CHAPTER 1 The New Normal. #2
She waves as we head down the hall. When we make it to the car, I make sure she’s secure in her seat before settling into the driver’s seat and pulling out into the Friday evening traffic.
Luckily, we didn’t live too far from Sera’s preschool, so we made it home in under fifteen minutes.
This was a welcome feat since it would give me a bit more time to pack before I had to be on the road again if we wanted to be at my dad’s house before it got too late.
“Okay, miss ma’am,” I say as I help her out of her car seat. “We need to pack super quickly so we can get back on the road to see Pop Pop. You think we can do that?”
“Yes, I’m super quick, Mommy! Watch me!” she exclaims and runs as fast as she can up the front steps.
I chuckle, following behind her. As soon as I open the door, the alarm sounds, so I quickly key in the code.
Yeah, I could’ve just disarmed it while I was in the car, but it had totally slipped my mind, as it did most of the time.
Jakayla was always getting on me because of it.
She claimed that I was always rushing somewhere and needed to slow down.
However, slowing down was a luxury when you had a two-year-old.
Speaking of Jakayla, I hadn’t heard from her all day.
Usually, she’d be blowing up my phone with random messages throughout the day whenever she had a break from work.
I knew they were in the early part of the harvest season at her family’s orchard, but that usually didn’t even stop her from messaging me.
I pull out my phone as I close and lock the front door.
I smile when I see a text from her. I must’ve talked her up.
Kay
Hey, Zee. How was your day? How’s Princess doing?
I smile, shaking my head. Ever since she was born, Kay has referred to Sera as Princess.
When I was still pregnant, she promised that she’d always be there for not only me but Serenity as well, and she wasn’t lying.
Even before my ex up and left me, Kay had taken her role as godmother seriously and still does.
Honestly, seeing how close Kay and Sera were even to this day warmed my heart. If people didn’t know any better, they’d think that she was her daughter. Shit, who am I kidding? She practically is.
Even though Kay wasn’t the woman who I originally got pregnant with, it wasn’t lost on me that she was the one who was here now.
No, we weren’t a couple or anything, and she wasn’t on Sera’s birth certificate, but everyone around us knew what was up.
At the end of the day, we were two best friends raising a daughter together.
Was it weird? I didn’t think so. If I’m being honest, there’s nobody I’d rather raise her with. Not even Sasha.
My mind drifted over to the woman who caused me so much heartbreak, and I sighed.
I hadn’t seen her since the day of our divorce court hearing, a few months after we split up.
Just as she said, she’d signed over all custody to me, stating that she didn’t want to be part of either of our lives anymore.
The judge asked if I objected, and I quickly stated that I did not.
I was so numb to her at that point that I had made peace with the fact that she didn’t want to be in our lives.
I was ready to move on just as she had seemed to do, seeing as she had another woman with her that day.
“Zseyah, can we talk?” she’d asked after we’d exited the courtroom. I rolled my eyes, not wanting anything to do with her anymore. “Please, just let me explain.”
“Explain what, Sasha?!” I shouted in a hushed tone. “You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want anything to do with us, so I’m granting you your wish. We have nothing to discuss. Lose my fucking number and get the hell out of my life.”
The woman beside her rolled her eyes as she picked at her nails, and it took everything in me not to curse her out.
All I could think about at that moment was how Sasha had the audacity to bring the woman she was cheating on me with to this hearing.
It was disrespectful, and frustrating, but most of all, it was embarrassing.
I wanted to confront Sasha right then about how I’d found out that she had been cheating on me for years before she’d ended things.
Thanks to mutual friends, who were no longer friends, I came across a post featuring her, and this woman hugged up, saying that they had been friends since back when Sasha lived in Texas.
I’d even gotten an anonymous message with proof that they’d hook up every time she went back to Texas to visit.
And as I stood there that day, I slowly realized that it was all true, and my heart broke all over. But Jakayla was there to guide me away from them both and held me that night as I cried out of frustration and heartbreak.
To this day, I still haven’t confronted Sasha about what I found out, but I had a feeling that she knew by now that I was aware of her double life.
It hurt more than I cared to admit, but the last thing I wanted was for her to think that I was losing it over losing her.
She didn’t need to know that she’d successfully broken me, whether intentional or not, sending me into a deep depression for a while.
That first year without her was rough, but I was in a better place now in my life, so those memories didn’t bother me as much as they used to.
I was more focused on living life for myself and being there for my daughter.
She was surrounded by love, and that’s all that I cared about.
“Mommy, phone,” I hear Sera say. I looked down to see her using her hands to sign that it was ringing. It’s only then that I notice it vibrating in my hands. I turned the phone slightly, and she gasped when she saw my dad’s picture. “Pop Pop!”
“Hey, Dad,” I answer the phone, taking a seat on the nearby sofa. Sera crawled into my lap, her ponytails hitting me in the face. “Dang, Sera, you bouta take me out, whipping your hair like that.”
“Sorry, Mommy,” she giggled, signing it as well. I shake my head but smile before placing a kiss against her temple. She giggled some more before turning her attention to the phone again. “Hey, Pop Pop!”
“Hey, my beautiful baby,” he says, a smile mirroring my own stretched across his face. “How are you doing?”
“Good!” she exclaims. “Pop Pop, new sign! See!”
She shows him the one she learned at school today, and he watches, mimicking her moves.
She cheers excitedly when he does it right and tells him that he did a good job.
He thanks her, and she asks if she can get a snack.
I nod, and she hops up, running ahead to the kitchen as I follow.
After she had her snack, we returned to the living room, and she busied herself on her learning tablet as I turned my attention back to my Dad.
“I should be packing to get on the road because I know I won’t want to go anywhere if I don’t leave before nightfall,” I sigh, but settle back into the couch.
“Oh, that’s why I called you,” he replies, and I sit up again.
“I wanted to tell you that we’re going to have to reschedule the visit because I’m heading out of town with your brother and his wife.
You know they’ve been down here for the last few days, but they wanted me to come back and stay with them for a while longer.
That way, I get to see baby boy’s first game of the season. ”
“Ah, so my brother is stealing my Dad once again. He hates me, I see,” I joke, placing my hand to my chest. He chuckles, shaking his head at my dramatics.
“You see me every other weekend, Zee,” he points out. “Between you and your sister, I am never alone, because she’s always over here watching over me like I’m her damn child. She swears that I’m just gonna fall off the face of the earth one day.”
I laugh, but I know he’s not joking. My younger sister was a chronic worrier, and it only got worse after my dad had a health scare a couple of years ago.
He’s since retired and has had a nurse come by to check on him every day.
Each of us invited him to move in with us, but he declined each time.
He stated that he was a grown man and that we had lives of our own.
He didn’t want us to worry about him when we all had kids and careers of our own.
But how could you not worry about the only parent you’ve ever known?
When I was younger, it never bothered me that there was no mom in the picture.
Honestly, we didn’t really notice for the longest because our dad was everything we needed and more.
It wasn’t until about five years ago that we even started questioning how we were related, especially because none of us really looked that much alike.
He explained to us that my sister, Zaiyre, and I were his nieces and he’d adopted us after our parents passed, but that was as far as the conversation ever went.
I could always tell that talking about it brought up some grief, so I never pushed the topic.
All I knew was that it wasn’t going to change the fact that he was my dad and the one who was there. One day, he’d hopefully tell us more, but until then, I was fine not knowing.
“We just love you and want to make sure you're good, Dad,” I reply, and he nods, his bright smile back. “I’m glad you called me before I got on their road, though. I think I’m gonna just relax for the weekend.”
“And by relaxing, do you mean inviting Kay over so she can spend time with her two favorite girls?” he teases.
“Whatever, old man,” I laugh. “And I don’t have to invite her, for your information. She shows up whenever she wants. She has a key.”
“Of course she does,” he chuckles. “She’s literally the love of your life, right?”