Page 25 of Reaching Ryan

Chapter Twelve

Grace

I didn’t even have Molly buckled into her brand-new car seat before she started asking about Ryan.

“Where does the man live? Can we go see him?”

The man.

That’s what she calls him.

It would be hilarious if her persistence about seeing him again wasn’t so unnerving.

Unnerving because your four-year-old daughter is obsessed with a grown man or unnerving because it’s like she’s tapped into your subconscious and is speaking your own thoughts to you out loud?

“His name is Ryan and I don’t know,” I tell her, careful to avoid looking her in the eye while I lie. Well, it’s not a lie exactly. I don’t know… but it would take me all of thirty seconds to find out if I wanted to. “I thought you wanted to go shopping for pony sheets.”

“I do,” she says. “But I want to give the man his cotton candy too.”

“Moll…” I shake my head at her.

“Please, Mom?” Her blue eyes go round and pleading. “We can do both, right?”

Instead of answering her, I close the rear passenger side door and round the front of my brand-new car. Sliding into the driver’s seat, I stick the keys into the ignition but instead of starting the car, I just sit here, trying to process the last few hours.

It’s been a really weird morning.

When Molly came home from her sleepover and zoo day with my parents Monday night, it was well past Molly’s bedtime.

“Did you have a good time?” Hunkering down in front of her, I start to untie the string tethering a giant Mylar balloon shaped like an alligator to her wrist while Cari and Patrick say their goodbyes to our parents. Conner made good on his promise to get them on an early morning flight, so this will be goodbye for a while.

Molly nods her head. “I fed the giraffes,” she tells me, giving me an exhausted grin. “Their tongues are really sticky.”

“Stickier than your hands?” I ask her, pulling two bags of cotton candy out of her grip before reaching out to pull off a rubber elephant trunk hanging around her neck from an elastic band. When she gives me a solemn nod, I laugh. “I don’t believe it.” once she’s stripped of her treasures, I pick up the bags of pink, sugary fluff I dropped at my feet and scoop her into my arms. “You remembered my cotton candy,” I tell her, carrying her down the hall.

Resting her cheek on my shoulder she sighs. “It’s not all for you,” she tells me, her sweet, warm breath huffing against my neck while she twirls a length of my hair around her grubby finger. “I told grandpa I wanted to get one for Aunt Cari but that was a fib.”

“A fib?” I push the door to the guest room we’ve been sharing open with my foot. “You shouldn’t lie.” I sit her down on the bed, to crouch in front of her. “Especially to get more of something you’ve already had,” I scold while pulling off her shoes.

“It’s not for me.” She looks at me, and shakes he head. “It’s for the man.”

The man.

There’s only one man she could be talking about.

Ryan.

“Molly…” I toss one shoe and then the other, shaking my head at her. “I don’t think he likes cotton candy.”

“He does. He likes me too.” She gives me a firm head nod. “We’re gonna be friends. I can tell.”

Because I still have final goodbyes to exchange with my parents and I’ve spent the day online, reviewing pre-schools with discouraging results, and I still haven’t told her we’re staying here instead of going home to Ohio, I let her sudden and puzzling obsession with Ryan go. “Okay.” I give her a gentle nod. “Go brush your teeth and wash your face and hands before putting on your PJs.” It’s too late for a bath. I’ll deal with it in the morning.

On her way to the bathroom, she stops and looks at me. “We can take it to him, right mom?”

Sure she’d forget or change her mind and decide to just eat her ill-gotten cotton candy herself, I give her another nod and told what I thought was a harmless lie. “Yes, we can.”

That was three days ago and she hasn’t mentioned Ryan since. I thought I was in the clear but then Patrick ruined the whole thing this morning.

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