Page 75 of A Whirlwind of Color (The Light to My Darkness 2)

“That’s your job.” She threw the empty bag at my feet.

This was not going well. I needed to turn things around somehow. “Did you want more fruit snacks?” I asked. “I have a few more packs.” I pulled the rest of the bags out of my purse.

She stared at me. “I can have all those?”

It was only three more packs. She was acting like I was giving her the biggest treat ever. “Of course.” I handed them to her.

She immediately grabbed them and ran back over to Melissa, leaving me with the trash at my feet. I guess I had been diminished to a human waste bin and food dispenser. Great. I needed to turn this day around. As soon as I found a trashcan. I turned in a circle but didn’t see any. Well, Scarlett already thought I was a waste bin. Might as well prove her point. I picked up her trash, put it in my purse, and then ran over to catch up to them.

“Do you guys want to go to the tropic zone?” I asked. I fumbled with the map as I pulled it out. “It’s supposed to be creatures of the rainforest. Like lemurs and frogs and snakes.”

“Snapes?” Scarlett tried to hide behind Melissa.

“No, snakes,” I said. “With a ‘K’.”

“I don’t like snapes,” Scarlett said.

“Okay. Well, there’s also these fancy rainforest pigeons and…”

“Me and my mommy both hate snapes together. I don’t want to be anywhere near snapes.”

Snakes. With a K, Scarlett. I sighed. I wasn’t about to correct her. She already hated me. “Okay, fine. What would you like to see next?”

“Red pandas.”

“But we just saw the red pandas. How about we…”

“I want to see them again. Can’t we, Aunt Melissa? Please?”

“How can I say no to that face?” Melissa said. She laughed as Scarlett pulled her back toward the red panda exhibit.

I was not giving up on today. This was my chance to connect with my daughter. And I was going to find a way to do it. When we reached the red pandas again, I crouched down next to Scarlett. “You know, I used to love red pandas when I was little too. I thought it was so cool that their fur matched my hair.”

Scarlett took a moment to stop staring at the animals to glance at me. “My mommy used to say that.” She gave me a small smile and then turned her attention back to the red pandas. “She loved red pandas too.”

Why did she keep saying stuff like that? Was she implying that I wasn’t her mother? I placed my hand gently on her shoulder. “Scarlett, I’m right here. And I promised you I wasn’t going anywhere.”

She looked at my hand and then my face. “My mommy promised me that too. But she hasn’t come back yet.” She threw her empty snack bags at my feet. “I don’t believe in promises anymore.”

There was so much wrong with what she had said. What kid didn’t believe in promises? And I was literal

ly right here. I was even willing to pick up after her littering little self. I picked up her trash and shoved it in my purse. I was here for her. “Pumpkin…”

“Only Daddy calls me pumpkin.” She shrugged her shoulder to make my hand fall away. And then she scrunched up her face. I thought she was about to cry but then she screamed, “I need the potty!”

“Okay, well…” I opened up my map. “I think there’s one…”

“Aunt Melissa, Aunt Melissa!” Scarlett yelled and ran over to her, ignoring me and my map that would tell us exactly where to go. “I need the potty!”

Melissa lifted her up and started walking as quickly as she could with a kid in her arms. The two of them disappeared into a public restroom a minute later.

I sighed and sat down on a bench to wait. Scarlett didn’t even trust me to take her to the bathroom. Did she really think that I wasn’t her mother? That couldn’t be it. She could see me. She could see that I was the same. I put my chin in my hand.

It might help if I didn’t call her pumpkin again. I basically confessed to her that I was a fraud. Why didn’t I call her that if James did? Was there another nickname I didn’t know of? Today was going horribly, horribly wrong. What could be worse than your own kid not trusting you?

I just needed to ask James more questions about her. I didn’t know any of the facts that a child would expect me to know. Her favorite color. Favorite food. But even the things I knew I kept messing up. I knew her favorite animal and I’d tried to make her look at other things. And I knew her favorite snacks but brought the wrong one. What a freaking disaster. God, what could I do to make her like me?

It would be so much easier if I was just being the fun, cool aunt like Melissa. Well, maybe. I wasn’t exactly fun or cool. If I was being honest, it seemed like Scarlett would hate me as an aunt just as much as she hated me as a mother. There had to be something I could do to make her like me.

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