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Millie appears in front of me and I gasp in fright, having gotten lost in the gravity of the forest. My daughter yanks the glove from my hand and dares to tell me to hurry up.
I would be mad, but I know she’s excited and probably nervous. This is more than baseball. It's a team, it's coached by her uncle, and her dad would be there to watch.
"Are you sure you're okay with this? Comfortable I mean?" The engine of Dad's truck roars to life and the clicks of our seat belts were in sync.
"Yeah, of course," she says with genuine excitement. "It'll be cool. To play with a team."
"And you're okay about Jet coaching, and Xan being there?"
Her nose wrinkles and she thinks hard, like she doesn't quite understand what I mean. Then her face settles back and she tosses her glove in the air.
"Yup," she replies, her sureness thick in her voice. Her innocence still protected her from the overwhelming complexity of our situation. Then she turns an accusing eye on me.
"Wait? Are you okay with it?"
I grip the steering wheel and stare straight ahead as the truck kicks gravel and dust billowing out behind us. Her stare is burning through me but I only shrug.
Because I have no idea how to articulate to my nine-year-old that I’m terrified. Scared shitless of her knowing Xan, of her falling in love with him and with his family, of her finding out the truth about her parents. How they were young, and dumb, and defiant. That her conception was born of rebellion and infatuation. Of our addiction to each other. I don't want her to know how easy it was to tear us apart, proving that what Xan and I had wasn't real love or passion. It was teenage hormones mixed with forbidden fruit. We were never supposed to be together, which is what drove our desire for each other.
My mother's notes to my father flash through my mind but I push out all the bad thoughts as fast as I can. Today is about Millie.
I turn to my daughter as we reach town. "Are you ready?"
The pure joy that beams from her could sustain me forever.
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