It’s not that I’ve anywhere special I need to be today, but I’ve got things to do. I have jobs to apply for and even though I’ve already paid for the daycare today since they wouldn’t let me out of my contract with them, I’m keeping Emma home. Not having a job wasn’t a good enough excuse. I considered putting her in for the last four days, but then they called and said they’d given our opening to another client so they didn’t have room. How can a daycare kick us out but still charge us? Something seems wrong with that racket.
Emma still hasn’t moved from her spot on the floor, so I walk over and pick her up. She hits my back with her tiny hands, complaining about missing the princesses.
I fight with her to get her in the highchair as her feet kick out. She pulls on my hair and I struggle. Her foot kicks and connects with the bowl of cereal, flipping it and sending the milk and sugared coated marshmallows over the both of us.
“Emma!” I scold, putting her back on the floor and doing my best to stop up the milk before it gets to the carpet. They don’t make spoiled milk candles for a reason. It will stink up the place if it’s allowed to stay in the carpet. No one wants to wake up to that in the morning.
A second stream of milk puddles as it falls from the top of the table, and I rush off to the bathroom to get towels to soak it up.
With one hand holding the towels, trying to get as much milk as possible without crunching the cereal into the fabric, I take ten deep breaths while watching Emma stare at the television in search of her princesses.
Even with my ankle healed and no place to be this morning, I still suck at this adult thing.
My heart hurts and not just because I worry I can’t make it on my own. It’s also pounding because yesterday I sent away one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. What’s so wrong with the fact someone wanted to take care of me? Am I so jaded I can’t ask for a little help from someone?
“Emma!” I yell, as she knocks off the two television remotes from the coffee table.
“Princess!” she yells back. Well, it sounds like “pin trees,” but she gets the point across.
I stalk to her and grab her up from the floor, carrying her into her bedroom to change her clothes. “You don’t get any princesses today.” Who wants to watch some beautiful skinny chick with great hair fall for a super-rich prince who lives in a castle with servants to do all their laundry? It sets an unrealistic precedent.
Emma looks at me and her face falls as her eyes narrow and her lips pucker. She’s unhappy about my decision.
I feel bad. It’s not her fault my life is a mess. Every choice that got us to where we are right now is one I made. This problem is one of my making. I pat her on the back, taking off her milk-soaked shirt. “It’s okay, baby. You can watch all the princesses you want in a minute.”
“Princesses?” she asks.
Screw it. “We’ll spend all day with the princesses.”
I’m sure my mother brought her the Disney princess collection DVDs before she was out of the womb. If Emma wants a day watching the ladies in pretty dresses fall for their princes, I’m okay with that.
I’m just tired of always needing someone else. First, I had my parents, and then I moved in with my husband, and for a few months Emma and I were here. We were doing okay on our own and then out of the blue Nate barreled into my life causing mass destruction and chaos. He’s a wonderful man and a great guy. I was stupid to let him go, but I can’t continue to run to somebody else every time I find myself in a little of trouble.
At some point I have to stand up, accept my life, and prove — not only to myself but to the world — that Josie Summerton can make it on her own.
I’m going to do this. I’m going to get my shit together and provide a stable home for Emma and me. And when that time comes, only then will I consider looking for someone new to share my life with. By then I’m sure Nate will have found a better woman than me to make lots of babies with. The thought threatens to tear open my heart, but I refuse to give it time to fester. I can only hope that by then I’ll be able to find someone like Nate. Not as good as Nate because he is a class of his own, but maybe half as good. Even half of Nate would be better than most of the men in the entire world.
My phone pingswith a notification from the kitchen table where I left it, and my first response is to jump up from the floor where I’m organizing Emma’s toys and grab it. But I don’t. Yes, I hope it’s Nate, but even if it is, I won’t rush over there and beg him to take me back. I have standards.
It’s been two days since he walked out. You don’t leave a woman waiting and then text her out of the blue. So if Nate is my text message, he can stay there.
Emma and I are doing fine.
Perfectly fine.
Okay, to be 100 percent honest, we’ve been better. I may have survived the last two days, but they sucked. Even if Nate no longer wants to see me — which I’m fine with — we’ve been cooped up indoors. I, however, have applied to fifteen jobs. It may not seem like a lot, but there are not many jobs in this area. It wasn’t something I thought about when I moved to Pelican Bay since I wasn’t planning to get fired.
I drop the last of Emma’s dolls at the bottom of the row so her purple dress was in the group with all the other purple dress dolls. It’s a rather unbalanced rainbow I’ve created with each doll stacked in order of their color-coordinated outfit. She has no blue dolls and only one little girl not wearing a dress. It’s time as a mother I work a little more variety into her playthings.
I also need to find a hobby. Take up knitting or something. The only thing I’m excelling at now is training for an Oreo eating competition. That and tracking Nate’s phone location from his fancy app. He’s been all over town – not missing me at all.
My phone beeps again, alerting me I hadn’t read the text the first time — like I didn’t already know. It takes all my strength to pull myself off the floor, but I get up and go to look.
I’m not crossing my fingers and saying a little prayer it’s Nate when I swipe the screen to read the message.
Lies.
And I’m not deflated when I realize it’s not.
