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My heart sank a little as I reached for the empty ice cream cup he had in his hands.
“When’s the cookout?” I asked.
“This Saturday.”
“That sounds like fun. Do you want me to go or do you want to go by yourself?”
“Could I go by myself?”
“Of course you can. I can drop you off, make sure you get out back okay, and then I’ll come pick you up.”
“I just don’t want you to feel bad.”
I smiled at him in the rearview mirror as a sigh escaped my lips. He was getting more and more inquisitive about his father lately. There were times he beat around the bush like he was now, but the past few nights he had been asking me questions about him outright. His name. How we knew one another. Where he was.
I had prepared myself for these times, but not when he was eight. I figured I wouldn’t have to field those questions until at least ten or eleven. But I had raised Brody to be open with me, to be in tune with his feelings despite that I knew he would grow up to be big and strong and intelligent.
Like his father.
“Whatever you want, sweetheart, I’ll do. And I don’t want you to worry about me, okay? I’ll be just fine. If you want me there with you at the cookout, then I’m there. If you don’t want me there, then I’m not. You just tell me what you want. That’s what’s important to me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Have I ever lied to you?” I asked.
He bit down onto his lower lip as he contemplated my words—one of the handful of traits he got from me.
“Then can you come?” he asked.
I smiled at him as I eased us out of the parking lot and onto the road.
“I’d love to go with you, sweetheart.”
We headed to the clothing store to get the extra balloons in the back while Brody sat in one of the chairs in the corner of the store. He was always so good when I brought him in. He sat quietly, didn’t disturb the customers, and never once kicked up a fuss about being there.
“Hey, Aunt Kristi.”
“Oh! There’s my cutie patootie. I take it you being here means that your mother is here as well?” I heard her ask.
“She’s looking for balloons in back,” he said.
“Well she’ll find plenty of them. I bought way too many to blow up and advertise our summer promotions.”
“She said you might do that.”
“She did, did she?”
“Yes, I did.”
I emerged with a smile and embraced my best friend. Kristi and I had grown up together. She’d been my best friend since kindergarten and the one person who kept me afloat during my pregnancy with Brody. She was the first one I told. In fact, she was the one I went to right after Tyler and I had our argument.
The one that split us for good.
“I take it a water balloon fight is about to happen?” she asked.
“How ever did you know?” I asked playfully.
“How are his summer studies going?”
“You know how he is with school. He loves it. It’s insane to me. I hated school, everything about it. But he devours it. His teachers are even considering bumping him up a grade depending on how he does with his evaluation at the end of the summer.”
“Wow, that’s—”
“You can say it,” I said.
“He sounds just like his father.”
It was a phrase that had haunted me ever since Brody had been born, and it wasn’t one that was going away. I looked over at my son as he curled up in the chair, playing with a piece of string hanging off the side. With his shaggy light brown hair and deep emerald eyes, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about Tyler because of him.
Because of the way he smiled at me.
“You doing okay?” Kristi asked.
“Some days are better than others,” I said.
“Well, I’ll have you know the store promotions are doing really well. Fantastic if I may say so. We’ve already pulled in double the revenue of last month, and we’re only halfway through.”
“I knew I hired the right manager for the job.”
“I wouldn’t even have a job if it hadn’t been for your inspiration to open this place, so thanks for being creative.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, giggling.
The day I decided not to tell Tyler he was going to be a father, two things happened. I cried harder than I had ever cried in my life, and then I figured out what I was going to do with the rest of it. I’d always been an angry shopper as a child. I hated shopping with my mother, in fact. The clothes never fit right and never looked as good on me as they did on the model.
After I had Brody, I had a serious talk with my father about where I wanted to take my future. He told me he would help me in any way possible, and I knew he meant financially. My father owned one of the largest record labels in California, but I didn’t want his financial help. I had made the decision not to tell Tyler he was going to be a father, which meant I had consciously made the decision to do this all on my own.
