I feel pretty guilty that I had to lie to Kiki to avoid seeing Griffin and Waylon, but a whole lot more relieved that I got away with it.
Either way, today was too close—way too close. I could have walked into that Thanksgiving party blind. And who knew how that monster would have reacted when he saw O2….
Memories of the New Year’s Eve when I found out who Griff truly was rise in the back of my mind. Shadows chilling me to the bone.
“Is that Auntie Kyra? She all better?” O2 asks as we walk out of the bathroom.
The worried expression on her little face twists my insides with even more guilt.
A fresh wave of hate washes over me for G-Latham. I hate lying to her. But since her father’s basically the devil incarnate, it’s a necessary evil.
But it’s not O2’s fault I picked the wrong guy to lose my mind with, so I force a smile and tell her, “Yes, Aunt Kyra’s feeling a lot better.”
“Can we go to her big house tomorrow?”
I cringe. Kiki hadn’t said if Waylon would be staying overnight. And besides, I still hadn’t come up with a good way to explain to my cousin why I lied to her about O2 being sick.
So… “I’m sorry, but no, sugar pie,” I tell my secret daughter as I pull back the covers to tuck her into bed. “But tell you what, tomorrow I’ll take you to the zoo. You love that place.”
“The zoo’s boring!” O2’s face goes a little whiny. “I want to go to the Opry again and sing on stage, like last summer with Uncle Colin.”
I have to resist the urge to roll my eyes as I tuck her into the hotel bed. Only O2 would consider a tour of the Grand Ole Opry, with a few minutes to belt out whatever she wanted on stage, better than a trip to the zoo.
“I don’t think there’s going to be tour slots left this last minute,” I answer, grabbing our worn-out copy of Dragons Love Tacos before I climb in on the other side of the hotel bed. “And I’m pretty sure Uncle Colin pulled some behind-the-scenes strings to get all you kids a turn on stage. I don’t have that kind of juice.”
I can tell O2’s fighting tears now. “I wish you had juice. I wish they didn’t have to get sick. This vacation’s no fun now. It’s boring! Just like you!”
O2’s been on an “everything’s boring” kick for a while now. And if we were back in New York, she’d be getting a stern talking-to about how I’m not made out of money and it not being my job to entertain her little entitled behind.
But tonight, all I feel is guilty. Instead of chastising her, I pull her into my arms for some motherly comfort. “Oh, sugar pie….I know you’re frustrated about it now. But you want your mom to be boring. Me being boring is what keeps us stable, with food on the table and a roof over our heads. Trust me, it’s good to be boring.”
O2 does not trust me.
I’m treated to a rant about how she wishes we could live here in Nashville in Aunt Kyra’s big house and with all her cousins running around. It’s so lonely and boring in New York, she tells me. Then, because three year olds have zero ability to read the room, she interrupts me in the middle of Dragons Love Tacos to tell me her own made-up story.
It involves her going on a tour of the Opry and running into a famous music star who asks her to come on stage with him when he sees how good she can sing. Then it turns out—big twist—he’s her father!
My stomach turns into a vat of acid when she says that. This isn’t the first time O2’s made up a story about her father. But usually, he’s an astronaut or a pirate and once—in a pretty blatant rip-off of her favorite book—a dragon who loved tacos so much, he’d dedicated his life to hunting them all over the world.
But this is the first time she’s cast him as a music star. Talk about too close. Before she can finish, I pointedly reopen Dragons Love Tacos and insist we read the rest of a story somebody else made up.
I do not feel good about myself as a mother by the time she finally closes her eyes, and I switch off the light to go to sleep myself.
Yes, it’s good to be boring. But I’m not sure O2’s ever going to be able to accept that like I have. She doesn’t know how big the world can be. How cruel some people can be.
But anyway…
We go to the Opryland theme park the next day, then fly back to New York as planned on Sunday. And late that night, I get an unexpected text from Allie.