Reclining back in his seat, Tyler chuckled. “The mall it is then.” Then he turned to Kaiya and asked, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
Tyler gave her a knowing look as if to say he understood why she would jump at the chance of delaying the moment when they would tell Lili the truth.
Blushing, Kaiya looked away.
They arrived at the mall, and Kaiya hoped that her relationship with her daughter would get better.
“Look at that cute dinosaur!” Lili exclaimed when they passed by a game shop with stuffed animals as their prizes on their way to the pet store.
“I’m gonna win it for you, cutie,” Kaiya promised as she headed for the stand.
Tyler and Lili followed her to the place. The game was knocking down a statue with some balls. Kaiya looked at it and laughed.
“Piece of cake,” she boasted.
Some minutes later, she was, however, scratching her head and wondering what went wrong. No matter how she threw the balls, she always missed the target.
Lili stood beside her giggling while Tyler had his hand across his mouth. Kaiya knew he was laughing at her. Gritting her teeth, she resolved to win the stuffed animal for her daughter at all costs.
“There’s no shame if you can’t do it, Kaiya,” Tyler whispered from the corner of his mouth into her ear.
Giving him a chagrined look, which she made sure Lili didn’t see, she turned to focus on the game. From the corner of her eye, she saw Tyler raise his hands with mock surrender.
Concentrating on the game as if her life depended on it, she was finally able to knock down the statue. She threw up her hands with delight.
“Easy peasy,” she boasted and then turned to look at Tyler with a glint in her eyes. “In your face,” she mouthed at him.
Tyler grinned. Kaiya took the purple dinosaur stuffed animal and wanted to hand it to her daughter, but Lili shook her head and stepped back.
“I don’t want it. I never told you to win it for me.”
Kaiya felt the tears forming, but she refused to cry. She didn’t understand the frostiness from Lili.
Tyler quickly took the stuffed animal from her numbed fingers. “I’m sorry about that.”
Kaiya nodded and looked away, trying very hard to control her flailing emotions. It was now clear that her daughter didn’t like her. In the next second, Kaiya wondered if she was wrong when Lili took her hand and led her toward the pet store.
Kaiya was looking at very cute cats when Lili dragged her to a stop in front of one of the cages. When Kaiya saw the big snake in the cage, she paled, and a scream tore from her throat. Tyler arrived just in time to take her quivering body into his arms.
“Lili, why would you do such a thing after she told you that she was afraid of snakes?” Tyler chided his daughter.
Kaiya, who was trying to control her anxiety, couldn’t see the girl’s face to know if she was remorseful. The little girl’s words showed she wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, I forgot.” Then she giggled.
“Kyla Liliana Landry, apologize to Kaiya immediately,” Tyler sternly demanded.
Kaiya felt silly when she pulled away from Tyler’s arms. She quickly took some steps away from the snake’s cage.
“I’m sorry, Kaiya,” Lili said stiffly.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Kaiya managed to squeeze out of her constricted throat.
“Let’s go get some ice-cream,” Tyler said, obviously trying to diffuse the tension between mother and daughter.
They took different flavors of ice-cream and toppings, listened to a music rendition, and decided that it was time to head back home. Kaiya was glad that the outing was over. It had been a disaster in her estimation.
