I lifted my squirming little girl from her car seat and set her on the grass, her little legs moving at full speed before I even had a chance to put her on the ground. “Be careful, Georgia!” I shouted after her as she made her way to the swings and pulled herself up on the lowest hanging one. She held onto the chains and kicked and kicked her legs, but the swing didn’t move.
She was going nowhere fast.
The playground was crowded with children and their families. I worked my way through a sea of running and screaming little folk. I ducked under a stray soccer ball whizzing by my head. It took me twice as long to reach the swings as it took Georgia.
When I reached her, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Bethany Fletcher, Owen’s mother, was pushing Georgia on her swing. Georgia was squealing with glee. “Higher...higher!” she shouted.
“Not too high,” I said, making my presence known.
Bethany gave me a courteous nod. “Hello, Abby.” Her smile slid into a straight line. Bethany wore a light beige suit jacket with a white blouse and a matching knee length flowing skirt. Her signature bright red lips were no more. Now, they were just glossed over, neutral. Her once-severe bun had been replaced by soft dark waves falling around her face and shoulders.
She looked almost human.
“What can I do for you, Bethany?” I asked. I kept my tone even. I didn’t need her using the anger or anxiety I felt in her presence against me.
Before she could answer me, Georgia interrupted. “Mama, the nice lady pushed me on the swing!”
“That’s great, baby!” That girl could make me smile through a plane crash. “Why don’t you try out the new slide, okay? Mama will watch you.”
“Okay!” She squealed. Bethany held the chains on her swing still so Georgia could jump off. She took off running toward her next adventure on the shiny red slide.
“Can we talk?” Bethany asked. She sounded hopeful and even a bit kind, nothing at all like the Bethany who’d ordered my beating four years earlier. Her voice was calm. There was no hatred radiating off of her. I’d only seen her in passing since the day she dropped all the major charges against me. Only the marijuana possession charge had been kept. I paid a three-hundred dollar fine and served six months probation for that one. She could have easily dropped all the charges, but keeping one was her way of letting me know who pulled the strings in Coral Pines.
I was all too aware.
I sighed and took a seat on the bench facing the jungle gym. If Bethany wanted to talk, Bethany was going to talk. My saying yes or no had never made a difference to her before.
She took a seat next to me. “I’ve been wanting to tell you something for years now, and have never had the opportunity, and really didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t want to reach out because I didn’t want to scare you away.” She wrung her hands in her lap and nervously continued, shifting her focus from her feet to where Georgia was playing. “It’s just…I’m so tired.” She took a deep sigh and finally turned to look me in the eye. “I’m so tired, Abby... of everything.” Her bright green eyes that used to stare daggers into my own, were now softer and watery.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve been cleaning up messes my entire life. Sweeping things under the rug, justifying horrible behavior on a regular basis. Not just in my practice, but in my life, in my own family. Had I known you were pregnant, I would have tried to stop that, too.”
I had thought of that, and it was the reason I’d hid my pregnancy for as long as I possibly could. Nobody knew until Georgia was already here.
I didn’t even list Georgia’s father’s name on the birth certificate.
“So, I’m done now. I’m not doing it anymore and haven’t for a long time,” she announced, like it was something she’d been thinking about for a while. “I know you could never forgive Owen, and I don’t blame you. I can’t forgive him, either. Our relationship hasn’t been the same since this happened if that makes things any better.” She looked up from her hands at my raised eyebrows, realizing how weak that sounded. “Of course it doesn’t.”
“What did you really come here for, Bethany?” Avoiding one another for four years had been downright peaceful.
“I know I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve anything after the way I treated you, and you should know that I am so, so sorry for that, too. I don’t even recognize the person I am anymore, and it makes me sick to think of all the things I did to hurt people back then, what I did to hurt you.” She shook her head as if she was shaking the bad memories from her brain. “I want to get to know Georgia,” she said. “I’m willing to work for it, to gain your trust. I know you’ve never come right out and said who her father is, but I saw her with her babysitter in the grocery last week and got a really good look at her. She’s got those green Fletcher eyes, although they are a little brighter than everyone else’s.” She cleared her throat. “I would really like a chance to get to know her.”