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We ate breakfast mostly in silence. The worst part about all of this was realizing that when I went through something hard or emotional, I inevitably put Em through it too. It was just another reason to never bother with dating again. But maybe everyone around me would finally get off my case, now that I had tried and proved it to be the disaster I always thought it would be.
“Daddy?” Em’s sweet voice chimed as we cleaned our bowls up from the table.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
“What happened to your friend?”
I played dumb, hoping maybe that would somehow save me from having to answer to her. “What friend?”
“Melody. Your friend whose name was like a song. She came to my school play, and we were supposed to make pies together some time. When is she coming back over to visit us?”
Of course, her memory was sharp as a tack, pricking me in all the wrong places of my heart. I let out a heavy sigh and turned off the faucet to the sink, then kneeled down in front of her, trying to gather my words.
“Honey, I don’t think Melody is coming back to see us,” I confessed. “She was only in town long enough for me to finish work on her mom’s old house, and now it’s nearly done. So, she’ll be going back to her home where she belongs.”
Em frowned in disappointment. “Is her home far away?”
“I’m afraid so,” I nodded.
Her big blue eyes dropped to the floor as she gave it some thought, then they shot right back up to me with a somewhat renewed hope. “Will she at least come to say goodbye before she goes?”
Another heavy sigh seeped from my lips. “I don’t know, sweetie. We’ll see. You better go get your shoes on and gather up your things. You don’t want to be late for school.”
Em was usually like a butterfly who bounced and flew around everywhere she went. But I could tell all of my stress was getting to her. This time she turned slowly and walked calmly to her room, staring at the floor as she went. I hated to see the light get sucked out of her like that, especially knowing it was all my fault. I should never have put either of us in a position to get hurt again. We had been through enough.
She was quiet on the ride to school, and so was I. I knew we’d bounce back from this. We just needed a little time to reset.
When we pulled up to the school, Em’s gaze fixated on a mom crouching down in front of her daughter on the sidewalk. Em watched her hug her daughter, straighten her hair, then kiss her goodbye.
She turned back to me with sad eyes. “Daddy…Is Mommy’s new home somewhere far away too? Because she didn’t get to say goodbye before she left either.”
My heart lurched, and I did my best not to tear up. “I’m afraid it is far away. Mommy doesn’t live here on earth with us anymore.”
“She turned into an angel,” Em reminded herself. It was her working theory on what happened to people when they died, and if it gave her an ounce of comfort, it sounded good to me.
“That’s right,” I said, brushing her hair behind her ear. “But she didn’t know she would be leaving to be an angel so soon. Or else she would have come to say goodbye first…If she had known.”
Em nodded in understanding. We had been over it all plenty of times before, but sometimes she just needed to say it all out loud again. To try and make sense of the senseless.
“But Melody isn’t becoming an angel yet, and she does know she’s about to leave. So she should at least come to say goodbye,” she pouted.
All I could manage to say in reply was, “You better get going, kiddo.”
I kissed her on the forehead and leaned over to open the truck door to help her out. She smiled and waved at one of her friends passing by, and I hoped her day would keep looking up from there. The worst thing in the world was watching your baby girl go through pain that you couldn’t take away or do anything about. All I wanted for her was a happy childhood with good memories. I could still give her that much, right?
After she was gone, I sat there for a moment and finally let my eyes tear up. I had been holding it in all morning. But a car horn honked behind me, rushing me along. I waved into the passenger side mirror and put the truck into drive. It was just as well, I thought. Wallowing in a pity party wouldn’t help or change anything.
I met the crew over at the lake house and showed everyone in. Melody still made coffee for us every morning but didn’t come down to greet us. I relayed our daily updates to her through one of the guys and relished in the space she was giving me. It was the least she could do.
We were down to the finishing touches on the house, which was mostly just clean-up and a final walk-through. With every last pile of sawdust swept away and all the finishes and paints dried and approved after inspection, it was finally finished. I walked across the shiny floors, past all the patched-up walls and repaired wood. We had done a good job on that old house. It was still a shame to know it would be sold off to strangers, but I tried not to get hung up on that. I was ready for it all to be done with. Whatever made that happen so I could officially close that whole chapter of my life was fine with me.
After the final inspection, there was just one last hurdle to jump through. I found Melody in an office she had put together for herself upstairs. Normally she’d be at her desk, cursing the poor internet connection. But today, her laptop was closed. Instead, she sat there scribbling notes in a book.
I stood there awkwardly for a moment, then cleared my throat to get her attention.
Her eyes shot up to me, filled with remorse, but she also looked happy to see me at the same time. She had looked like that at me a lot over the past week. Her immediate reaction was to light up at the sight of me, but then she’d remember what happened, and all that stood between us and her smile would fade.
“Hey,” she said, standing up from her chair.
