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“Me, too. And hey…” he takes a step closer and lowers his voice. “I know being a single parent can be a lot. If you ever need advice or, hell, just a drink to take a break from it all, come see me.”
He swats my arm twice and then drops his sunglasses down over his eyes.
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” I say, and oddly enough, even though I don’t know this guy from Adam, I really mean it.
He nods and then heads off in the direction of the drink table Emily set up with a big sign that says “Adult Drinks Only.”
I hadn’t thought about seeking out other single parents for…I don’t know…support or advice on how to handle things alone. And having Emily around makes it feel like I’m not completely on my own.
But I guess I am.
I wander through the party, trying to be present and taking everything in. There’s a big table of presents against the wall next to the door to the kitchen, and then out in the yard is a husband-and-wife team who go to kids’ birthday parties to do balloon animals and face painting. There’s a table with cake that we’re going to be diving into soon and scattered beach chairs on the lawn and over by the fire pit where parents are hanging out while their children run free and wild.
It’s a pretty wonderful day for Teddy, and I watch as he giggles and plays with other kids, many of whom I’ve never seen before, using balloons as swords and with animals painted on their faces.
The afternoon fun goes by fairly quickly, and before I know it, we’re singing and cutting the cake then shoveling pounds of Cookie Monster cake at about 15 children. They’re all around a table, scooping blue fondant icing and vanilla cake into their mouths, the color of everything dying their tongues blue.
Then, I help Teddy open gifts. There are a few toy cars and some sidewalk chalk, a nerf gun and a Star Wars Lego set. He loves everything, and true to my kindhearted son, he goes to hug every single friend to thank them for their gift.
“Look at the paper!” Teddy shouts, grabbing the next gift wrapped in Cookie Monster paper. “It matches my party!”
He’s ripping into it before I can take a look to see if there’s a card or some sort of label, and then suddenly he’s holding up a book that says My Family on the front. My brow furrows as Teddy opens it, though I recognize the contents inside of it almost instantly.
My smile grows brittle as I watch my son hold open the carefully protected pages, pointing at one of the pictures on the inside.
“Look daddy, it’s mommy!” he says, his eyes bright.
I nod, trying to swallow my anger.
“Yes it is,” I tell him, reaching out to take the book from him. “I think you have a few more presents to open.”
At the mention of more gifts, his tether to the scrapbook is broken and he reaches out for a blue bag with circles on it and sparkly tissue paper. As he digs in for the next exciting item, my eyes fly up to Emily, who’s standing a few feet away in the circle of parents and friends.
She’s smiling when her eyes lock with mine, but at the look on my face, that smile dims.
How dare she go through Melody’s things and make something like this for Teddy without my permission? And furthermore, how the hell did she even get any of those pictures?
I’m bristly for the rest of the party, which is thankfully over in the next hour, and I retreat into the house to put Teddy down for a nap as a way to give myself a quiet moment to think, thankful that the sugar rush and excitement with friends seem to have completely conked him out around two.
Unfortunately, I haven’t calmed much by the time the last of the guests have departed, and my words fly out of my mouth unrestrained the minute Emily and I are alone in the kitchen.
“You had no right,” I tell her, my tone firm and filled with anger while keeping my volume low so as not to disturb Teddy.
Holding up the book in question, I chuck it onto the kitchen table.
“Did you even look through it?”
“I don’t need to,” I bite back. “I don’t know where the hell you get off, thinking it’s okay to go through things that don’t belong to you, but you sure as fuck have no right to dig around, least of all in Melody’s belongings. That is off limits.”
For a split second, I think Emily is going to apologize. She looks hurt by my anger, but she’s obviously in the wrong here, no doubt about it.
“You know sometimes, you really know how to revert to being that asshole I met at the bar.”
My head jerks back in disbelief.
“Excuse me?”
Emily shakes her head and scratches at her face before pinning me with a look that screams disappointment.
