The woman laughed. “Jenny Donald. I’ll email you a set of paperwork to fill out. Normally, Cathy at our district offices would handle that, but she went to Spain with Ms. Fern, too. Guess who encouraged her to go along?”
I laughed lightly. “Thank you, Jenny. I really appreciate the opportunity.”
After saying our goodbyes, I hung up and slipped my phone into my purse before resting my head on the steering wheel. I was going to have a job. A teaching job.
“You already have a job, Mom.” One glance at Birdie told me she’d heard Jenny’s side of the conversation. “You work with Beck.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as my short-lived relief flew right out the window. “Working for Beck isn’t supposed to be what I do forever, Birdie. I want to teach art. Like I did at Stand.”
“You’re leaving Beck.”
My hand went to my stomach automatically. I was never leaving Beck. “I’m going to teach again. It’s okay, Birdie.”
“It’s not okay! You’re ruining everything!” She kicked her legs out and slammed her little arms across her chest. “You’re just doing what you want! You don’t even care what I want!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a terrible headache forming. “I’m doing what’s best for us.”
“I want to go to Grandma’s. I don’t want to go home with you.”
It was the final nail in my coffin. I’d tried to hold myself together, but I was losing the guys and the kids, I was hurting Birdie and making her hate me, and I was going to have another baby, all by myself. I cried as I drove straight to Mom’s.
When we parked, Birdie ran straight inside, but I moved slower, my eyes blurred with tears. Mom met me at the door and gasped when she saw me. Instead of asking questions, she pulled me into her arms and held me as I cried for what felt like weeks. I never said a word, but I felt like she knew what was wrong. She just held me and caressed my hair while telling me that everything would be fine.
I couldn’t believe her.
47
Winnie
Ididn’tgohomethat night. I slept in my mom’s bed while she brushed my hair out of my face and did her best to comfort me. Birdie came in at some point and crawled into my arms, but as soon as I stirred the next morning, she hurried away, clearly still angry. I picked at the breakfast Mom cooked and then spent the day sitting around in her bedroom, wandering in and out of Dad’s closet.
I wrapped myself in his clothes, but I realized Mom was right. They smelled too much like me. I’d ruined them. No matter which shirt I held to my face, I could only get a faint hint of Dad. I grabbed handfuls of them and buried my face in them, inhaling until I was lightheaded, but it was like he was fading right in front of me.
Mom found me sitting on the closet floor, wrapped in Dad’s clothes, sobbing. Crawling in with me, she had to bend the hoop of her futuristic mini-skirt to get it inside. “Baby girl, talk to me.”
“They don’t smell like him anymore. They smelled like him just a few days ago, and now they don’t. I don’t understand.”
She grasped both of my hands and shook her head. “They haven’t smelled like your father for years, honey.”
I choked back a sob and frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”
“I always figured it was your dad working the last little bit of his magic for you. You needed him, and he was there for you.”
I clung to his clothes. “I need him now!”
She smiled. “No, you don’t. You just think you do, but maybe your dad knows something you don’t. Maybe he knows that you have other strong men ready and willing to be there for you.”“No, they’re not ready. They don’t want another serious relationship.” I wiped my face and shook my head. “There’s no magic or curses or happily-ever-after for me. The closet must have a hole or something. Did you leave the door open?”
“Baby cakes, for men who don’t want a serious relationship, they sure have been bothering me a lot to check on you.” She smiled a slow smile at me, one that said she thought I was being dumb. “For men who aren’t interested in forever, they sure stopped by multiple times. They even took Birdie with the other kids for ice cream.”
“Birdie isn’t here?” I buried my face in my hands and groaned. “I’m a terrible mother. I’m nothing like you, Mom. I let her get close to them. I let her feel what it could be like to have a father. I knew it wasn’t real, and I led her right into heartache.”
“I tried to leave your father once.”
I sat up straight and glared at my mother. “What are you talking about?”
She pulled one of Dad’s shirts down and wrapped herself in it. “You were three. He was working all the time, and I thought he wasn’t interested in me anymore. The spark wasn’t there. I was still so madly in love with him, but the thought of him not loving me back nearly killed me. I packed our bags, and I was walking out the door when he came home.”
I clutched at my chest, unable to imagine her ever trying to walk away from Dad. “What did he do?”