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I wondered if meeting Weston had anything to do with how I was finally able to enjoy beautiful memories of my husband.
“I think she’ll grow up and meet a man and get married—” I could hear myself say from behind the camera on the TV.
More tears fell down my cheeks and I pressed my lips together, holding in my emotion because I knew what was coming.
I hadn’t been able to finish that sentence. Because Andy had interrupted.
“Or a woman. She might meet a woman and have a family,” he said to the camera, rubbing that sweet baby’s back. “I don’t care what she does as long as she’s happy. I just want good things for her.”
With blurry eyes, I turned to Parker, who turned to me, both of her hands covering her mouth as she sobbed behind them, her face a mask of surprise.
I cradled that face in my hands, wiping tears away with my thumbs. “And that’s what your daddy would think of you being gay, baby,” I said, my own voice stuttering and thick with emotion.
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t, she was so overwhelmed at that moment. Instead, she dove into my arms and wrapped me up in a hug that sent me careening back onto the couch with her on my chest.
We lay there, like that, twined up in each other for hours. We watched video after video of Andrew and us. We laughed and cried and remembered.
And it didn’t hurt me to think of him. To see him. Instead, it felt like a huge honor that I’d ever even had the pleasure of loving him.
Later when we’d watched too many videos to count and devoured more than enough snacks to kill someone, Parker finally circled back around.
“Momma, you know what I think?” she asked, still lying on my chest and chewing on a Twizzler. She was going to turn into one of those damn things.
“What, angel?” I answered, the room too quiet now that the videos were all done.
“I think Weston scares you.” Her breath smelled like candy.
I didn’t move. I didn’t look at her, but I gave her the truth. She was my best friend in the world, after all. She deserved it.
“You’re right,” I said.
“You know what else I think?” she asked.
I grinned. “What?”
“I think Daddy would want you to be happy, too.”
“Yeah,” I answered back and I didn’t follow it up with but I am happy because I have you. I didn’t do my usual spill. Not now. Now while we were being completely real. She’d done so with me and I’d do so with her.
I also didn’t cry because frankly, your girl was all cried out for today. And she hadn’t even stepped a foot in a bathtub. For shame.
“I sometimes think about the day we buried him. How you broke down. It was one of the saddest moments of my life. But you were real in that moment when I mentioned Dad’s treasure box. I know a lot of times you hold back because you’re scared.” She pushed off my chest so she could look me in the eye. “But I think that if you spend your life terrified to bury another treasure, you’d be missing out on all of life’s riches. And I definitely think that Weston is one of those riches.”
Tears ran like rivers down my face and I just let them go and here I thought I was all done. I didn’t try to wipe them away or hide them. Me and Parker had been laid bare today. We deserved our tears. We had earned them.
Parker dabbed at my face with her sleeve, but I sat up and dragged her down to me. “I love you, Parker Iris Davies,” I said, holding her to me.
I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve her.
“I know, Mom. I love you, too,” she said into my neck.
“Do you think he’d take me back?” I asked, terrified. The last time we’d been together it had been explosive. We’d been so hurtful.
But he had kissed me like I was the only woman in the world he wanted to kiss.
“He would definitely take you back. He texts me like twice a day to check on you.”
I smiled through my tears. “He does?”
