“It’s okay, Dan. You don’t need to explain anything to me. I could just see that it was making you uncomfortable.”
She nodded, silently casting her eyes back to Axel who was climbing up the little slide.
“It’s hard sometimes,” her voice was so soft I had to lean toward her. Her eyes were glued on Axel but her eyes had a distant stare in them. “I want to be that superwoman single mom who can do it all and hold it together but some days I feel like I’m on the brink of crumbling. But I can’t afford to unravel. I don’t get to unravel.” A singular tear fell from her eyes before she brushed it away harshly.
I hated the pain in her voice. I wanted to reach over and hold her but I stopped myself.
She tired like the rest of us in this world. There were so many expectations placed on us. People didn’t understand that unravelling was a privilege that not many, like Danny, had. There were eyes on her and looking to her to be the warrior. I knew the struggle all too well but one thing I had learnt was that when someone didn’t unravel and be present with their pain bitterness and anger poisoned the heart and turned it to stone.
I had noticed that it was only when she was looking at her son did I see her eyes come alive. The rest of the time she just walked around like a programmed robot.
“It must be nice,” she said distantly.
“What?”
She looked a little startled, probably not releasing that she had said something out loud. “Sorry, I was just thinking out loud.”
“No, go on. I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.”
“I was just thinking about how nice it must be to have a child’s mind. You get to dream whatever you want. You get to see the world through untainted eyes. You get to be free.”
I had thought the same thing.
“Do you sometimes feel trapped? Like you are living in a prison?”
She nodded softly. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my family and I love this town, but some days, I wonder if there was ever more for me out there. Sometimes, I feel like I settled in life. I wish I had taken the risk and gone out into the world and not played it safe.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the packet of sour gummies and placed them on the table. Danny’s somber eyes looked at the packet and the sides of her lips tilted upward into a small smile.
Her eyes snapped back up to me. “Sour gummies?”
I shrugged. “They always used to work when we were kids and, hopefully, they still work now as adults.”
She stared at me for a moment, something coming over her eyes. “You remembered that?”
“Of course, I remembered. I was the one who used to buy them for you, Dan.”
She broke eye contact and looked back at the packet once more. “I remember. And we would sit in the backyard in that tiny little tree house at the back of your parents’ house.”
Her eyes grew distant as her mind transported her somewhere far away. “It was my safe place.”
“Mine, too.” I had this urge to reach out touch and her, but I refrained. It wasn’t time yet.
She came back to reality and grabbed the small packet of gummies. For the first time since I started working with her, I saw a small spark light her eyes. It was a small little glimmer, but it was there.
“Thank you.” Her voice was soft and sincere. I couldn’t help the feeling of pride that flooded my chest. I had done that for her. I had been able to help bring that back into her eyes.
“You don’t need to thank me. Your smile does it for me.”
“Did you like LA?”
I looked away from her gaze for a moment. “I loved LA. It will always be like home to me, but it grew suffocating after a while. I felt like I was drowning, and I had water in my lungs. So I decided to come back here.”
It wasn’t a total lie, but it also wasn’t the whole truth. I didn’t really want to get in to the nitty gritty of true reason for coming home.
I turned my gaze back to her. There was a glint in her eyes that had my heart pounding frantically in my chest. She still had that heart hammering effect on me.
“Were you happy? With the choices you made?“