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“I did. I really did.”
“Okay,” she says, but I don’t feel very assured by her tone.
“Okay.” I smile, anyway.
32
May 2012
I should have hidden it better—the picture of J.R. and me that I kept in my bedside table. I would pull it out every now and then and look at it. It’s how I kept him so fresh in my mind. I could never forget him, but I wanted to remember the way he looked at me. The way he loved me.
I was standing in my kitchen when Knox presented the photo to me. My mouth immediately fell open at the shock of it. She batted her blue eyes at me and waited for an explanation. I was fairly certain that she knew who he was. I think she could see herself in him. I wasn’t sure what to say. Should I lie? Or was this it? Was this my chance to tell her about her dad?
“Who is he, Mama?” she asked me. She had asked this question at least three times in the previous sixty seconds, but I hadn’t found a way to answer her yet.
“Knox, why were you in my bedside table?” I retorted. I was trying to buy a little time so that I could figure out what to say.
“I wasn’t in your table. I found it on top of the table,” she replied innocently. “Who is he?” She was insistent, and I could have smacked myself for leaving the photo out.
“Maybe we should sit down.” I needed to sit down. I felt like I was about to faint. “Come on. Let’s sit down.”
I guided her into the living room, and then we sat down on the couch together.
Knox was still looking at me with her big, curious, blue eyes. She was still holding the photo in her hands. There was no way out of this conversation. This was it.
“Knox,” I began, “you know that band we listen to a lot? Our favorite band?”
“J.R. and the Band?”
“Yeah.” I hid a smile. I still felt like they could have definitely thought up a more creative name for themselves. Maybe not. Maybe it was perfect.
“What about them?” She sounded a little impatient. Like J.R. and the Band had nothing to do with the picture she was holding in her hands.
“The man in the picture—that’s J.R.,” I replied. I smiled saying his name out loud. I hadn’t said his name in so long, but as I heard it slide off my tongue, I felt a dead part of my heart spark again.
Knox’s eyes lit up. “You knew him?”
“Better than that, Rosie. J.R. is your dad.” It came out a little easier than I thought it would. I heard myself breathe a sigh, and then I watched her for a reaction.
“My daddy?” she asked, confused. “He didn’t want me?”
The question shocked me, and I was a little speechless that her small, childlike mind would determine something so horrible so quickly. It had never crossed my mind that she might think that the reason her daddy wasn’t around was because he didn’t want her.
“I never told him about you,” I confessed. “I left him before I even knew you were growing in my tummy. We loved each other very much, Knox, but I was silly. I got mad at him one day, and I left.”
“You never told him about me?”
I shook my head. “I tried a few times, but I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, Knox,” I said simply. “I thought—I still think—that being on our own was the best thing for you and me.” I sighed and pushed my hand through my hair. “It’s complicated.”
Knox looked down at the picture again, and I saw a longing in her expression. I recognized the expression. It was the same one I had every time I looked at that picture, every time I thought about him.
“Is he a bad man?” she asked me.
“No. He’s the greatest person in the world.”
