“Sure, sure,” she agreed while I was still wondering why Jonah had been whispering. “Let me get that from you, and Lenny, I’ll need you to sign a form stating that you’re giving permission to do this….” She trailed off an explanation that I mostly listened to as I watched Jonah fish his license out of his worn, slim wallet and hand it over.
Ten minutes later, Rachel was buzzing us through the door after making us squirt hand sanitizer on our hands. The doorway would lead into the main part of the building where the kids were split up. Grandpa Gus and I had picked this exact daycare because they focused on babies. There were eight kids in Mo’s “class,” which, as of two months ago, consisted of the six-month-olds and up. There was another class with the really young ones, six weeks to two months. Three months to six. A fourth class had one-year-olds to two-year-olds. It was small, clean, and pretty exclusive because of the size of their groups. Plus, they had an app that let us see what she was doing via cameras in the rooms the kids were in.
If it hadn’t been for Grandpa Gus pulling out the big guns and winking and over-the-top flirting with Rachel, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have accepted us.
Then I’d seen their rates and wished they hadn’t.
Jonah followed me in, his head swinging around the room we had been let into, a room with the one to two-year-olds. A teacher and an assistant were busy collecting toys.
“One more room over,” I told him.
“You said she comes twice a week?”
I pushed open the Dutch door that led into Mo’s room. “Yeah, but on the same days every week.” It was the only time they had been able to fit us in around the other kids’ schedules.
“So your granddad can have a break?”
“No, to spend some time with other kids. He’d keep her all the time if I asked, but I don’t want to put that on him. It gives him time to do the things he likes that he hadn’t before.” Oooh, I could see Mo already on a mat made up of individual squares with letters on each by herself, with a set of what looked like stackable, colorful cups. “Being an only child, not having any kids to play with, sucks sometimes. And I want her to know how to share.”
“Know from experience?”
“You’re damn right I do.” I smiled as I lifted a hand toward Mo’s teacher a moment before dropping to my knees beside my girl, soaking up her cheery shrieks of babble when I ducked my head into her vision as she reached her arms toward me.
“I’m so happy to see you too, booger,” I told her. My heart swelled so big, I was pretty sure it might explode. Words flew out of my mouth as I kissed her cheeks. Hi and Iloveyousomuch and Imissedyousomuch and Howwasschool? Her reply was to pull on my hair that had fallen out of my ponytail and landed on her face.
And it was then after all those words that I sat back on my heels to give Jonah room. Jonah had crouched down beside us at some point, elbows tucked into his sides. His eyes flicked from me to Mo and back again, and the smile that came over his face was more genuine than I ever could have hoped for. Slow and steady, and so white and bright and earnest, I felt bad for regretting there for a while that it was him I had created her with.
He wasn’t a bad guy, for the most part. He was still a little bit of an asshole for what he’d done to me, even if I did understand I’d been the last thing on his mind when he’d thought he’d lost his true love. But there was hope for him, at least where Mo was concerned.
That was enough.
“Hello, Mo,” he said quietly, reaching one of those big hands out, letting those small fingers wrap around one of his.
“Say hi to your dad, da-da-da,” I told her, holding the toes of a foot covered in a soft-soled shoe.
The smile on Jonah’s face grew brighter but more wistful too. His throat bobbed. “How’s my wee girl?” he asked, reaching across with his other hand to touch what I knew was the softest little cheek. Then he did the same to the other one with a deep, deep sigh.
I totally knew where the hell he was coming from with that sigh.
Maybe he didn’t love her yet, but I could tell the possibility of it was there. It would be no time. With those big brown eyes and that gummy grin and the soft skin and all that fucking potential she had in her tiny little bones… Mo gave me hope that I didn’t know I was capable of. Hope for… life. Or something. She had her whole life ahead of her. She could do anything.
“Is this normal?” Jonah asked quietly.
“What?” I was pretty sure I knew what he was referring to, but I wanted to make sure.
Two shiny light brown eyes moved to me before moving back down to Mo, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Is it normal to think she’s awesome? I think so. I remember they put her into my arms, and the first thing I told my grandpa was that I didn’t know I could love someone I’d just met so much.” I touched the growing foot again. Even thinking about that swell of emotion almost a year later, still felt like a miracle. It had been, and was, the most unexpected thing I had ever felt.
I felt his sigh.
“As soon as you told me she was mine… my daughter… something happened. I don’t know how to explain it. The more I see her, the more….” He exhaled again, and somehow it came out thoughtful. “It’s strange and wonderful to think she’s mine. This person who has no idea who I am yet.” His free fingers touched her other foot. “But she will. She’ll know she’s mine. She’ll never doubt it.”
I watched some big emotion swallow his features, staining them pink again. An emotion I wasn’t sure I was capable of handling or interpreting. But I knew what I thought of it.
I understood how it made me feel.
Protective of him too. This big man with his quiet voice and infinite patience. Someone who felt the weight of a life on his heart and wasn’t trying to run away from it. But had instead instantly stepped into it.
I wasn’t sure how we were going to make this work. Wasn’t sure how often he would really be able to see her. But I knew he would, and I knew we would find a way. Something told me he would see her every second he could.
Jonah Hema Collins was no deadbeat.
Those honey-colored eyes flicked to me for a moment at the end of my thoughts, and the open vulnerability in them shot straight into my heart. “She’ll know, won’t she?”
A frog magically appeared in my throat, and there was no way I could ever lie to him about that answer. “Yeah. She will, Jonah. She’ll know. We’ll make sure.”
The last thing I expected was the hand that moved from a small cheek to the hand I had resting on the top of my thigh. Warm, rough fingers slid over my own like it was totally normal. I’d remember the next words out of his mouth every day of my life. I would remember them each time I thought I had no idea what I was doing being a mom. Jonah Collins squeezed my hand. That muscular shoulder rolled upward, and he said, in a rough voice, gripping my fingers tight, “What a gift you’ve given me, Lenny.”
Chapter 12
1:55 p.m.
Wow, seriously.
Wow: Three months now?
TEXT ME BACK.
It’s really important, dipshit.
Your voice mailbox is still full.