“Abby,” I cried and then pulled her across the center console and into my lap. I buried my face in her wild hair and let out a choked sob. “I don’t think it’s fair either.”
“Why did he have to leave us, Mommy? Why did he have to die?”
“I don’t know, Sweetheart. He didn’t want to die. He tried his hardest to stay with us, but his sickness was too bad.”
“Why did he have to get sick? My friends at school have dads and none of them have gotten sick and died.” Tears streamed down her pretty face and her little nose ran. She sniffled and wiped her rivers of snot with the back of her hand.
I cupped her face with my hands and kissed a few of her freckles. I couldn’t give her answers to those questions, at least not any answers she would understand. “Abigail, your daddy got sick and because he got sick, he had to die. And now where is he?”
“Heaven,” she whispered.
“And did he love you when he was alive?”
She nodded, “Yes.”
“Did he love you with his whole heart?”
She nodded again and hiccupped a sob. “Yes.”
“And did he stop loving you when he went up to heaven?”
“Did he?” she asked in the most frightened and innocent voice I had ever heard.
“No,” I promised immediately. “No, of course not. He loves you just as much now as he did when he was alive. He’s just in a different place now.”
“Will I ever see him again?”
“Of course you will. Of course. One day you will see him again, but it might not be for a very long time.”
Her chin trembled as she struggled to hold back more tears.
I took a breath and pressed on, “Abby you cannot keep getting into trouble at school. I know you miss your daddy. I know that. I miss him too. But honey, you are a good kid. It’s time you start acting like one.”
“Mr. Hoya doesn’t think I’m a good kid.”
Mr. Hoya was her first grade teacher and at his absolute wits end. “Then show him, Sweetie. You’ve given him a headache all year. Prove to him that you know how to listen and pay attention. Show him that you do know how to read and write. He’s not even sure if you know your own name!”
Abby laughed like I wanted her too. “He knows I know my own name! He’s always yelling it!”
I couldn’t help but smile at her. “I need you to try, Abby. Okay? I really need you to be the good kid I know that you are.”
She let out a long-suffering sigh, “Fine. I’ll try.”
“And if you don’t try?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders and picked up her milkshake again.
“You’re in super big trouble, that’s what. This is the last time I ask you nicely. Got it?”
She slid back to her seat. I could feel her struggling not to roll her eyes. “Okay. Got it.”
“I love you Abs. I love you more than the whole world. I know you can do this.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
I asked her about her day yesterday and we laughed about the incident in the lunchroom. Maybe that made me a bad mom, but I still couldn’t believe it happened.
It was an hour and a half before we got back home and Emma’s car was nowhere to be seen. I shut the car off and jumped out of my seat, racing inside and checking my phone for a missed text at the same time.
I found Ben sitting at the island going over Blake’s homework with him. Lucy was at the craft table coloring and Jace was sitting on Ben’s knee eating a banana.
“Hey,” he greeted me easily, as if he had done this a hundred times before.
“Hey.”
“Ben!” Abby screamed and ran over to give him a hug. “Will you help me with my homework? Mommy says I have to start doing it. And you do Blake’s for him. Can you do mine too?”
“Get it out, kiddo. But you have to write all of the answers so your teacher doesn’t know it was me.” He looked up at me and winked.
“Where’s Emma?” My mind spun with conflicted feelings. Should I be upset that Ben was here? Alone with my kids? Or did I trust him enough to leave him unsupervised and in charge?
“She had to go. She called and said a bunch of things really quickly. What I got out of it was that you told her you’d be gone an hour? And it was longer than that? She asked if I could hang out until you got home. I’ve only been here… maybe twenty-minutes? I put chicken fingers in the oven. The kids were getting hungry. Is that okay?”
And just like that my spinning thoughts slammed to a stop.
I trusted Ben.
I trusted him completely.
“That’s great,” I told him.
“You’re okay?” he asked next. “Abby?”
“We’re fine. We just went for a little drive and had a little talk.”
He nodded like my answer mattered to him. “If the kids eat the nuggets, I could order us Thai food.”
“That sounds good.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little jarred.” I watched him twitch as if he wanted to walk over to me, but he had too many kids around him.
I smiled at that. I smiled because it relaxed me to see that my children trusted him and that he seemed to genuinely like them too.
“I’m good, Ben. I’m really good.”
It wasn’t until after dinner, when I sent the kids to the living room to watch a little bit of TV before bed that Ben and I had another opportunity to talk.
He stayed after dinner and helped clean up the cartons of Thai and what little dishes there were to do. He filled my dishwasher while I wiped down the table and then he filled up the water on my Keurig for tomorrow.
“That will save me some aggravation in the morning,” I told him gratefully. I leaned back against the sink and smiled at him. He moved to stand next to me.
“We should do this again.” His low voice was barely louder than a whisper.
I tilted my head so that I could look up at him, “Dinner?”
“Yes, but not here.”
“What do you mean?”
“We should go out to dinner,” he clarified.
“With the kids?”
He shook his head slowly as if he couldn’t figure me out. “Just the two of us. You and I should go out to dinner.”
I shot up and practically jumped across the room. “Like a date?” I gasped.