“A fire truck? Yes!” Troy tells me, holding up the shiny new vehicle.
The attention on the new toy is short-lived as Troy goes for one of the bigger boxes toward the back of the tree.
“A hockey set?” Troy rips the paper off the package. “I’m going to be the best hockey player. Thanks, Daddy!”
Troy wraps his arms around my neck before tearing into the box. As I sit on the couch, sipping my coffee, I glance around at the mess Troy has made of the living room. Bits of wrapping paper are strewn everywhere as his new toys take up every bit of free space.
A few wrapped boxes are tucked away for when Sutton and Lydia come over next week.
Even though Sutton and her mom are coming over whileLydia goes to her dad’s, I didn’t want her to be left out. I’m hoping that next year, it’s the four of us celebrating together on Christmas morning.
God, I want that to happen more than anything. I love the life Troy and I have. But I want a family with Sutton.
“Here’s your present.” Troy runs up to me with a haphazardly wrapped package. His smile is huge as I pull the paper off and open the box. It’s a ceramic football that is painted in all sorts of various colors. Half of them blend together to create a big, black blob. Troy’s name is scrawled across it in untidy letters.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it.” I pull Troy into my lap and give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll take it with me to school.”
“Grandma helped me make it.”
“You did great, bud.”
Troy hops out of my lap and goes back to his new toys. I hold the small football in my hand.
Out of everything I’ve done in my life, Troy is the best thing to have ever happened to me. I never throw out anything he makes me. A tiny football shouldn’t make me so happy, but it does.
Because I love my kid more than anything.
My thoughts are interrupted when the doorbell rings, echoing through the house.
“Can I answer?”
I ruffle Troy’s hair. “Why don’t you set up the goals and we can start shooting the puck when you’re done? Then I’ll make us our pancakes.”
“Yes!”
As he sets his new fire truck down to open the hockey set, I head to the front door and pull it open. Ice slides down my stomach as I take in the person standing in front of me.
“Missy. What are you doing here?”
I step outside and pull the door shut behind me.
The overly tanned woman with bleached-blonde hair is wearing too much makeup for Christmas morning. Her shirt does nothing to hide her cleavage.
“What, I can’t come see my son on Christmas?”
“You haven’t seen him in over a year, Missy,” I fire back.
Missy snaps the gum in her mouth and crosses her arms. Long, gold earrings weigh down her ears. How did I ever find this woman attractive?
“I was in town, Derek. I’m allowed to see Troy.”
“It’s been a year. Why today?”
I only have one thought as to why she’s here.She must have run out of money.
I put as much distance as I could between me and Missy once Troy was born. She was always in and out of our life and I hated it.
