Page 19 of The Infiniteness of Yesterday
He utters my name, but the click of the door shutting is my way of saying I don’t want to talk anymore.
It’s Roe’s bedtime and I move the mountains of pillows on her bed onto the floor, then turn her covers back. Like the hurricane she is, she tears into the room in her pale blue Princess Elsa pajamas and jumps on the bed with her ‘snuggy’, a stuffed sloth she affectionately refers to as Mr. Kitty. When she was a toddler, she could not be told otherwise that Mr. Kitty was a sloth, not a cat, and at this point the name has stuck.
I pull the covers over her and point to the pink bookshelf in the corner. “Which book do you want tonight?”
She smiles, wiggling around to get comfy. “The otter one.”
I shouldn’t be surprised at this point. It’s her favorite and she requests it a few times a week. I pluck it off from the top shelf in its prized spot and carry it over, climbing into bed beside her.
It’s just the two of us tonight. Jameson has an early morning meeting in L.A. and even though mileage wise it’s not far, time wise it’s a world away. Only in L.A. can you spend over an hour in traffic and still get nowhere.
Monroe scoots her body as close to mine as possible, resting her head on my shoulder. The scent of her strawberry banana shampoo fills my nostrils from her still damp hair.
I close my eyes, soaking in the feeling of her small body against mine. She’s growing up way too fast. I might not have been ready to become a mom at seventeen, but it happened, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Monroe is my entire world.
“I missed you, Mom,” she says suddenly, taking me by surprise.
I tip my head down. “You did?”
“Of course,” she scoffs in dramatic fashion. “I always miss you when I’m with Daddy, just like I miss Daddy when I’m with you.”
My heart fractures at her words.
Monroe doesn’t remember a time when her dad and I were together, and I hate that for her. I wish she had some kind of good memories of the three of us as a family.
She looks up at me with her ocean eyes. “Why don’t you and Daddy love each other anymore? Other parents love each other, but not you guys.”
Fuck, my daughter has taken a battering ram to my heart and smashed it to smithereens.
How do you explain to a six-year-old why your relationship with their father didn’t work out?
“Your dad and I still love each other,” I assure her, setting the book aside so I can wrap my arms around her small body. “How could I not love him? He gave me you.” I tickle her and she giggles. “But it’s a different kind of love.”
She rubs her pink lips together, the gears turning in her curious brain. “Different how? Like Jacob who has two daddies?”
A soft laugh bubbles out of my throat as I stroke my finger through her hair. “No, baby, a bit different than that.”
“Tell me.”
I inhale a deep, steadying breath, trying to think of the best way to explain this to my young child.
“There are all kinds of love in the world, Roe. There’s the love you feel for your family. Another kind of love for friends. Then there’s the kind of love you feel for one person and one person only, but sometimes timing, circumstances, just … life … can turn that love into a bad thing. Sometimes you love someone so much, but you have to let them go anyway.” Tears prick my eyes. Even though it’s been years, I’ll never forget the pain of our breakup. Breaking Spencer’s heart was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I had to protect myself and our daughter.
“Did you let Daddy go?”
I bite my lip hard to hold back a sob. “I did.”
“So, you love Jae the way you used to love Daddy?”
“Um, yes and no. Love is different with every single person, but yes, I love Jameson in a romantic way, the way I used to love Daddy.”
She presses further. “You and Daddy are just friends now?”
I close my eyes, thinking back to my last moment of weakness two years ago, only a few months before I met Jameson, where Spencer and I fell into bed together again. It only happened a handful of times before I put a stop to it. My heart couldn’t take it. The heart is a resilient organ, but it’s not impenetrable.
“Yeah, baby.” I snuggle her closer. “We’re just friends now.”
I kiss the top of her head, take a cleansing breath, and start to read her book aloud.
