Page 33 of Molly
“So they weren’t getting married?” Chloe tilted her head.
She thought mating was the same as marriage? I could work with that. But I should have predicted what came next.
“Yes,” I said in unison to Molly’s “No.”
Chloe looked between us. “You guys are weird. Can we go to the playground now?”
“Yes!” Molly wasn’t going to jump in with a contradictory answer this time. I mean, I knew she had that whole honesty policy thing, but was she really going to explain pinniped copulation to my four-year-old?
We walked in relative silence to the playground, letting the seagulls and the sound of the ocean fill the silence between us. When the brown-and-blue play structure came into view, Chloe let go of my hand and raced toward it. A three-foot chasm spread between Molly and me. One which neither of us inched to close.
She kept her hands behind her back as we toed the concrete perimeter around the playground. I peeked at her profile. Slightly upturned nose at the end, soft chin, cheek bones somewhere in the middle of well-defined and fragile. I got that she didn’t want to lie. Honesty was a good trait to have. But rigid candor? No matter the consequences?
“Why?” Brain and mouth cooperated to say the question echoing around inside my head.
She turned toward me. “Why what?”
“Why do you always, no matter what, tell the truth? Were you really going to explain to Chloe what mating is?” I willed her to say no. That she would have left something like reproduction up to me, the father, to decide when, where, and how to have that sort of conversation. But then again, she had explained the usage of a tampon to a kid at Chloe’s school. I’m wasn’t so sure I supported that decision any longer now that the uncomfortable conversation had come knocking at my door.
A resigned sigh made her shoulders collapse, and she rubbed above her eyebrow. “Is this where you fire me?”
My chest spasmed. “What?” I caught sight of Chloe’s hot pink shirt at the top of the slide, then turned to give Molly my full attention. “No.” More forcefully. “No, I am not going to fire you. I can’t believe you’d even think that.” A hollowness emptied in the pit of my stomach. Like on those rides at amusement parks where the floor got yanked from under your feet. Why did people like those?
Nausea rolled at the idea of Molly no longer being in Chloe’s or my lives. The sun had only begun to shine and the fog to recede. The sudden brightness may have startled me, but I didn’t want to go back to a shroud of gray either. “I’m not firing you.” I’d said it three times already, but I’d keep saying it until she believed me.
The worry eased from her face. “Ok. Good.”
“Good.” I repeated. One second. Two.
Nope. The question wasn’t going away. It had to be asked. “But I still want to know the reasoning behind your bold honesty.”
“Does truthfulness need a justification?” She returned Chloe’s wave before my daughter sped down the slide.
“What about white lies?” I pressed, even though I was pretty sure of the answer. “To spare someone’s feelings.”
She gave me a wounded look. “I’d never hurt someone’s feelings on purpose.”
All her friends had probably learned never to ask her if an outfit made them look fat.
“But…” Nope, my mind wouldn’t let this go. “But why?”
She smirked at me. “You sound like Chloe with all your whys.”
I leaned forward. “Persistence pays off.”
She watched Chloe race from the slides to the swings. Her chest rose then fell. When she looked back at me, acceptance glistened in her eyes. “My parents.”
Didn’t know what I expected, but it hadn’t been that. “Did they drill the honesty thing into you, or did they lie to you all the time?”
She averted her gaze.
I gripped her elbow. Jostled it a little. “What? I’ve already done my rounds in psych.”
Her eyes rolled, but she smiled. “Neither technically. Unless you count omission a lie.”
I considered that. “I guess it can be at times.”
She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. “You already know my dad’s in the Navy. Goes without saying that we moved around a lot.”
