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CHASE
Confused, sad, and admittedly a little irritated, I follow Willow up the stairs. She already ran off into her room and slammed the door, so I take my time, contemplating everything that just happened and trying to figure out how it ended the way it did.
I pause in front of her door, her loud crying diffusing my anger. It’s hard to stay mad at a ten-year-old who’s only doing her best to wade through all the bullshit being thrown at her. I tap my knuckle against the door twice before opening it. Willow is spread out on the bed, facedown and crying into her pillow.
I walk up to the bed and nudge her leg out of the way. Lying down beside her, I stretch my left arm behind my head and start rubbing her back with my right. I stay quiet until nothing more comes out of herother than little hiccups. Finally, she turns her head to the side and looks at me. Embarrassment and shame are written all over her face. It’s apparent she doesn’t need my lecture to know she was in the wrong.
“Do you hate me?” she asks quietly, her tiny little voice so full of sadness that it breaks my heart.
“I could never hate you,” I reply, brushing the hair out of her eyes and placing a kiss to her forehead. “What’s going on? Why are you so upset?”
“I don’t know,” she replies with a shrug.
“Oh, come on. Yes, you do.” When she doesn’t hurry to say anything else, I add, “You don’t have to be afraid to talk to me about how you feel, Willow. Nothing you say could ever make me stop loving you. But you seemed pretty upset down there.”
She sighs, rolling over and sitting up on the bed. She grabs the black hair tie on her wrist and puts her hair up in a sloppy ponytail, aging herself by a few years. I want to yank that hair tie out of her hair and cut her bangs back to the way they were when she was five. Anything to trick myself into believing she’s still that little girl that the world hadn’t yet harmed.
“I’m worried you’re going to love the baby more than you love me,” she says quietly. She’s picking at her chipped nail polish, eyes lowered.
“What?” I pull myself up and reach out to still her hands. “How could you even consider that?”
“He’s going to be your son.” Her words pack a punch straight to my gut. They’re strained, like speaking them out loud hurts her. They hurt me too. The fact that she’s even questioning my love for her makes me feel like a failure.
“And you’re my daughter,” I reply vehemently.
“Not by blood,” she whispers. Fresh tears brim in her eyes, and when I reach out to tip up her chin, they slide down her cheeks. She swipes at them angrily.
“Willow, it doesn’t matter how you came to be in my life, only that you are in my life. You are my daughter. We’re the only two people I know who eat our sandwiches crust first. We both suck at darts and basketball and bowling, but that doesn’t mean we ever stop trying. And neither of us are any good at talking about our emotions, which means that sometimes we hold things in until it hurts. And sometimes, that hurt comes out as anger and it hurts others, even though neither of us would ever want to hurt the people we care about.” I pause for a moment. “Do you understand what I mean?”
She nods, then leans into my arms and squeezes me tight.
“If you’re sad, Willow, I need you to talk to me. If you’re scared or mad or whatever, please tell me so we can figure things out together. I don’t want you to hold it inside until it turns into what just happened downstairs.”
“I am scared,” she admits shakily, still holding on to me.
“What are you scared of?”
She releases her tight grip on me and pulls back. She swipes at her cheeks, but tears still fall. “I’m scared about Mom,” she says, barely above a whisper. “I don’t want her to die.”
“I’m scared about that too,” I tell her honestly.
We stay together in her room, talking and crying and holding each other for at least another hour. She pours her heart out to me, and I do the same, hoping my vulnerability and honesty help her know that she isn’t alone in her pain.
Before I leave, I tell her, “You will always be my daughter, Willow. Blood doesn’t make a family. Love does. And if there’s one thing we have plenty of in this house, it’s love.”
She nods her head, and I can only hope and pray that she takes my words to heart.
* * *
We order pizza for dinner, per Emily’s request. She’s only able to take a few bites. Emily and Willow finish their evening by watching TV together while Addison and I clean the house and work on laundry. When I check on them before bed, they’re both asleep.
I sit in Emily’s chair for a while, just watching the two of them sleep. Willow has spent every night in Emily’s room the past few weeks, and I don’t think she’s going to stop any time soon. It worries me, how much of her time she’s spending by Emily’s side. She’s stopped her overnight visits with my parents and Drake, and if she’s not at school, she’s with her mom. Her therapist has told both Willow and me that it isn’t healthy for her, but I also don’t have the heart to pull her away.
I feel hopeless. The women I’ve been tasked to take care of are hurting, and there’s nothing I can do about it. How do you properly navigate a loss like this? There’s no fix to stop it and also no way for me to make it easier. At the end of the day, it’s going to hurt like a bitch no matter what I do or don’t do. At least Willow will always know that she spent every moment she could with her mom.
I snap a picture of them with my phone and move it to the album of candid shots I’ve been taking over the past few years. Neither one of them knows it exists, though I’ve shown Addison. She bawled like a baby when I first showed her the pictures, and she had the idea to print them out and put them into a photo album to gift to Emily and Willow.
I sigh and turn off the TV, then shut the door on my way out. Addison is in nothing but underwear as I come into our bedroom. I stand in the doorway, watching as she slips a silky blue nightie on—already planning on how I’ll take it off her.
