“You know me?”
“Easton couldn’t stop talking about you,” she tells her.
“Oh, yeah, he loves me.” She says it so nonchalantly you have to smile.
“You ready for the game?” Carol asks her.
“Yep. My East is gonna win,” Paisley tells her.
“Sorry,” I tell Carol. “She’s quite taken with him.”
“Is she the only one?” Carol smiles coyly. “Sorry, I’m overstepping, but I’ve known him for a while now, and he’s quite smitten.”
“He’s not the only one,” I admit, just as we’re instructed to rise for the national anthem. Once the players are announced and the first pitch is thrown, Paisley bounces in her seat, cheering for Easton and the Blaze.
At the beginning of the seventh innings, my daughter turns to me with a serious expression on her face. “Mommy, can East be my daddy?”
I freeze at her question, not knowing how to answer her. Carol catches my eyes and gives me a warm smile, letting me know she heard her. “Sweetheart, it’s not that simple.”
“But he loves us, and that’s what daddies do. They love you and your mommy.”
My sweet girl. “That’s true, but those kinds of things take time. Your biological daddy is in heaven, so that makes things not so easy.”
“Sure it is. I’m gonna ask him.”
I don’t know what else to say, so I leave it alone. It’s not until the bottom of the ninth, when East is standing just outside the dugout where we have a clear view, that I realize leaving it alone wasn’t the best way to handle it. Not when Paisley stands up in her chair and screams his name. He turns to face us, a smile spread wide across his face. I’ll give him credit, it doesn’t falter when she screams, “Will you be my daddy?”
The crowd around us falls to a hush while my daughter stands on her chair, hands on her hips, waiting for his answer. He blows her a kiss because he’s up to bat. I expect her to freak out, but she doesn’t. She sits back down and looks over at me. “Told you he loved us,” she says, then goes back to watching the game.
The crowd picks back up as if the scene never happened, and I breathe a sigh of relief, that is until the mean girls behind us start running their mouths.
“What kind of mother lets her kid think that Easton Monroe could be her father?”
“Pathetic.”
“She needs to teach her about life.”
On and on they spew hate.
“Like he would ever take them on,” one of them sneers. “Like he wants a ready-made family. As if.”
Paisley whips around and points her little finger. “My East says speak from your heart. Your heart is not very nice. He loves us. My Easton, me, and my mommy are a family,” she tells them.
I was hoping she hadn’t heard them. To prevent a bigger spectacle and cause problems for East, I gather our stuff, pick Paisley up, and we leave. We’re only missing half of the last innings, and she doesn’t need to hear this shit. I want to go off on them, but I’m trying to set an example for my daughter, and I don’t want to embarrass East more than we already have. I’m sure he’s going to regret asking us to the game.
Instead of sticking around, I send him a text.
Me: Hey, heading out early. You had a great game. Call me when you get home.
I get Paisley, who is crying big fat crocodile tears, in the car and calmed down before leaving the stadium. She falls asleep on the way home, which is a good thing. I need time to process what just happened. I carry P to her room, pulling off her shoes and shutting her bedroom door.
I’m too fired up to sit, so I find myself pacing back and forth. The more I think about what happened, the more upset I get. They can talk shit about me, but about my daughter with her sitting right there…. What kind of mother am I that I didn’t go off on them? I didn’t defend my baby. I think I was in shock that they would say those things knowing I could hear them. Paisley was so engrossed in the game, I assumed she didn’t. That’s what I get for assuming.
Hot tears prick my eyes. My cell rings, and I see his name flash on my screen. I can’t answer. As soon as I hear his voice, I’ll lose my barely-there grip on my emotions. Instead, I send him to voice mail. The anger swirls at the pain of seeing Paisley’s tears and thinking of the way she defended him, defended us, and I did nothing.
Thirty minutes later, I’m still pacing and still mad at myself for just rushing out of there, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. I go back and forth from it being the right answer to being a coward. I’m a mess.
When a strong knock sounds at the door, I know it’s him. Sucking in a deep breath, I make my way to the door. As soon as I pull it open and I see him, I lose it, and the tears rush down my face.