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Penny hops up and down on one foot. “Can Alex come have cake?”
Hard pass. There’s no way I’m eating cake today. “Sorry, little darlin’, I’ve got plans tonight.”
Regret practically eats me alive the moment the words leave my mouth. Penny’s bottom lip quivers. Her eyes glisten with tears as she stares at me.
“You won’t come sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me?” The waver of heartache in her voice guts me. I feel like the world’s biggest asshole for upsetting her on her birthday, but celebrating anything today will make me physically sick.
Mrs. Rose tugs her away. “Penny, you’ve bothered Mr. Fox enough for one day. You can bring him a leftover piece of cake tomorrow if you want. For now, let’s say thank you and goodbye.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” Penny says softly, still not taking her teary eyes off me. “Where are you going to go, Alex? You love ice cream cake,” she says. “Everyone does. It has chocolate crunchies in the middle.”
Her mother sneaks me a look like I know about kids throwing tantrums. I should, but I don’t. “I’ll try to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” she says.
“You’re really not coming to my birthday?” Penny asks, blinking up at me. Utter disbelief pools in her eyes and trickles down her red cheeks.
“No can do, sweetheart. But it sounds like you’re going to have an awesome time.”
“Thank you again for being so understanding, Alex,” Mrs. Rose says.
I nod and watch her pull a sobbing Penny to the car and strap her into the back seat. My old friends, guilt and loneliness, return as soon as the taillights have blurred out of sight.
“I should’ve gone for the cake, huh?” I ask Cherry. Wagging her tail, she walks slowly to the front porch. I follow and sit on the steps with her, idly stroking her fur, trying to figure out why I suddenly feel more unsettled than usual.
It’s not just the date.
December fifth. The day I lost my wife and my daughter.
It’s that Penny Rose first randomly visited on my wedding anniversary. Gave me a drawing that had an uncanny likeness to the family I no longer have. It’s the old can opener Penny gifted me, which happened to be almost an exact replica of the one Bri gave me years ago. It’s how she knew my name and Cherry’s name.
It’s how Penny showed up tonight out of nowhere, on the day of Brianna’s death, which is coincidentally the same day Penny was born.
There’re way too many similarities going on. I’d be an idiot to ignore them.
The explanation finally comes to me clear as day, making my stomach coil like a python. My hand shakes as I pull my mobile phone from my pocket and press the saved contact icon.
The other end picks up, but they don’t speak.
“Why are you fucking with me?” I seethe after a few beats of dead air. “After all this time?”
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is.”
His deep sigh comes through the line. “Still drunk, Alex? Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m sober. I want you to stop this sick, twisted game you’re playing. Using an innocent child to fuck with me? That’s low, even for you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Fuck you.”
He snorts. “You know why your parents abandoned you, Alex? Because you’re a worthless loser. A filthy, stupid, delusional drunk. You’re trash, just like your so-called work. My daughter was beautiful and smart, with her entire life ahead of her, and you killed her.” I hear him inhale, then exhale a long, crackling breath. His grief for Brianna battles my own in the silence that follows. “You should be buried in the ground, not her,” he finally says with palpable hatred.
“For once, we agree on something.”
There’s a click and the call ends.
Fucking dick-faced asshole.
Each step I take on the path through the woods to the Roses’ backyard stokes my fury even more. Getting an answer out of Brianna’s douche of a father is never gonna happen, but I sure as shit can get one out of that ditz, Mrs. Rose.
I almost felt sorry for her earlier, appearing as the frazzled, worried mother. My demons were ready to go to battle for Penny, a little girl I thought was neglected and wandering around alone, armed with nothing more than an intriguing and charming personality. It sickens me that she was planted in my yard on purpose on the days that would hurt me the most, coached on all the right things to say to mess with my head, to pry open my heart, and dig memories up.
I wonder how long my ex-father-in-law hunted for a little girl with eyes the exact color that would speak to my soul. I wonder how much he paid Mrs. Rose to go along with his sick plan.
