Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [36]
She’ll be okay. Evan, however, needs me.
We draw some more. I ignore my salad. She eats french fries. She tells me she got to try the violin at music camp. And Sarah and her got into a fight, because Sarah said Hannah Montana was better than The Cheetah Girls, but then they both agreed that High School Musical is the best ever and now they’re friends again. Dance starts in two weeks. She is nervous for the first day at school. She wants to know if we can go shopping together for school clothes. I tell her I will try. I can tell from the look on her face she already knows it won’t happen.
The waitress clears our plates. Chelsea perks up at the thought of ice cream. She goes with the junior sundae. I decline, though ice cream would be good for me. I could use some weight on my frame. Maybe I should go on an ice cream diet. I will eat a gallon a day and balloon out to three hundred pounds. It’s not like anyone would care.
Self-pity gets me nowhere, so I reach across the table and hold my daughter’s hand again. Tonight, she lets me. Next week, I’ll have to wait and see.
She’s going to have a second mother. Some woman I’ve never met. I try to picture her, and my brain locks on some twenty-something blonde. Younger, prettier, perkier than me. She’ll help Chelsea pick out clothes for school, maybe braid her hair. She’ll be the first to hear of Chelsea’s school dramas, perhaps give her advice for handling her equally dramatic friends. They will bond. Maybe there’ll come a week when Chelsea won’t want to come to Friendly’s anymore.
I want to be bitter, but what would be the point? Chelsea’s job is to grow up, move forward. My job is to let her go. I just didn’t think it would be happening at the age of six.
Michael appears in the dining room. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there. Chelsea and I take the hint. I place money on the table for the check, then gather my things. By the time I slide out of the booth, Michael is already at the front doors, Chelsea lagging somewhere in between, trying to split the difference between her father ahead, her mother behind.
I catch up with her and we push out through the glass doors, where the storm has finally broken and cooling rain comes down in sheets. We hesitate under the awning, gathering ourselves for the sprint to the cars. Michael uses the moment to say, “I’m sure Chelsea mentioned the wedding to you.”
“Congratulations,” I say. Then ruin the moment by adding, “When would you like Evan to get fitted for a tux?”
The look he shoots me would’ve killed a lesser woman. I deliver it right back. I dare him to deny our firstborn child, who still asks when his father will be coming home.
“I didn’t leave you,” Michael states crisply, voice low, so Chelsea won’t hear. “You left me. You left me the second you decided his needs mattered more than anyone else’s.”
“He’s a child—”
“Who needs professional full-time care.”
“An institution, you mean.”
“There are other ways to help him. You refused to consider any of them. You decided you knew best. You and only you could help him. After that, Chelsea and I didn’t matter anymore. You can’t blame us for getting on with our lives.”
But I do, I want to tell him, I do.
He motions to Chelsea that it’s time to go. Her head is down, her body language subdued. Even if she can’t hear the words, she knows we’re fighting and it’s hurt her.
I put my arms around my daughter. I feel the silk of her hair, the lightness of her slender body. I inhale the scent of coconut shampoo and Crayola markers. I hug her, hard, for this hug has to last me an entire week. Then I let her go.
She and her father bolt across the rain-swept parking lot, hands over their heads