Page 19 of Whatever It Takes

“That’s what I thought. The world loves a desperate woman,” she teased. “Let me know when you submit the online application and forward me a copy of your résumé. I’ll make sure it gets into the right hands.”

“Thank you, Mackenzie.”

“No thanks required. That’s what friends are for. I’ll let you get back to Emery. Give her a kiss for me and call me tomorrow.”

“You got it.” I hung up the phone and walked over to the trash can and threw my water bottle out. I looked up at the blue sky and prayed that my luck was changing.

At the sound of Emery’s laughter, I picked my bag up off the ground and strolled to where she was dangling upside down from the monkey bars. I pulled my phone out and probably snapped about fifty pictures, but it made me feel good to see her smile.

The father of the little girl she was playing with wandered through the maze of children and pulled her off the monkey bars. “Time to go, princess,” the father said, while the little girl protested at his side.

He looked at me and gave a timid smile. “Sorry, she doesn’t like being told no, and I’ve been trying to get her to leave for the past twenty minutes.”

I held my hand up. “Hey, I get it. We’re actually going to head on home soon anyways.” I turned to the little girl with long blonde hair. “Thanks for keeping Emery company. I hope you guys had fun.”

The little girl grinned up at me. “I did. Now I gots to go home and get ready for tomorrow.”

Emery came over and took my hand. “Oh, what’s going on tomorrow?” I asked.

“I get to go to work with Daddy.”

I glanced at the father confused as he ran his free hand along the top of his daughter’s head. “Yeah, Maci here gets to tag along with me tomorrow morning for Take Your Daughter to Work Day.”

“Oh,” I said, looking at Emery. My heart broke when I saw her turn her face away from me. She narrowed her eyes at the ground and bit her bottom lip. The whole situation with Grant was hitting her much harder than she had been letting on. I wondered how many times she got upset at school when kids would mention doing things with their dads. Things that she used to do with Grant, but she’ll never get to do again.

I gave the father a tight smile as we said our goodbyes.

“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching over and dusting the dirt off the front of her shirt.

“Yeah.” She sighed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I was so worried about her and I was trying really hard not to break down in the middle of the park.

“I just want to go home.”

I bent over to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Then let’s go home.”

I glanced over at the road and noticed that the dark car was gone. I let out a sigh of relief and grabbed Emery’s hand.

The walk back to our house was quiet. It felt like we were both just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. I wrapped my one arm around her shoulder, hoping to provide her a little comfort, all the while glancing over my own shoulder to make sure we weren’t being followed.

Later that night after dinner, Iran Emery’s bathwater and put her bubblegum scented shampoo out on the side of the tub. What happened at the park earlier still stung pretty bad. I wanted to hunt down my no-good husband and strangle him.

“Is my bath ready, Mom?” I turned to see my little girl’s head peek through the door.

“It is.” I stood up and checked the temperature one last time before I turned the water off. “Hop in and I’ll go get your clean clothes.”

I walked into her room and started putting some of her laundry away that she had left out. There were a couple of new shirts that were sitting on her bed that Grant’s mom had just bought for her. I wasn’t sure if it was guilt, or whatever, but I appreciated the gesture. How two good people like John and Laura Anderson could create something so evil baffled the living shit out of me.

I tore the tags off the shirts and was about to throw them away when something caught my attention. I gasped at the picture of Emery and Grant ripped into fours laying on top of the trash can. I picked up the tattered pieces and looked over at the empty frame on the nightstand.

All I wanted to do was help her through this, but I didn’t know how. Grant may have been a shitty husband, but he was a good father up until this point.

The school desk that he painted for her sat in the corner of the room, and the monkey he won for her at the school carnival still sat at the top of her bed by the pillows. I stood in the middle of my daughter’s bedroom, and I never felt more helpless in my life. There was so much I wanted to explain to her, but she really wasn’t old enough to understand it all. Hell, I barely understood it myself.

Emery came in the room in her pink fluffy bathrobe looking so small and fragile. She noticed my puffy eyes immediately.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

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