She claps, grinning.
“Where’re your eyes?”
She pokes her eyelids, making me laugh. “You’re so smart!” I fasten the Velcro buckle of her shoes, sit her up, finger-comb her fine blond hair. “So pretty, my sweet girl. Are you ready to go bye-bye?”
“Bye-bye!”
“Yes, bye-bye! We’re going to spend the day with Aunt Luna so that Daddy can get some work done.”
My eyes burn. I can’t discern anything in front of me. “Romina?” someone asks, and I turn, my eyes hot and wet. Alex stands in the doorway.
“Oh, no.” Another scent sweeps in to overpower the Dreft: eucalyptus, which he’s been weaving around wire crowns. Calming eucalyptus is all over his hands. I feel the strangest blast of gratitude, that with this new smell, I have snapped back to the present and my chest has loosened, able to breathe again. “Romina,” he repeats softly, taking me in his arms. “What’s wrong?”
I sniffle into his shoulder. When I lay my cheek against it, I see his gaze shutter for a moment. “Thank you” is all I can say.
I feel him trying to puzzle out what’s going on, why I’m crying. He takes the sock. “What’s this?”
“It was Adalyn’s.”
“Who?”
I shake my head.
“Will you tell me why you’re crying?”
“Because you smell like eucalyptus.”
He nudges me. “You smell like a garden. Naturally.”
“It’s my soap. Brassavola nodosa, Lady of the Night.” I stretch my socks on, finally, too dazed to be embarrassed that he wandered in here and caught me crying with a baby sock in my hands. I’m going to make him late. I’m going to ruin the rehearsal, and all I’d wanted to do was help.
“I like it.” He watches me, concern deepening. “Romina. Talk to me.”
The silence stretches.
“I met someone,” I say slowly. He hands me a tissue, waitswhile I blow my nose. “When I was twenty-one. He was thirty-eight, he had a baby. His wife had left them, and... he needed a lot of help.”
He lowers to the floor, wordlessly sliding a black ankle boot over one of my feet. Then the other. My fingers fist the blanket as I watch.
“He kept asking me out. I’d say no, because it didn’t seem like a good idea to get involved with the parent of one of the kids—did I mention that? This was at the daycare. When I worked at Over the Moon Daycare. I had Adalyn every weekday from morning till evening.”
Alex listens, not interrupting.
“He was so sweet, at first. I still don’t exactly know how it happened, the shift from me taking care of Adalyn to me moving into his house, taking care of both of them. I...” There isn’t enough time to sift through all of that mess right now, and he’s only being polite. He can’t sincerely want to hear about this. “Anyway, the relationship ran its course, obviously, but I didn’t realize that in leaving Spencer, I would be forced to lose Adalyn. I taught her how to walk and talk. Losing my role as her mom killed me.”
He rests a warm hand to the side of my face. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m doing better now, but sometimes a reminder will hit me out of nowhere, and it’s as if not a single day has passed since I was with her, and I start to miss her so much, it’s the worst pain imaginable.”
“I can tell my mom that you aren’t feeling well, if you want. It’s notthatimportant to have a stand-in maid of honor at the rehearsal.” He draws me upright, then close, clasping me into a hug.
I relax into him, but only for a heartbeat. Then I wipe my eyes. Remind myself how far I’ve come, how much progressI’ve made, how I can wheel my shopping cart past the pacifiers without being sucked back into a nursery in my memories, fumbling in Adalyn’s dark crib for a glow-in-the-dark handle. Adalyn is eight years old. By now, her memories of me must be blurred past the point where she’d recognize me on the street. She probably associates the vanilla fragrance I used to wear with birthday cakes celebrated with her dad and biological mom, her family singing to her. Loving and cherishing her, I hope. With every passing year, the little girl who once called me “Mama” and loved me more than anyone else in this world will write over all of our memories together until someday she won’t remember me at all. If I made a difference in her life, she won’t be aware of it. I don’t get to be a part of what happens next, who she becomes. But I can take heart in knowing I did my very best in the short time we had together.
In time, a strawberry can just be a strawberry. Life goes on.
I draw a deep breath, squeezing his hand. “Let’s go.”
East Falls scents the air like puffs of woodsy perfume, mist pearling in the treetops, and walking beneath is like wafting through a gentle, continuous rain. Alex’s left arm is an anchor as we march to the spot of grass where, tomorrow, an arbor will be crowded with bird-of-paradise and Magical Moonlight buttonbush. The pastor, who works an aggressively firm handshake, is leading Mr. Yoon and Kristin through theAnd then this happens,and then that,and afterward...When it’s time for me to join Daniel’s brother (the best man) as we glide down the invisible aisle, Alex removes his arm as anchor but gives me his eye contact, steady and centered. He accompanies his mother, as he’ll be giving heraway, but his gaze is trained on me. I’m situated on one side of the arbor; he joins the other, next to Trevor, third in line among groomsmen.
