Page 18 of Christmas in Paradise

“She wants me to help?” Her question is laced with excitement and hope.

“She doesn’t know you can, but I thought I’d tell her you could, if it’s okay with you.” I make my way slowly back to the house.

“If it’s okay? Why are you wasting time asking me this instead of telling Hope she has someone here to help her? Of course it’s okay. What a silly question.”

Mom keeps talking, right over my “I’ve gotta go.” She’s still talking when I end the call, and I’m smiling again.

I don’t even care if I look stupid. I’ve found a solution to Hope’s problem. She’ll have someone to help her with Charly. Who cares if I still don’t have a solution to how not to fall for her again?

I mean, Ishouldcare.

Because making sure she has to come to the house where I live every day is not going to make it easy to avoid her. And avoiding her might be the only way not to fall for her again.

Who am I kidding?

She’s “avoided” me for five months, and I’m still thinking about her.

Chapter 4

Hope

I’ve lived in Wichita my whole life, but the three weeks I spent in Paradise has left me longing for mountains. There’s too much space to fill in Kansas and the landscape stretches endlessly in front of me as I drive home from Charly’s eye appointment.

It went well. Her eyes aren’t improving, but they’re not getting worse either, so that’s a blessing.

Now I just have to figure out how to pay for her new glasses. She’s grown in the last year and needs new frames.

That’s on top of paying for her weekly speech and physical therapy sessions. Some of the occupational stuff I could do at home if I weren’t working two jobs. Or if Mom would stay home long enough to do the exercises with Charly. But, as good as Mom is with Charly, consistency is not one of her strengths. She’ll drop everything to go to lunch or shopping with friends, happy to take Charly with her, but also never in one place for long.

“What do you think, baby girl?” I glance at Charly in the rearview mirror. She waves her arms up and down while smiling out the window. “Are we excited about new glasses?”

“I see, Mama.” She kicks her legs and tugs against her car seat restraints.

“Tell Mama what you see.”

Charly babbles words that sound like “tree, flowers, car,” but it’s hard to tell.

Doctors and therapists say Charly’s developmentally delayed by at least a year. So, while she should be talking in full sentences, she’s still working on stringing words together.

The good news is, with therapy, she may eventually catch up to her peers. The bad news is, therapy is expensive, and state insurance only covers some of what Charly needs.

If not for my parents covering most of our living expenses, I couldn’t do it. They never say anything, but I know it’s a burden on them.

Charly’s dad, Derek, has reached out more often in the past six months. I’ve never asked for any child support, and he’s never offered, but lately he’s talked about getting back together. If he’d said anything like that in the first year after Charly was born, I would have taken him back. But not anymore.

Not that I never think about it. If I got back together with Derek, she’d have a dad. A disinterested one, but still a dad. And my parents wouldn’t have to support me. I’d have a different sort of independence … and dependence. For as long as I could stand it… and then what?

I know we’re not a good fit. He’s a good guy in a lot of ways, but we have hugely different worldviews. He wouldn’t want me to pursue a career—he's very conservative that way but he’ll never make enough money to give Charly the kind of life I want her to have. A life where I can afford specialized treatments for her asthma or longer, one-on-one therapy sessions.

Derek really isn’t an option. But it’s taken me long enough to find good therapists and doctors for Charly that leaving doesn’t feel like a good option either.

Charly is singing something that sounds likeTwinkle, Twinkle Little Starwhen my phone rings and Evie’s face lights up my screen from its holder on the dashboard.

“Hey,” I say, relieved to have someone to take my mind off my worries.

When Eviehadto spend time at our house because of her parents’ custody agreement, we got along, even though she’s seven years older and made no secret about the fact she didn’t like my mom. But when she went away to college and grad school, she didn’t visit anymore, and we lost touch beyond anything but holiday greetings.

It’s only been in the last year or so that Evie’s shown a real interest in being part of my life again. And even though Evie’s talked to me about Charly and to Charly over the phone, she still hasn’t met her in person. For the first couple years of Charly’s life, she thought Charly was a boy. I guess Dad didn’t mention the gender when he told Evie about Charly after she was born.

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