AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why wouldn’t we want to live on the lake?” she wants to know.
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know. There might be an Elk Lake monster who comes ashore every night and vandalizes the kitchens of nearby homes.”
Sammy shakes her head. “Don’t quit your day job, Dad.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, you’re good at coming up with slogans, but I don’t think you’re the next Stephen King.”
I fake a pout. “Well, that hurts.”
Sammy is out of the car before I can even shift the gear into park. She runs up the path through the woods leading to the front door with her arms straight out, spinning around in circles. I’m so utterly captivated by her happiness I don’t join her right away. I simply sit and appreciate her joy.
Being the parent of a bullied child brings out fierce feelings of protection. While you want to make sure the harassment ends, you also want justice for your child. You want the perpetrators to be punished so they never do anything like it again. Heartfelt apologies and gestures of contrition would be icing on the cake, but none of that will ever happen without parental interest. And parents just don’t seem that interested these days.
In this age of frantically busy people, very few appear to be keen on keeping tabs on the day-to-day actions of their children. Just add social media and you have all the ingredients for a victor/victim shitstorm.
Sammy stops halfway up the path and flops down on one of several hammocks hanging in the trees. At this moment, I feel invincible, like nothing can or will ever take us down again. I somehow know that being in Wisconsin will charge our waning spirits and give us everything we need to live a happy life again.
Getting out of the car, I follow the path and join my daughter on a nearby swing. “This place is great, isn’t it?”
“Fantastic!” she says excitedly. “I could lie here all year.”
“You only have a few weeks until school starts,” I remind her. “Get your lounging in while you can.”
“I want to meet some people before the first day, if I can.”
I’m not sure how to go about making that happen for her, but I’m guessing taking her to the beach and into town will bring the most opportunities. “I have to work tomorrow but you can start getting a feel for Elk Lake if you want. I can join you the next day.” Even though I own the company and have decided to cut my workload substantially, I still need to oversee operations.
“Last summer a bunch of kids used to hang out at the park in town. Maybe I’ll try that tomorrow.” Sammy is clearly eager to get going.
“Keep your phone on you at all times, and call if you need anything.”
The look of sheer contentment on her face is balm for my soul. Sammy has been through so much and yet she’s so full of courage. While I hate that she’s had to suffer fools at such a young age, I know she’s going to be stronger for it. Life lessons are often painful, but they’re a must if you want to succeed in this world.
We lie in the hammocks for another twenty minutes or so when my daughter asks, “Do you ever think about my mom?”
There’s no point in lying to her, so I say, “I do.” How could I not? Beth was the woman I loved, the woman I thought I was going to marry and have multiple children with.
“Tell me the story again,” Sammy says.
“Honey, I’ve told you a thousand times. Why do you want to hear it again?”
“Because,” she says, “we’re starting over, me and you. Maybe if I hear it again, I can finally stop thinking about her.”
I’ve told Sammy variations of the truth about Beth from the time she was little. While I wanted to protect her heart, I also didn’t want to lie to her. I used to tell her that her mom had a very important job that required her to live in another country. That worked for a while but when she started to ask if we could visit her, I had to come clean about everything.
Breathing in deeply, I reiterate the tale that changed both of our lives. “Beth and I met in college, and we dated for six years. I proposed to her the day she told me she was pregnant with you. We always knew we’d get married, but we didn’t feel any rush up until that point.”
“But you didn’t get married,” she prompts.
“We decided to wait until after you were born so we could plan the kind of event that Beth had always dreamed of. But after you arrived, your mom suffered from postpartum depression. She was sad all the time and nothing we did seemed to make a difference. The doctor said her hormones would eventually balance, and she would be herself again.”
“And then what?” Sammy knows as well as I do, but for some reason she needs to hear every detail of this saga.
“And then she got an exciting job offer in London. She wanted to take it, but she didn’t want us to go with her. She said that after a month or two, she’d know if she liked it there and then we could join her. We talked most days, but that eventually lessened. After she’d been gone for three months, I was worried we were losing her, so I left you with Grandma and Grandpa and I went to visit.”
I hear Sammy sniffle quietly and I know she’s feeling the full force of what comes next. “Beth was surprised to see me, and claimed she didn’t have time to hash out our future. But I told her I’d come too far to just walk away without answers. She took a few days off work so we could talk and find out where our future lay. That’s when she told me how much she liked being alone and that she didn’t think she was ever meant to be a mother. She said that she knew what a great dad I was and that I would keep you safe and make sure you always felt loved. She didn’t believe she had the same capacity.”
