Page 86 of Forgotten Romance

Maybe.

Fuck.

I told him I was at work, so if he finds me here, I’m going to have to explain.

Mary waves at me to get down, so I crouch, then jump as she throws a dish towel over my head.

We exchange silent, frantic what the fuck gestures before she straightens and plasters a smile onto her face. Mary disappears from sight, and I crouch there, heart thumping, with an incessant urge to pee.

“Hello, my munchkins,” she says, and Kiera and Van both answer her.

“We’re heading down to the park,” Davey says. “Thought Grandma might want to join us.”

“Oh, baby, I would, but I … I have so much cleaning to do … And …”

I remember all the ingredients scattered around the kitchen and facepalm.

“What are you cooking?” he asks.

“Just lunch. Nothing fun. Nothing special. Might want to skip the park—it’s freezing out there. Probably better to hole up at home with a movie until you have to pick Mack up.”

“He told you he picked up a shift?”

“Yeah, we talked. Umm, on the phone. This morning.”

“Okay.” There’s a light scuffling. “Looks like it’s just us, kids.”

“Fine …” Kiera says.

“Wow, don’t sound too excited.”

“Why did Dad have to work? We wanted both of you to take us. It’s not fair.”

With one little sentence, the menace breaks my heart in half. I’m about to pop out of my terrible hiding space and be all, “Surprise, we can,” when Davey gets in first.

“You’re allowed to be disappointed when something doesn’t work out, but it’s up to you where we go from here. The three of us can try to have fun going down the icy-cold slide, or we can miss out completely because we want to be sad about something we can’t change instead.”

She takes a minute to think, and so do I. Maybe if my parents had taught me that lesson when I was younger, we never would have gotten into this mess in the first place. Or maybe I would have fucked it all up anyway. Either way, I’m learning. And Davey might only get to parent half the time I do, but he’s just taught me something about it anyway.

It’s okay for the kids to feel disappointed. When he leaves, it’s okay for them to feel sad. But it’s not okay for me to let them wallow in their feelings because I’m stuck in mine. We need to make the choice. My life doesn’t have to stop when he’s not here.

“Can we get ice cream?” Kiera asks with all the rationalizing skill a kid needs.

“Me ice cream. Me ice cream. Van ice cream too.”

I have to choke down my laugh as Davey answers in a long-suffering voice. “I guess we’re getting ice cream. In winter. At the freezing cold park.”

“Don’t leave them out in the weather too long,” Mary calls, and judging by the way her volume increases, they must be leaving.

I don’t hear what else is said, but I sink down onto the floor with relief that I wasn’t found.

When she comes back, my own relief is mirrored on her face. “That was close.”

“Sure was.” I climb to my feet and return to the kitchen, propping the recipe back up again.

“I dunno, Davey’s going to spoil those two,” she says. “Gives them everything they want.”

I think of the gentle way he corrected Kiera’s thoughts and smile to myself. “Maybe. But he’s giving them what they need too.” I point at the recipe. “So we’re doing the same for him. Back to this. We have three and a half hours left, and I don’t think I’ll be able to lie about overtime again. Doing it once was hard enough.”

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