Page 34 of Breaking Emily's Rules
I should let Molly learn the hard way, but right now she seemed so upset. A quick trip down to the laundry room and sure enough, Molly’s boots were under a pile of her dirty clothes. I ran back upstairs with them.
Molly’s room now looked like a monsoon had been through it. She stood in the middle of a pile. “You had my boots all along? Why did you let me make this mess?”
“I didn’t—oh, never mind. What happened at the park today?” I handed the boots over to Molly, who slipped them on.
“Nothing. Forget about it. I saw Sierra, and Dylan wouldn’t even let me hold her for a minute.” Molly picked up her hairbrush and pulled it through her hair. “No big deal. Maybe I would have dropped her. Lord knows I can’t take care of her.”
Molly had mastered her poker face to the point where I almost believed her. But she’d been upset about it enough earlier. Now she wanted to forget it. If there’s one thing I understood, it was how difficult it could be to talk about the pain of a humbling experience. In my case, it had been a derailed wedding day but Molly was dealing with so much more.
“You don’t really believe that. You took care of her for six months, maybe even the most important months.”
“I screwed that up, too. I barely slept and I was tired all the time. I couldn’t do it. I’m not ‘Mom’ material, I guess.”
“No one said you had to do it all on your own. New mothers need a lot of help. Maybe I should have helped you more.”
Molly turned to me, eyes wide. Probably amazed anyone else would shoulder some of the blame. “You helped.”
“Not enough, and I’m sorry about that.”
Molly plopped down on her bed. “Is that the first time you did anything wrong?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Sorry. Not trying to be a smartass. Dylan wanted me to do everything all on my own. And every time I asked him to help with housework, he’d call Violet. She’d run right over and practically make a list of everything I was doing wrong. Because of course, Dylan always did everything right.”
“So you stopped asking him for help. Youshouldhave asked me.”
Molly didn’t look at me. “But I wanted you to think I could do something right. Without your help. Stupid, I know.”
“No.” My heart cracked open a little bit. “It’s not stupid at all.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?” Molly rubbed at her eyes.
“You’re going to march over to Dylan’s and tell him you’re back and you want to see Sierra.”
“Or maybe I could keep showing up at the park. At least I get to see her that way. I pretty much have his schedule down.”
“But what about the divorce?”
“We should probably get one.”
“I mean,” I said with sigh, “What if Dylan tries to sue for sole custody?”
“Ha! I almost hope he tries it. He’ll be walking funny for a while.”
I shook my head. “You two should come to an agreement like reasonable adults.”
“Good idea, but every time Dylan and I are together in a room there are no adults. No reasonable ones, anyway.”
“Honestly? I think it would help if you just talked to him.”
“What am I supposed to say? I’m sorry, Dylan, for the gazillionth time?”
“Tell him how you feel. How much it hurts not to be able to see her.”
“He’ll say it was my choice. And you know what? It was. My fault.”
“But everybody deserves a second chance. What you’re doing now isn’t healthy. You can’t just go dancing and pretend you don’t care. I know what I’m talking about. For six months I barely left the house. And weren’t you the one who told me that I need to stop hanging out with the geriatric set?”
