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Millie
Today is the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. I thought I would feel sadder than usual. I assumed that the weight of his death would come crashing down on me anew. That’s what always happens in the books that I read. But that’s not how I feel at all. Does that make me a horrible daughter?
The grief has not left me at all this entire year. It has simply become easier to bear. I’m not constantly reminded of it like I was in the beginning, and now when it does hit me, I can acknowledge it and carry on with my day. It’s no longer crippling.
I thought it would be crippling to say that my daddy has been gone from this earth for one full year, but it’s not. Instead, it feels like a weight has been lifted off my chest. I can breathe a little easier because I’m no longer waiting around for this milestone to pass.
It’s here, and I can now say that Lo and I have survived one year on our own. It was an incredibly hard year, navigating how to raise and support a teenager without Daddy, but we made it through to the other side. And now we know that we can make it through another and then another. I wish that Daddy could see us taking care of each other. He would be so proud of us. He would even be proud of Lo for socking Daniel in the face last week.
I smile to myself, thinking of what Daddy would have said about that whole incident. There were so many times when I was dealing with mean kids in school that Daddy encouraged me to stand up for myself. He wasn’t raising meek girls. He knew that I was on the shy side, so he taught me to never allow anyone to walk all over me. I thank him for that daily.
Lo bursts into my room, interrupting my thoughts. “Hey, I want to go put flowers on Daddy’s grave today,” she says. It’s a good idea, but Harris is two hours away. It wouldn’t be a quick trip.
“You can’t miss school again after your suspension last week, and I have to go to work. Gertrude has already threatened my job.”
“Come on, Millie. It’s just one more day,” she argues.
“Have you met Gertrude, Lo? She’s terrifying! We’ll go this weekend,” I assure her as I rush around my room, grabbing all of my bags. I run out the door in a mad dash to get to work a little early to set up for story time. We’re reading one of my favorite books from when I was a kid, Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me, and we’re going to make moons out of paper plates. It’s sure to be a disaster because three- and four-year-olds doing crafts usually is. It’ll be a fun disaster, though.
Gertrude looks shocked beyond belief when I walk into the library five entire minutes early. I didn’t know her wrinkled face could do anything other than scowl. I give my coworkers a quick wave and a “hello” as I scurry back to the event room. Their faces are as equally surprised as ol’ Gertie’s. By now, everyone has accepted that I’m going to perpetually be two minutes late for work every day.
I step into the room and get to work setting up the supplies for a magical toddler story time. I lay out all of the craft supplies we’ll need: white paper plates, crayons, scissors, glue sticks, googly eyes, and star stickers.
Last week, I learned that glitter is a definite no. There’s a little girl, Laura, who comes to this story time, and the girl loves glitter.
Loves. It.
Her sweet mama warned me when she saw last week’s supplies set out on the table waiting to be used, so I only had myself to blame. But this little girl somehow glittered the entire room with that tiny bottle of glitter. When her mama was getting onto her, she jutted that bottom lip out with expert precision and cried that she was only trying to make the room beautiful. Me, being the sucker that I am, assured her that the room was the loveliest it had ever been. Then, as soon as she left, I proceeded to throw away every single bottle of glitter in this entire library. No glitter bottles escaped my wrath.
Gertrude saw the mess and told me to have it all cleaned up by the end of the day or she’d give my job to Hannah. Don’t tell her, but there’s still glitter hiding in all of the nooks and crannies of the event room. I think it’s a permanent fixture now.
At 10 AM, all the little preschoolers begin arriving with their parents or nannies. I watch as they run around together and wonder how their little bodies have an endless supply of energy. Their caretakers all look exhausted. I’ve developed a theory over the past few weeks that the kids somehow siphon the energy from the nearest adult, so I make a point to stand as far away from them as possible without being too obvious.
After my first story time, I made note of all the caretakers’ under eye bags and obvious exhaustion and started setting up a coffee station. They were all excessively grateful, and story time attendance is now up by fifty percent. Gertrude, to my absolute shock, complimented the idea.
When it’s time to start, I have all the kids sit on the carpet in front of me, and I open the book and start to read about the little girl who begs her father to climb up a tall ladder to get the moon for her. It’s quite a ridiculous request if you ask me, but that man is determined.
It reminds me of my own dad and how he worked and worked to give me and Lo a good life. He loved us and would literally do anything for us. The little girl in the book is now dancing happily with her sliver of the moon, and I’d bet anything her dad is watching and thinking that his hard work was worth it just to see this moment and the smile on his daughter’s face.
Tears start pouring down my face as I finish reading the book, and my voice is all wobbly. The kids and caretakers are all exchanging concerned glances with each other. I try to rein in my emotions, but it’s no use. One woman holds up her cell phone, and I hear the telltale sign of the camera snapping a picture. Her fingers tap on her phone as she starts sending off a text. I’ll once again be the center of the town gossip by noon.
I excuse myself from the room to grab Hannah and ask her to do the craft with the kids while I try to pull myself together. She agrees and rushes into the room. I stand by the door, listening to her cheerful voice explain the craft to the children as she passes out all of the supplies.
“The woman is unstable if you ask me,” one of the moms sitting nearest to the door says to the young woman sitting beside her. Lo was right. I should have taken the day off…or chosen a different book for today’s story time. I was perfectly fine until I started reading about that hardworking dad.
Gertrude happens upon me standing in the hallway. I stiffen my back against the annoyed look on her face. “Hannah tells me it’s the one-year anniversary of your father’s passing?” she asks. I’m surprised by the genuine concern in her voice. I nod my head and scrub the moisture from my face.
“I remember how I felt the first few years after my own parents died. It was difficult, and I was much older than you are. And I didn’t have a younger sister to take in.” Gertrude has never been kind to me in the entire month and a half I’ve been here. I assumed she had a heart of stone and was incapable of human emotions. All I’ve seen from her is annoyance and tolerance at best. I don’t know how to handle this empathetic Gertrude.
“Take the rest of the day off,” she urges me with a nod toward the door. She sees my look of surprise and says, “Unless you’d like to stay here and have more library patrons taking pictures of you blubbering and posting them all over social media.” She holds up her phone and shows me the picture of me sitting in front of the crowd of preschoolers, crying my eyes out. I’ve never sunk so low before.
Sitting at home has never sounded less appealing. I came home to throw on a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, but the idea of sitting here alone has me pacing the floors. I grab my laptop and haul myself to the local coffee shop.
I walk into the coffee shop and take a long, deep breath, breathing in the smell of fresh ground coffee beans. It’s not too busy at 11:00 AM on a Thursday. There’s only one other customer in here right now, also working on a computer. It looks like some sort of graphic design project. I wonder if he could do a book cover for me if I decide to get brave and publish this book I’m working on. That will not be anytime soon. I stop my creeping on his work and refocus myself on my novel.
I’m sitting in the corner of the coffee shop to make sure that no one can look over my shoulder and see what I’m working on. I’m not ready to spill the beans about it yet—if I’ll ever be. Not even Lo knows about it. I take a sip of my iced latte and peek around to make sure no one’s watching me. Not that anyone would even care about this book.
The scene I’m working on now is especially juicy. The female main character is watching the male main character flirt with another woman at a formal event, and she is jealous with a capital J. She considers grabbing her glass of champagne and throwing it in the woman’s face, but she’s a dignified woman and suppresses that urge. It’s all a huge misunderstanding, of course, and she’s going to be mortified when she finds out the “flirty” lady is his cousin!
