Page 46 of Jam and Jingle Bells
“Easier how?” I asked, pulling her onto my lap to put my arms around her.
“Easier in my chest when he leaves one day and doesn’t come back.”
“I know you feel like that, Holly, but do you love Mason?” I wiped her eyes with a dry napkin while I waited for her to answer.
“Yes,” she said sullenly but with a quiver to her voice. “A lot. He loves me like I’m his little girl.”
I held her tighter and looked over her head at Ellis, mouthingget the carto him. He reached in my pocket and snagged my car keys, then left out the front door.
“You know that a piece of paper isn’t going to make any difference in how scared you are about him not coming back, right?” I asked gently.
“It does matter,” she said angrily.
“Can you tell me why a piece of paper matters?”
She struggled in my arms and I let her sit up so she could cross her arms over her chest. It was her signature move and I didn’t fight with her about it. “If he signs the paper then my last name changes to Hadley. If my last name is Hadley then when he doesn’t come back, I’m always going to have to hear his name every day and I don’t think I can.”
Yup, her issues went deep. Issues I wasn’t equipped to deal with by any means.
“Thank you for explaining it to me, sweetheart. What does your therapist say?”
She sighed and I could see all the fight drain from her little body. She was exhausted and couldn’t keep up the pretense any longer. “She says it will be okay over and over, but she doesn’t know it will be. She says they’ll always come back for me, but that’s what Grandma and Grandpa said, too. They promised me they’d come back and they never did.”
I hugged her again and sighed. “You’re right, it’s easy to say, but she can’t know that for sure.”
“Which means you can’t either. Neither can Mom or Mason.”
I shook my head. “Nope, we can’t. The thing is sweetie, if we spend our lives always afraid of what might happen, we lose out on all the wonderful things that are happening at the moment. Do you understand what I mean?”
She shook her head and I forced myself to think like an eight-year-old. “Okay, think about how you’ve been staying home from school because you’re worried, right?” I asked and she nodded. “Maybe one of those days when you’re home worried about something you can’t control, a special guest comes to the school and you miss it.”
“A special guest like who?” she asked skeptically.
I held up my hands. “Like the humane society with all kinds of kittens and puppies to snuggle, or maybe someone from the community who has a really neat science experiment to show you. What if you stayed home because you were worried and Santa showed up at school? You’d miss out on those experiences because you stayed home to worry.”
“I don’t stay home to worry,” she said adamantly.
“Why do you stay home then?” I asked curiously.
“To make sure Mom and Mason don’t leave me. If I’m there then one of them is with me.”
Oh yeah, we have some serious abandonment issues going on here.
I tugged her coat off the stool and threaded her arms through the sleeves when I saw Ellis at the door. “Ellis has the car, so let’s get you back to your mom now, okay?”
She nodded and I set her down off the stool and stood myself, grabbing my own coat. I took her hand and walked with her to the car, completely sure I had just made things three times worse, but at least I could finally give Melissa the missing piece of the puzzle.
Chapter Thirteen
I sighed and forced my feet to lift me out of the car. Ellis had left me to my charge, promising to be there when I got done, no matter how long it took. I helped Holly up the stairs to her house where Mel stood with the door open.
“Gal pals, how was your night?” As soon as she took in our faces, it was clear to her what the answer was.
I followed Holly in and she hugged her mom, then took her boots off, completely ignoring Mason. “Thanks for the pizza, Addie. See you later,” she said then trudged up the stairs to her room, muttering about being tired.
I watched her go and grasped the back of my neck. Mel took my shoulder and moved me toward the couch. “Something happened.”
I sat and Mason leaned forward, his eyes worried. “Did she misbehave?”
