Did she just . . . ?
“Did you just—” Shaken, I try to grab hold of my spiraling emotions and look from the beautiful little girl in my arms to her daddy. “Did you hear that?” I whisper.
Maggie likes the attention and looks at her daddy. “My daddy.”
She only switched fromDaddatoDaddysome time last week, and I thought Logan was going to cry the first time she said it. But right now, he seems so sad, I’m the one who wants to cry. “Go, Logan. You’re going to miss the flight, and you’ve got to go. I’ve got this. I promise.”
He nods and kisses us both before he walks away.
We watch him go, and I’m not sure who’s more upset—me or the one-year-old.
There’s a difference between sitting across a courtroom from someone and them walking into your house to take your... my what? Stepdaughter? Somehow that doesn’t feel like the right term. But what other option do I have?
This woman... the one standing in front of me in what I’ve come to think of as my kitchen, with dark hair and sunken, sad eyes... the one not any bigger than I am, who looks like she couldn’t hurt a fly if she tried... She’s Maggie’s mom. Not me.
Waverly sits on the stool at the island with Maggie next to her as I add a sippy cup of apple juice to her diaper bag and tuck it in next to the baggie full of the colorful goldfish crackers she loves. “What are you two planning to do?”
The words are as cheerful as I can manage, but they’re also carefully chosen.
They’re not aggressive.
They’re not confrontational.
She doesn’t have to tell me anything.
She just has to have her back in two hours.
The nicer I am now, the better this will hopefully go in the future.
And that’s my job. To think about the future.
To help Logan keep custody and mitigate the fallout from this hell.
“We’re going to the park on the other side of town,” she tells me, barely able to hold eye contact. This woman doesn’t seem at all like the woman he talks about. I have a hard time picturing her as a puck bunny, hanging out at bars and hanging on whatever player was willing to give her the time of day the way he described.
“The one on the other side of the bridge?” Waverly asks, and Monica nods and smiles softly at Maggie.
She hasn’t even tried to hold her yet, and Maggie hasn’t given her the time of day.
“Well.” I grab both handles of the bag and hand it to Monica. “That’s everything.” I quickly scribble my number on a piece of paper and push it her way. “This is my number. Logan is away for a game, so if you need anything... anything at all, please call.”
She nods and shoulders the bag, then moves to Waverly and looks at Maggie.
Just looks at her with something that seems a whole lot like fear in her eyes. “Hi, Magnolia.”
Maggie hides her face in Waverly’s neck, and my heart lurches in my chest.
It’s only two hoursbecomes the mantra I repeat over and over in my head.
Two hours.
I can do this.
But the thing is... the world can change in two hours.
“Where the fuck is she?” Jasper growls as he moves into the family room, where Waverly and I sit, counting down the minutes. “She’s ten minutes late.”
“We know,” Waverly snaps, all of us on edge.
