“Ruth Bader Ginsburg, baby,” I correct her, deciding at that moment that, no, the feminist rants are exactly where they need to be.
She tilts her chin and looks up at me through the thick lashes she did not inherit from me. “That’s what I said.” Skepticism is thick in her sweet voice as she stares at me like I have no idea what I’m talking about. Which is also fair.
“I must have misheard then,” I say before clapping my hands together. “All right, now let’s get that other shoe on. Daddy’s probably staring out of his window looking for you. You don’t want to keep him waiting.”
I don’t like to lie to her, but I also don’t want her to ever question being loved. It’s just that right now, I’m not sure Ben is capable of loving anybody other than himself. But at least he’s finally stepped up and is having her spend the night with him when he has a break in his schedule. It’s a start and I guess that means something.
“You’re right. Daddy needs Addy time too.” She crab walks across the linoleum to her other shoe and straps it on. “Oh no!” she shouts, jumping up from the floor like a shot. How children just casually do the workouts I go out of my way to avoid never ceases to blow my mind. “I almost forgot the pictures I made him and the bracelet I made for Stephanie!”
“Okay, hustle and go get them, I’m sure they will love them.” I plaster a smile on my face, hoping to disguise the flinch I always have when Stephanie is mentioned.
I see Jude open her mouth, and I already know whatever is going to come out of it is not going to be kind. I snap my fingers at her and level her with a glare.
“Right.” She deflates. “Not in front of Addy, blah blah blah,” she mumbles, sounding almost identical to my five-year-old.
Adelaide runs back down the stairs, her almost pitch-black curls bouncing behind her and her purple tutu floating upward, revealing the total glory of the cat tights she picked out this morning. “Okay.” Above her head she holds up the masterpieces she created, pride and confidence radiating from her tiny body. “I’m ready to go.”
“Yaassss, queen!” Jude snaps her fingers, and Adelaide’s cheeks, which are suddenly losing all of their chub and starting to resemble those of a little girl and not my baby, turn pink.
“Auntie Jude, I’m not a queen,” she corrects. “I’m a president. You just get to be queen, but you have to work to be president, right, Mom?”
“You’re so right, sister girl.” My stomach tightens and my throat constricts, the love and pride I have for this girl nearly choking me. When I was pregnant, everyone told me it was a love like I never knew. So I had an idea of what having a kid would be like, but I didn’t know love could be this big. Every day I think I love her more than is ever possible, but every day, it still manages to grow.
“Well, excuse me.” Jude unfolds her perfectly lean body from the ground in a way only a fitness influencer like her can do. “You’re still the fanciest president I’ve ever seen. I thought you needed a pantsuit for that job.”
Adelaide shakes her head, stuffing her pictures and the bracelet in her sequined unicorn backpack before sliding her arms through the straps. “What a person wears doesn’t matter, silly. It’s the inside stuff that’s important.” And with that mic drop, she pulls open the front door and summons me, her constituent, out of the door. “Come on, Mommy. I thought you didn’t want to be late.”
I follow her to the car without a saying a word. It’s not like I was standing with my keys in my hand for the last thirty minutes or anything.
And now I get to see Ben.
Yay.
THREE
• • •
Lauren
Adelaide’s wiggling body and my shaking hands make what’s usually second nature a total and utter disaster.
“Adelaide!” My clumsy fingers miss the clasp of her car seat again. “Please, please stop moving.”
“I can’t, Mommy, my body is just too excited!” Adelaide’s eyes are focused out of the window, looking at the brick exterior of the home where we once all lived.
The home where Ben lives with Stephanie. And it’s like I can feel their gazes burning a hole through my back.
“Got it!” I shout in triumph . . . and then cower apologetically when I turn and meet Mrs. Miller’s familiar glare as she walks her—maybe evil—poodle past us.
“Moooom.” Adelaide’s grating whine snaps me back to the present. “I can’t find my shoe.”
Oh, for the freaking love!
“Why in the world did you take them off?” I swear I never knew that shoes would be my downfall in life. The parenting books told me everything I needed to know about pregnancy and birth and colic, but not one of them prepared me for five-year-olds and their ability to lose shoes. Even while strapped down in a car.
“My feet were sweaty.” She pokes out the bottom lip I’ve long become immune to. “We’re so far from Daddy and the car ride was so long.”
Now that? That I have not become immune to. The guilt. Holy shit. The guilt I feel, knowing she’s lived in three places in two years and that most of her contact with her dad before these last few months was over the phone, eats away at me at every second of every day.
“I know, baby.” The frustration over shoes is completely forgotten. “How about—”
“Junie!” A peppy voice cuts me off before I can finish, and I cringe a little hearing both the voice and the nickname. For some reason, Ben has always called her Junie instead of Adelaide. I used to think it was cute, but now it’s like nails on a chalkboard.
“Stephanie!” Adelaide shoves past me and jumps into Ben’s new girlfriend’s arms . . . one shoe and all.
I like Stephanie.
Hand to God, I do. Before she came into the picture, I was lucky if I could get Ben to commit to seeing Adelaide more than once a month. Child support was sporadic at best. I spent my nights praying he would see the error of his ways and make a change before it was too late. And that prayer was answered in Stephanie.
I guess I should be more specific when chatting with the big man.
Because even though I like her and I know I can thank her exclusively for Ben’s sudden reappearance in Adelaide’s life and finally catching up on his child support payments, there’s still a sick twist of my stomach every time I hear Adelaide tell me how great she is. And moments like these, when I get shoved to the side and forgotten so she can go to her other family, feel like a rusty knife stabbing me through the heart over and over again.
But my feelings don’t count now, and I do what I’ve always done. I shove everything I’m feeling so far down that I can almost forget about it and plaster a smile I don’t mean on my face.