked curiously.
“To make sure Mom and Mason don’t leave me. If I’m there then one of them is with me.”
Oh yeah, we have some serious abandonment issues going on here.
I tugged her coat off the stool and threaded her arms through the sleeves when I saw Ellis at the door. “Ellis has the car, so let’s get you back to your mom now, okay?”
She nodded and I set her down off the stool and stood myself, grabbing my own coat. I took her hand and walked with her to the car, completely sure I had just made things three times worse, but at least I could finally give Melissa the missing piece of the puzzle.