The reason I’m holding Cory off, even for just five minutes more, is so I can have time to think this through.
I collapse into one of two chairs at my tiny dining room table. Lizzie’s school books are stacked in the middle, with odd bits of paper sticking out. At least it seems that even if she tricked Becca into letting her wear her bunny onesie, she at least had the good sense to finish her homework.
“So, this is where you live?” Cory asks, looking around. The same nervous energy that has caused me to fall into a chair after this eventful night keeps Cory standing, looking like he’s just downed a whole pot of coffee.
“You should have seen it when we moved in,” I say, glad for the distraction, even if that distraction is our modest house. “There was family of raccoons living in the attic and a wasp nest the size of your head just under the eave outside this door. We got it cheap, but it's been two years of weekend projects to get it looking like this.”
Two bedrooms. One bath. A kitchen with an attached dining room. All centered around a living room with its original wood flooring, even if it does creak like you’re going to fall through with each footstep. It might be tiny and unimpressive, and the yard might be a bit overgrown because I haven’t gotten around to cutting the grass in a few weeks, but it’s mine. The culmination of years of scrimping and working two jobs until I lucked into my current position.
This house is a testament to my grit. I got dealt a difficult hand ending up pregnant at eighteen with the father nowhere to be found. But I clawed my way into a comfortable life, both for me and for Lizzie.
And in one night, Cory is upheaving this little kingdom I built. Even if I don’t take him up on his offer to star in his movie, the moment he enters Lizzie’s life is the moment everything shifts. She won’t be 100% mine anymore. I’ll have to share her, and I’m just not sure if I’m prepared to do that.
“You know,” Cory says, his voice nostalgic. “All this time I thought I had it the hardest. As cool as being in Witness Protection seems, it’s really just a pain in the ass. I mean, it’s not like you can tell anyone that you’re under the protection of the FBI. That would defeat the whole purpose. So you live under this whole second layer of rules, assuming false identities, and you make a whole new life for yourself.
“When I managed to crawl my way out of that and up the ranks in Hollywood, I told myself I earned every single one of my accolades. I’d worked my fingers down to the bone. Burned the candle at both ends. I hated it when people said I was lucky. But now I’m looking at you, and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I get it. I was lucky.”
When I furrow my eyebrows at him for belittling my life here, he holds his hands up in defense and begins to speak too loudly before catching himself and resuming in a voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t mean that you live in this tiny two-room with raccoons for roommates while I’ve got a place on the beach. I mean that we both struggled, but you had the additional weight of a child to support. I was free to make my own way, no baggage, so to speak.”
“Lizzie isn’t baggage,” I correct him. “But I get what you’re saying. Secondly, the raccoons don’t live in the attic anymore. It’s just me and Lizzie.”
“And me now,” Cory says. Then he shifts his weight and asks in a softer tone, “Can I see her?”
I lick my lips at this. It’s both a nervous tic and a hopeful one. In this pause of our conversation, the silence of the night hangs over us. The only sound is the hum from my refrigerator and a dog barking in the distance. “You have to be quiet, okay?”
Cory nods his head like a boy that’s just been promised a long-awaited puppy.
“I’m not ready to deal with a long talk tonight. So please, please, let save the real reunion for tomorrow.”
“I understand,” Cory says, his words more formal than I’m used to hearing from him. Which means he’s taking this all seriously. Exactly how he should be taking it.
Leading him down the hallway to stand outside Lizzie’s door, I’m not sure who’s breathing faster: me or him. I only know that when I push the door open and step aside for Cory to have his first look at his daughter, he stops breathing altogether.
He just watches her for what feels like ten minutes but is probably closer to one or two. He doesn’t try to step in the room, something I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep himself from doing once he saw her. I know if it were me, I’d lunge at her, run my hands through her hair, and kiss her temple to let my girl know that I love her. But Cory is respecting my wishes to let her sleep.
Standing behind him, leaning against the frame of the bathroom door, I’m beholden to a scene that also has my heart flooding with so many emotions that my chest feels as though it might burst at any moment.
How many times have I dreamed of this life? The three of us as a family. Cory cooking mountains o
f pancakes and eggs and bacon for breakfasts the three of us could never hope to finish. Days at the park, tossing frisbees and watching fireworks on the Fourth. Nights curled up under a single blanket watching movies as Lizzie falls asleep on our laps. Then the sessions of lovemaking that would come once we had the house to ourselves.
Everything that was once possible only in the best of dreams is now standing in front of me, watching my daughter sleep. Watching our daughter, I remind myself.
When Cory finally turns around, pulling the door closed with a careful, muted click, he whispers, “She’s gorgeous.”
Right now, I’m holding a lottery ticket in my hand. And while the odds are against me, there’s the tiniest chance that all of my dreams are finally coming true.
Chapter 8
Twenty minutes later, I’m in bed. In the end, Cory opted to return to his hotel. I offered my couch, but he wanted to clean up before meeting his daughter for the first time.
“Don’t want to smell like Applebee’s and pizza the first time we meet.”
All of his reactions point towards this being the actual truth, but I can’t help panicking, thinking that if I let him drive away tonight that I’ll never see him again. He might be having second thoughts. What if he’s decided that family life is not something he wishes to pursue?
So despite being bone-tired, I’m wide-awake at two in the morning. After rolling about for a good twenty minutes, replaying everything that was said between Cory and me, I toss the blankets aside, carry my pillow down the hall, and finally slide into Lizzie’s room and curl up behind her on her tiny bed.
“Mom?” she asks only half awake.