“Mommy!”
“Hey, my sweet girl!” I greet her as I enter the class. She runs over to me, and I scoop her up into a hug as one of her teachers brings over her backpack. I flash her an apologetic smile. “I know I’m cutting it close today. It wasn’t my intention.”
“Oh, you’re good, sweetheart,” the older lady assures me. “I know that you’re gonna try your best to be here before five every time. Besides, Sera is such a sweetheart,so I don’t mind watching her for a bit longer if ever you do happen to be a little late. Oh, and before I forget, we worked on a few new signs today.” She turns to her with a smile. “Sera, show mommy how to say cup.”
I watch in awe as she outstretches one of her palms before making a “C” with the other one. She taps the “C” against her outstretched palm twice and then looks at me with a smile. I squeal and kiss her as she giggles. My heart was full, and I felt immense gratitude toward Miss Brown. She’d been her teacher for only a little over a month now, but I was already so impressed with how much Sera had been learning.
When she learned that I was teaching her ASL at home because her godmother used it every now and then, she started to work with her while she was in her care. Just like her verbal vocabulary grew every day, her signing also improved. I knew that by the time she was four, it’d be like a second language to her, and that’s something I looked forward to.
Back when Jakayla and I had first started to hang out, she told me about how she’d been in a bad accident the year prior, and even though all her visible wounds had healed, the accident left her partially deaf in her right ear. Because of this, she wears a completely-in-canal style hearing aid when she’s in public.
This was also around the time she started taking ASL classes, and I decided to join her. I think we got even closer from that point on because she admitted she was so moved that I wanted to learn with her. We promised that even when we had kids, we’d teach them as well, and that’s how Sera began to learn.
“Thank you so much for always taking the time to work with her, Miss Brown,” I tell her. “I was scared that sending her to preschool would be just like daycare, where all they did was have them watch movies, but I’m glad that I gave it a fair chance.”
“I get what you mean,” she pats my shoulder softly. “I’ve been an educator for over thirty years now, and I still believe that the kiddos are never too young to start learning. Ain’t that right, Sera?”
“Right!” She repeats, and we chuckle at the adorable girl.
“Okay, baby girl. Tell Miss Brown that you’ll see her on Monday.” I told her.
“Bye, Miss Brown!” She says, reaching out to hug her. She takes her from me and cuddles her close.
“See you later, cutie pie,” she smiles before handing her back to me.
She waves as we head down the hall. When we make it to the car, I make sure she’s secure in her seat before settling into the driver’s seat and pulling out into the Friday evening traffic. Luckily, we didn’t live too far from Sera’s preschool, so we made it home in under fifteen minutes. This was a welcome feat since it would give me a bit more time to pack before I had to be on the road again if we wanted to be at my dad’s house before it got too late.
“Okay, miss ma’am,” I say as I help her out of her car seat. “We need to pack super quickly so we can get back on the road to see Pop Pop. You think we can do that?”
“Yes, I’m super quick, Mommy! Watch me!” she exclaims and runs as fast as she can up the front steps.
I chuckle, following behind her. As soon as I open thedoor, the alarm sounds, so I quickly key in the code. Yeah, I could’ve just disarmed it while I was in the car, but it had totally slipped my mind, as it did most of the time. Jakayla was always getting on me because of it. She claimed that I was always rushing somewhere and needed to slow down. However, slowing down was a luxury when you had a two-year-old.
Speaking of Jakayla, I hadn’t heard from her all day. Usually, she’d be blowing up my phone with random messages throughout the day whenever she had a break from work. I knew they were in the early part of the harvest season at her family’s orchard, but that usually didn’t even stop her from messaging me. I pull out my phone as I close and lock the front door. I smile when I see a text from her. I must’ve talked her up.
Kay
Hey, Zee. How was your day? How’s Princess doing?
I smile, shaking my head. Ever since she was born, Kay has referred to Sera as Princess. When I was still pregnant, she promised that she’d always be there for not only me but Serenity as well, and she wasn’t lying. Even before my ex up and left me, Kay had taken her role as godmother seriously and still does.
Honestly, seeing how close Kay and Sera were even to this day warmed my heart. If people didn’t know any better, they’d think that she was her daughter. Shit, who am I kidding? She practically is.
Even though Kay wasn’t the woman who I originally gotpregnant with, it wasn’t lost on me that she was the one who was here now. No, we weren’t a couple or anything, and she wasn’t on Sera’s birth certificate, but everyone around us knew what was up. At the end of the day, we were two best friends raising a daughter together. Was it weird? I didn’t think so. If I’m being honest, there’s nobody I’d rather raise her with. Not even Sasha.
My mind drifted over to the woman who caused me so much heartbreak, and I sighed. I hadn’t seen her since the day of our divorce court hearing, a few months after we split up. Just as she said, she’d signed over all custody to me, stating that she didn’t want to be part of either of our lives anymore. The judge asked if I objected, and I quickly stated that I did not. I was so numb to her at that point that I had made peace with the fact that she didn’t want to be in our lives. I was ready to move on just as she had seemed to do, seeing as she had another woman with her that day.
“Zseyah, can we talk?” she’d asked after we’d exited the courtroom. I rolled my eyes, not wanting anything to do with her anymore. “Please, just let me explain.”
“Explain what, Sasha?!” I shouted in a hushed tone. “You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want anything to do with us, so I’m granting you your wish. We have nothing to discuss. Lose my fucking number and get the hell out of my life.”
The woman beside her rolled her eyes as she picked at her nails, and it took everything in me not to curse her out. All I could think about at that moment was how Sasha had the audacity to bring the woman she was cheating on me with to this hearing. It was disrespectful, and frustrating, but most of all, it was embarrassing.
I wanted to confront Sasha right then about how I’d found out that she had been cheating on me for years before she’d ended things. Thanks to mutual friends, who were no longer friends, I came across a post featuring her, and this woman hugged up, saying that they had been friends since back when Sasha lived in Texas. I’d even gotten an anonymous message with proof that they’d hook up every time she went back to Texas to visit.
And as I stood there that day, I slowly realized that it was all true, and my heart broke all over. But Jakayla was there to guide me away from them both and held me that night as I cried out of frustration and heartbreak.
To this day, I still haven’t confronted Sasha about what I found out, but I had a feeling that she knew by now that I was aware of her double life. It hurt more than I cared to admit, but the last thing I wanted was for her to think that I was losing it over losing her. She didn’t need to know that she’d successfully broken me, whether intentional or not, sending me into a deep depression for a while. That first year without her was rough, but I was in a better place now in my life, so those memories didn’t bother me as much as they used to. I was more focused on living life for myself and being there for my daughter. She was surrounded by love, and that’s all that I cared about.
