I jog over to the truck, and as soon as Jasmine jumps down, I grab her, tickle her, and swing her around.But she’s too impatient with me to enjoy our normal ritual.Too impatient and too grown up, I guess.
“Dad.”She slaps at my hands.“I’m not three years old.Let me down.I have very important things to tell you.”
She proceeds to regale me with the latest and greatest news from school.I hear about a new substitute teacher, a kid who barfed in the hallway, and a very elaborate tale about the bedazzled jeans Tiffany wore to school, and how Jasmine absolutely needs bedazzled jeans, like, yesterday.
“I have no idea what the word bedazzled means.”
Jasmine rolls her eyes.“Oh,Dad.”
Then there’s a story about Mitch, the boy who pulled her hair in class.This shit is as old as Tom Sawyer and Becky, so obviously, Mitch has a crush on my little girl.I’m about to ask for the names of Mitch’s parents when Phyllis shakes her head at me.Fine.But the little punk ass is lucky he’s eight and not eighteen.
Jasmine is still going on about Mitch.“I told him to stop it or I’d tell the teacher.I made him cry.”
“No, Pinky.You didn’tmakehim do anything.If Mitch cried, that’s on him.”
She frowns at me.“Anyway, I shared my cookies with him at lunch to make him feel better.”
It seems Mitch has some game.I’m impressed.He got to sit next to my daughter at lunchandshare in her cookie stash.
But that boy needs to keep away from my daughter’s cookies.
“Where’s Emma?”Jasmine asks, looking around.
“I saw her on your porch,” Phyllis says.“Go on over and say hi.”
“Maybe we’ll finish my room today!”Jasmine says excitedly.“Then I’m going to invite Tiffany over.Dad, can I have bedazzled jeans by then?”
“Uh…” I say because I still have no idea what bedazzled means.
“I’ll bedazzle your jeans tonight, honey,” Phyllis tells her.“I’ll come over with you and grab a pair.”
Jasmine points up.“Look!A butterfly.Every time I see blue butterflies, I think of Mommy.”
“You do?”I stop in my tracks.I’ve never heard her say that before.And it’s odd since, as Special K just reminded me, Jasmine doesn’t have any of her own memories of her mother.I love my kid so much that sometimes it physically hurts.
“From that picture of you and her.There’s a butterfly in it.”
“Which picture?”
“The one in your office.On the frame on your desk.There’s a little blue butterfly in her hair!Don’t you remember?”
Oh.Amy’s butterfly hair clip.I’d totally forgotten about that.“I do remember.Not only that, but I still have it somewhere.Would you like to wear it?”
Jasmine’s eyes light up.“I could?Really?”
It dawns on me that she has nothing from Amy.We were so young and broke when we married that she didn’t have much in the way of jewelry.
“Of course you can.”
“Thank you, Daddy!”She squeezes me around the waist before I can even register her embrace, and then she’s running toward the house.“C’mon, Auntie Phyllis.Emma’s waiting.I haven’t seen her all day!”She tugs on Phyllis’s hand.
“All right.I’m coming.Don’t break my arm.”
I watch them run off to Emma, the woman who hates my guts.I know that someday soon, I’ll need to have a longer talk with Jasmine about her mother, and that will be hard for me.But I find it interesting that, as excited as Jasmine is about the hairclip, Emma takes precedence.
The here and now versus what’s in the past.
Even though I’m in my work boots, I decide I’ll take that jog—just a much shorter version.
