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“Surprise, Hazelnut.”
My daughter, who was overly excited to see pretty mucheveryoneshrank back against me, the smile fading from her face. “Only my mommy and Ford call me that.”
My head reared back at her tone, my own coming out scolding as I said, “Hey. That’s not very nice, Hazel. We don’t talk to people like that.”
She ducked her head guiltily, letting out a murmured, “Sorry.”
Hayley’s smile was overly bright and obviously fake as she stood tall. “That’s okay. We’ll get more comfortable with each other. Right, Hazel?”
Instead of responding to Hayley, she looked at me and asked, “Mommy, can I go see the Easter bunny now?”
I glanced back to the woman who’d made my daughter behave in a way that was so unlike her before I disregarded her and brushed a hand down Hazel’s silky hair. “Yeah, sure thing, baby.”
She took off, and the moment she was surrounded by her friends, my bright, happy girl was back.
I watched her for a minute before Kim came up beside me.
“Was it just me or was that weird?”
“It wasn’t just you,” I answered before turning my head to look at Hayley. She was engrossed with the Triad, chatting and laughing like they were all long lost friends.
That wasdefinitelyweird.
* * *
By the time we got home later that evening, Hazel was back to her normal self, but I hadn’t been able to shake the weird feeling that had lodged itself in my gut after that exchange.
I’d kept a close eye on her throughout the rest of the party, and it was clear to see that Hazel was going out of her way to avoid Hayley. As the evening wore on, I kept waiting for her to tell me what her issue with the woman was, but it was almost as if it hadn’t happened.
When we sat down to eat dinner, I finally decided to take matters into my own hands.
“Hey, honey?” She lifted her head from her plate as she shoved a huge bite of macaroni in her mouth. “You want to tell me what happened earlier today?”
She looked confused as she chewed and swallowed. “What happened where?”
I set my fork on my plate and folded my hands on the table. My stomach had been in knots all afternoon, so eating was impossible. “Between you and Hayley. I got the impression you maybe didn’t like her very much.”
Hazel’s eyes moved back down to her plate, and she began scooting the food around with the tines of her fork. She lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I like her okay.”
I leaned forward, reaching out to place my hand over hers so she’d look back at me. “Hey, you know what? It’s okay if you don’t. It happens. But did something happen between you that made you not like her?”
She shrugged again, closing in on herself. “No.”
“You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything at all. I’m your mom, which means I’m always on your side, no matter what. There isn’t anything you can’t tell me.”
That seemed to offer her a bit of relief and her shoulders that had slowly been creeping up toward her eyes lowered back down as she dropped her fork onto her plate and looked up at me. “She’s just kinda weird,” she finally confessed. “She’s not mean to me, but she’s too nice. Like,waytoo nice. It feels weird. She’s always trying to get me to let her do my hair and paint my nails and stuff like that. It feels like, not real. Does that make sense?”
I nodded my head, pretty sure I understood my daughter’s issue. Hayley was fake as hell, and it was obvious to Hazel, which made her uncomfortable.
“And she kept trying to get me to go shopping with her and stuff, but Daddy said that wasn’t okay for me to go somewhere with her without him. And they got into a big fight after that.”
“They did?”
She nodded, her expression growing worried. “I could hear them yelling in their bedroom, then Hayley started to cry. When Daddy came out, I told him I didn’t want to go shopping with her, and he told me I didn’t have to.”
“That’s right, honey. You don’t have to go anywhere with her that you don’t want to. Your daddy made the right call, so if that ever happens again, you just go to him, and he’ll take care of it.”
God, I hoped that was true, because over the past seven years, he hadn’t really proved himself to be responsible.
