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Her text answering my present question comes back.
Emily: She loves raccoons, and she’s been into Mike from Monsters Inc. She likes books too.
A smile crosses my lips. I loved to read as a child. I’m glad my daughter got that from me, although she didn’t know it.
Emily: Come to Woody Finch at three tomorrow. You can meet her then.
I type back a thumbs-up emoji and grimace. An emoji is too impersonal for what is going on. How could I send her yellow cartoon icon for what just happened between us? How Big Life Moment it was.
My phone lights up, but it’s not Emily. I hate myself for feeling a twinge of disappointment.
“Hi, Noelle,” I answer.
“Max, are you driving home?”
“No.” I hesitate, and I can imagine Noelle wringing her hands on the other side.
“Your mom called me and said they’re giving you a week off.”
“They are.” I pause and brace.
“I can get some time off, and we can go somewhere,” she suggests. “Tahoe? I could even meet you in San Francisco, and we can get a fancy hotel room.”
“No,” I say. “I have something I need to take care of.”
She pauses. I can feel the fury pulsing through the phone. “What do you have to take care of?”
I can’t tell her, although I want to. However, the last thing I need are other voices chiming in, telling me what to do, when I should figure it out on my own. It’s for the best no one knows yet. I stay quiet.
“Where are you at least, so I can know? You’re not in trouble, are you?”
“No, no, no, nothing like that. I promise I’m safe, and you have nothing to worry about. I’m in a town outside of Sacramento called Goldheart.” I’ve never mentioned Goldheart to Noelle, so she doesn’t know the significance of it or what this town holds for me. Noelle will lose her shit if she knows I had a kid I didn’t know about.
“I’ve never heard of it.” She lets out an audible, exasperated exhale.
“Let me take care of this, and I’ll be home soon.”
Another whoosh of breath over the phone. “I guess that reservation I have for tomorrow is no good now.”
“Ask one of your friends. Have a girls’ night.”
“Girls’ night. Okay.” When we first started dating, she mentioned a few friends. Now I’m not sure if Noelle has any friends left. If I let her, Noelle would spend every free moment I had together. At first it was cute. Now it’s stifling.
“Do you know when you’ll be home?” she asks again.
“I don’t know,” I say, checking the main house again. The second car is still parked by her back door. I wonder if that person is staying the night. I wonder if it’s her boyfriend.
“I’ll be home for my dad’s retirement party on Saturday. You’ll still be my date, right?”
“Of course,” Noelle says. “Come home soon. We’ve already been apart thirty days, and I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” I say, meaning it, but the words are marbles in my mouth. We say goodbye, and I put down my phone.
I’ll tell her soon. Tomorrow. That piece of news might make my decision for me. I don’t think Noelle ever envisioned being a stepmom.
Pulling out my phone again, I start my search for a present to make my daughter like me. As I scroll through my options and mark stores I can go to tomorrow near here to kill time, my eyes drift to the window again.
No matter how frustrated I am with Emily, there’s still this pull to her I was afraid of. The nagging in my gut was correct.
