"So hard," she says, and she means it. So melodramatic all the time, which she gets from watching those Youtubers she's fascinated with, but the dramatic flair makes me chuckle because she emphasizes it so well.
"What was so hard about it?" I pull out the chair next to her and sit down, dropping my bag on the floor. Mom slides a plate in front of me without being asked and squeezes my shoulder as she passes. She doesn't say anything, but I can feel her looking at me with suspicious eyes. She's concerned, and if she only knew what was going on, she'd understand how spot-on her assessment is.
"Mrs. Patterson made us do letters again and I already know my letters, Mama. I know all of them." Mercy holds up both hands with her fingers spread wide like the number of letters she knows is ten, which isn't quite right, but her confidence is so fierce, it doesn't matter.
"You do know your letters. You're very smart." I smooth my hand over the back of her head as she scowls.
"And then Tyler took the red crayon and I needed it for my heart picture. He wouldn't give it back even when I said please." She picks the roll back up and tears into it, and I realize I'm starving but I don't have the energy to lift a fork.
"Did you use a different color?"
"I used orange. But hearts aren't orange, Mama."
"Some hearts are orange," Dad chimes in from across the table, winking at me over his glasses. He's got the newspaper folded in front of him but he hasn't been reading it. He's been watching me since I walked in, and I can tell he's concerned too. At least both of them are wise enough not to bring up my negative emotions in front of Mercy. I don't like to talk about negativity in front of her. She'll get enough of that when she's grown up.
I eat a few bites of dinner because Mom made it and I'm not going to sit here and not touch it, but everything tastes like cardboard tonight. I mostly just push the dumplings around my plate while Mercy tells me about recess and her friend Sofia and how the class hamster escaped its cage and the teacher screamed. I laugh in the right places and ask the right questions, but my mind keeps drifting back to those grey eyes in my bakery this morning and the way my whole body locked up when Jaxon said my name.
Is it really possible that he's back? And how do I explain a seven-year-old child to him? I may not have gotten calls from him, but I knew his parents could reach him and I said nothing.
It makes me zone out, staring into my plate blankly as I wonder why, after all these years. Why did I never try to reach out andtell him? Yeah, he really fucking hurt me, and I was pissed. But I chose to do this alone and say nothing, and when I started showing I hid, and when Mercy was born, I moved away, went to college. I could've said something at any time, but I didn't. I let him fade into my past the way I clearly faded into his, and that was that.
"Mama?"
Mercy's voice snaps me out of it, and I look into her eyes—same grey eyes as her father. "Mmm?"
"Can we go to the Easter egg hunt?" The way she swings her legs so hard that she kicks the underside of the table has me gritting my teeth. "Sofia said her church is doing one and there's gonna be a bouncy house and a real bunny."
"A real bunny, huh?" I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and try to focus, glancing nervously at my father who's put the paper down and is now eating his own plate of food.
The Easter egg hunt is at First Baptist, which is the only church in town, which means half of Beaufort will be there. And if Jaxon is sticking around, the odds of running into him at something like that are the kind of odds I don't want to take. Chelsie used to organize the thing, and Roger is there every year. I know it because I've taken Mercy there a few times, though she probably doesn’t remember year to year yet, and Roger is always drunk, anyway.
"I'll think about it, okay?"
"But you always say that when you mean no."
She's not wrong, and it kills me a little. "I said I'll think about it. That's not a no."
Mercy accepts my response with a dramatic sigh that she definitely learned from me and goes back to her dinner roll as Mom comes around and starts clearing plates, stacking them against her hip. Then she tilts her head toward Mercy.
"Mercy, sweetheart, can you help Nana with the dishes? I'll let you use the sprayer."
Mercy is off her chair and across the kitchen before the sentence is finished because the sprayer is her favorite thing in this house, possibly her favorite thing on earth. Mom catches my eye as they head to the sink. "You okay?" she asks softly, and I offer a sad smile. It's all I can muster.
"Yeah, Mom," I tell her as she waddles off to ensure her entire kitchen isn't hosed down.
And Dad folds the newspaper and sets it aside, leaning back in his chair. He takes off his glasses and cleans them on his shirt as he says, "You wanna tell me what's going on?" keeping his voice low enough that Mercy can't hear over their chatter in the other room.
"Nothing's going on. I'm just tired." I hate being cornered like this, and if I didn't live above their garage, I'd be out the door immediately when I picked Mercy up, not seated here eating dinner with them.
"Emily, you've been tired before. This isn't tired. You look like somebody stole your dog." He puts his glasses back on and folds his hands on the table. "Is it the bakery? Is something wrong with the business?"
"The bakery's fine, Dad." I push my plate away and lean back, crossing my arms. I don't want to have this conversation, but he's going to sit there and wait me out until I do, because that'swho Tom Carter is. So I sigh and cough up the only detail I can muster. "Jaxon Cole came into the shop today."
Dad's eyebrows go up and he lets out a slow breath. "Jaxon's back in town?" Mom and Dad know just how badly he broke my heart, just not the part where he knocked me up and left me with a little girl who calls me Mama. I never could bear to tell them. I figured they'd hate him for deserting me, the same way I did.
"Apparently."
"Well, I'll be. I didn't think that boy was ever coming home." He scratches his jaw, thinking it over slowly. I see the emotion dawn on him as he asks, "How'd that go?"
