“She’s been listening to the soundtrack,” Winnie whispered into my ear, pulling my attention back to her for the first time in several minutes.
Guilt flashed, hot and uneasy in my gut, as I realized I didn’t really know how to balance the time between mother and daughter. Frankly, I felt a little like a fish out of water. Entertaining one woman for a night was easy—trying to meet the needs of two very different, drastically oppositely aged women at once was another thing altogether.
But Winnie didn’t let it linger, leaning over to speak softly again. “Watching you with her…” She paused, but the silence was substantial—purposeful.
Tonight, she saw me—saw us—for what we really were. Meaningful, romantic, enduring kismet. Weight lifted off of my chest, and warmth quickly replaced it. “Thank you for tonight.”
“No,” I refuted with a shake of my head and a small kiss to her lips. “Thank you.”
Lex’s eyes were wide and watchful as a swath of green light cast a glow on her sweet face.
Her focus, as always with something she was truly interested in, was avid, and each word Elphaba spoke seemed to soak right in through her skin. Like it was becoming a part of her, I knew Lexi would carry every bit of dialogue, every moment created by the lighting and cast and heart-freezing music, through the entirety of her life.
Right then, as her little but meaningful hand reached out to rest on the fabric at my arm, it felt like I would carry it through mine too.
Elphaba’s otherworldly voice made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up as she sang about her differences and her peers’ refusal to accept them. Her life had been horrible, outcast, and burdened with the weight of her father’s jealousy thanks to the color of her skin.
It was so relatable, the story they’d created here, and eye-opening to the power of perspective. Two tales of the Wicked and Good, so powerfully interwoven that it was hard to tell what was true and what wasn’t. But the truth of tonight was that Elphaba, no matter her supposed dissimilarities, wanted the things all people wanted: love, tolerance, and understanding. Lexi had never truly felt those things outside of her family, but she had mastered the art of disregard for such trivialities.
Or so I’d thought.
Now I could see I was wrong to assume that the hurt didn’t penetrate, that the whispers weren’t heard as the set of her shoulders so clearly indicated her burden and the weight.
I shook my head and clenched my jaw against the overwhelming surge of raw emotion.
My little Lex heard everything and remembered it even more, and all the intelligence in the world couldn’t keep her pale white skin from sometimes seeming painfully green.
I’d never shed a tear in my life, but right then, when all the special, amazing things Lexi Winslow was intersected with all the stupid, expected things she would never be, I couldn’t have stopped the tiny trickle of emotion if I’d tried.
As she watched them on stage, I watched her. Winnie sat silently on my other side, the small catches in her breath exactly what I needed to watch her too—without having to take my eyes off of Lex.
Because I’d spent months falling into the trap of Lexi Winslow’s mother, but right then, with some of the most powerful voices on the planet ringing out in front of us, I fell deep into her warm little well.
She was everything I’d never expected from a child—both easier and more difficult, affectionless in a lot of the ways I expected, but much, much better in all the others I could not have predicted if I’d had a crystal ball.
When the final notes of the final song echoed in the auditorium, Lexi looked up to me. I held her eyes through the applause that so often made her uncomfortable, and I pictured it in her eyes. The pounding in your chest and the assault on your ears—everything that would be way too much if I’d had the intellectual capacity to notice each individual sound and action as a separate entity—the way her brain saw the world.
The song had moved her. The fact that she viewed me as a venue of safety and acceptance impassioned me.
And, after months of getting here, I was officially in love—with our newly formed “we.”
Wes: What field are you at?
Me: #4
Wes: On my way. How’s Lex? Is she nervous?
Me: I think I’m nervous and she’s excited. :/
Wes: She’s going to do great. Tell her I’m 3 minutes away.
Me: Is that an exact time estimation?
Wes: What do you take me for? A novice? This is Lexi Winslow we’re talking about here, sweetheart, and I know my girl.
My girl. Jesus. He’d pulled the pin, and my ovaries were just about ready to blow.
Me: lol…Right.
I slid my phone into my pocket and felt a little hand tug at the bottom of my sweater. Lexi stared up at me with the calm of a girl who loved pattern and knew this one well. We’d been here before, several times, in fact, since she took up playing football midseason. But as much as she loved routine, I loved her more, and it was never quite so easy for a mother to let go.
“Wes, Mommy?”
“He will be here in three minutes, sweetie.”
“Time, Mommy?”
I glanced at my watch. “Five fifty-seven.”
She nodded. “Six o’clock.”
“That’s right, baby,” I said, and my hand instinctively went to run through her blond locks, but stopped when it met the cold, hard material of her football helmet.
God, she always looked adorable all suited up and ready to play football.
My little kicker.
It took all of my strength not to burst into tears on the spot.
Motherhood changed you from the second you looked into the big, innocent eyes of your child. Within an instant, you had an unlimited supply of love for that precious, tiny being. They would forever be yours, and you would forever be the one person who would always love them, protect them, cherish them, worry about them, and fight for them.
Everything else felt minor in comparison.
It was a different kind of love. The kind of love that had me bursting into tears over something as simple as my daughter in a football uniform.
I was just so proud of her. So unbelievably proud of her. She’d overcome so much. We both had.
“Wes!” she exclaimed. My gaze followed hers, locking in on the man who’d helped both of us get to this point. I’d never, in my wildest dreams, expected it to last. But it had—and it seemed like it might go on forever.
New Year’s had been quiet. Just the three of us in my house with a fire and movies and laughter.
And then, once Lex had gone to bed, some of the best sex I’d ever had. His back to the headboard while I straddled him, breaths mingling and thighs shaking with the effort to keep moving, we’d rung in the new year completely connected, in both mind and body.
He’d traced the line of my lips with the tip of his tongue before sinking it deep into my mouth for as long as we could stand without coming up for air, and then, both of our orgasms receding slowly into the night, he’d looked me in the eye and told me he’d never been happier in his life. Me and Lex and everything we gave him, he couldn’t wait to give it back for the next year and then some.
I could still taste the tears that I’d choked down the back of my throat at the sentimentality in his words.
And, unfortunately, I could also feel a sour roil in my gut because not one of them had been “I love you.”
“Lexi girl. Looking fierce!” he responded just as enthusiastically, a giant, proud grin etched across his handsome face, and I felt instantly guilty about having even an ounce of lingering doubt. I had this, and I wanted to lament over three stupid words? It was goddamn ridiculous.
The second he reached us, he lifted her up into the air so that she was eye-level with him. Her little cleats dangled off the ground, and she giggled.
“You ready to show these boys how you really kick a field goal?”
She nodded and her uninhibited laughter rang out into the open space again.
I felt a tingle all the way down to my toes.
He set her back down and came over to stand beside me, wrapping his arm around my waist and tucking me into his side. He kissed the side of my forehead and whispered into my ear, “Don’t worry, Mommy. She’s got all of the proper protective equipment. She won’t get hurt, and she’s done this before.
“In fact, she freaking crushed the Brooklyn Boys last week.” He glanced down to Lex’s upturned face and gave her the sweetest tap on the shoulder. “Didn’t you, Lexinator?”
She nodded enthusiastically and danced from one foot to the other. When the five-minute warning whistle blew on the field and Lexi turned to look, I lowered my voice and asked out of the side of my mouth, “Am I that obvious?”
Wes glanced down at me and grinned.
“Man, I thought I was really doing a good job holding it together. Five games deep, I thought I’d have it in check by now.”
He laughed and shook me lovingly side to side before stepping away to look me in the eye. “To the untrained eye, you’re holding your shi—stuff together perfectly. It’s just me who can tell, and ironically, that’s because of your tell.”
I raised my eyebrows. “A tell?”
He nodded. “You bite your lip when you’re uncertain or worried about something.”