Page 10 of I'm Yours

“Sure. I’m going to unload our overnight bags then we can go to the water, okay?”

“Yay!” I smile at her enthusiasm. I’m pretty sure yay is her favorite word.

I quickly get what we need for the night and come back inside. Emmy’s face is covered in chocolate from the cookies she inhaled and is grinning ear to ear. Her happiness, seeing how content and comfortable she is here makes my chest swell with pride. She has every reason to be sad and upset with the life she’s been handed. It’s not right she lost her mother at only four years old.

Her last birthday, when she turned five, was spent without her mother singing happy birthday to her in the morning. I tried to make up for it by spending the day at the zoo, just her and I, and eating all her favorite foods. We drank milkshakes and ate cheeseburgers for lunch and ended the day with a movie night in a makeshift fort in our living room. We stopped at the movie theater for popcorn and nachos with plastic cheese, as Katherine always called it, and carrot sticks because the father in me started feeling guilty that she hadn’t eaten anything healthy all day.

She woke up the next morning and said it was the best birthday she’d ever had. I don’t know if she was saying it because she was trying to make me feel better or if she was being truthful because she has the memory of a five-year-old. Either way, I hugged her tight and went to the living room where she’d set up a photo shoot for her stuffed animals and toy horses with her new polaroid camera I gave her for her birthday. While I made breakfast, she positioned all her toys and went through almost an entire roll of film.

“How many did you eat?”

“A lot.” She starts giggling.

“I see that.” I grab a washcloth out of the drawer and get it wet under the faucet to wipe off her face. Handing her small bag to her, I say, “Let’s get you into a swimsuit. Maybe we can get one of the kayaks out of the garage and go out on the water for a bit.”

“Okay, Daddy!”

“Let me know if you need help!” I holler after her.

She takes off for the bedroom my mother switched around to be ‘Emmy’s Room’ after she was born and I head to the room I claimed when I was little. The last time I was in here, Katherine was with me. I take a deep breath through my nose and blow out the breath through my lips. It’s taken me a while to realize that it’s okay to live with the memories and to think of her. To feel sadness but also joy and happiness.

I throw my bag on the bed and look out the window. Unfortunately, only the back side of the cabin has a view of the lake so I only see trees and a hint of the neighbors’ house. A flash of blonde hair streaks through the trees and my heart stops. Just as quickly as I saw it, it’s gone. Obviously I know there is more than one person with blonde hair in the state of Montana, but being back here, in the cabin where I spent so much time with Sadie brings back memories not only of Katherine.

“Fuck, I’m a mess,” I mutter to myself.

I spin around, grab a pair of trunks out of my bag, and quickly get them on then check on Emmy who’s struggling to pull the straps over her shoulders of her one-piece swimsuit. She’s wiggling and huffing in frustration so I go to help her, only to realize that the reason she’s struggling is because it’s last year’s swimsuit and shock of all shocks, she’s grown.

“We’ll have to make this one work for now. We can go shopping for new swimsuits soon, okay?”

“It hurts my shoulders,” she whimpers.

I feel like a jerk and hate seeing her in pain. “We don’t have to go to the lake today.”

“No!” she cries, lower lip trembling. Shit. She only cries if she’s hurt — worse than swimsuit straps being too tight — or if she’s feeling overwhelmed with missing her mom. She’s only been here once without her mom, and that was when she came for a few hours with her grandma and grandpa.

“You okay, Emmy?”

She stays quiet, sucking on her bottom lip.

“Emmy?” I place a hand on her cheek after crouching in front of her, sitting up on my knees.

“I miss Mommy,” she says so quietly I barely hear her but it’s unmistakable. I knew it would be coming, sooner or later, and I suspect the sting of missing her mother will never be gone. Hearing her say it, though, breaks my heart in two. My nose stings and I fight back my own tears when I see hers start to fall. I don’t cry easily, but seeing my daughter in pain, either physically or emotionally, brings me to my knees. Every single time.

“I do, too,” I admit. I decided long ago that I’d never lie to her. If I was feeling the hurt of missing her mom, or anger, which happens to stay present most of the time, I would be honest with her about it. How can she move forward and heal if I’m not truthful about feeling the same way? It’s normal for her to experience that emotion, and I’ll be damned if I make her feel bad for that.

Rather than tell her it’ll be okay, I let her cry for several minutes, holding her on my lap after shifting to sit in front of her. I let her tears soak into my chest and rub her back, reminding her how much I love her and holding her tightly. If I could take away all her pain, I would. Even if it meant I’d be miserable forever. I hate seeing her sad but I know it’s part of it, too. Emmy’s pain is why I have to fight against the anger I feel for Katherine. “It’s okay to miss her. And think about her. Should we talk about her more?”

“We talk about her a lot.” We do. I have made sure of it. I don’t want her forgetting Katherine.

“She would have had a new swimsuit for you, huh?” She nods and sniffles. “Dad fail,” I joke and she gives me a sad smile. “You want to go pick out a new one now? Or should we wait and bring Grandma with us?”

“Wait for Grandma.” I don’t allow her wanting to do that shopping adventure with grandma rather than alone with me sting. I’m glad she tells me what she wants and that she wants her grandma included in that.

“Okay, well, what should we do?”

Just then my phone buzzes in my hand. I turn it over and see a text from my mom.

Mom:I forgot to tell you I put a couple new swimsuits in Emmy’s dresser. Figured she could keep them at the cabin for the summer.

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