Hollywood's Secret Baby

“It’s alright. Go back to sleep.”

She groans something I can’t understand, flips around, and curls up against me.

Being here, next to Lizzie has the desired effect, and soon the sands of sleep are collecting around me until I’m eventually swallowed in their warm embrace.

Upon waking in the morning, everything floods back, and the brief reprieve that blissful unconscious has provided from having to make life-altering decisions is over. I’m back to being an adult, but at least my first decision of the day is made for me.

“Can we have pancakes?” Lizzie asks. This is the first thing she asks upon sitting up in bed. She doesn’t ask about why I’m in bed with her. Or how my rare night out went. Her stomach has overruled her mind, as usual, and its focus is purely on pancake-y goodness.

“Fine, but you have to eat an egg too.”

She blanches at this, her tongue wide and pink as she pulls a disgusted face. And that’s for scrambled eggs that I slather in cheese. I can’t imagine how she would gag at the though of just plain eggs.

“One egg or no pancakes.”

A deep groan of resignation. Then, “Fine. But no tomatoes.”

I love pan-fried cherry tomatoes. Lizzie does not share my tastes. She wants pancakes, syrup, and cartoons for breakfast. No substitutions.

But we’re going to have something extra this morning, because before we left, Cory said he would be back in time to eat with us. Only he hasn’t called, and he didn’t give me a time. So while I try to act like my normal self on a Sunday morning in front of Lizzie, the back of my mind is running all sorts of calculations, trying to gauge the probabilities of whether he’s actually going to stick around. Fortunately, this is answered after Lizzie dashes into the living room to turn on the television, but comes back just as fast. I’m in the bathroom washing my hands when she says, “There’s a fancy car in our driveway.”

Cory.

But did he just arrive or has he been sitting out there for hours, waiting for us to wake up?

“It’s just a friend,” I explain without giving any details. And if I’m worried that she’s going to pry for any, Lizzie sets my mind at ease by demonstrating how her ten-year-old mind works.

“Friend? You have friends?” She then squeals when I go to poke her belly at this amazing burn. Then the strange car in the driveway is forgotten for the moment as she flicks through the Youtube app and soon the sound of prancing unicorns, singing songs about sugar and spices, fills my house with the energy only children can muster up.

What I wouldn’t do to sit and watch a cartoon about unicorns without a care in the world. But I’m the grown-up, which means I have grown-up responsibilities. Like the man sitting in the car, waiting for a real introduction to his daughter.

So after throwing on a bra under my t-shirt and checking my hair in a mirror, I contemplate reapplying my make-up, but there’s really no time. It’s not like Cory’s focus is going to be on me today anyway.

With flip-flops on, I plunge into the morning sunlight, squinting against its sharp reflection off Cory’s Mercedes. The moment I close the door behind me, he’s popping out of the driver’s side, a white paper bag in one hand and a cardboard carrier with three coffee cups in the other.

“She’s not exactly a coffee drinker,” I say instead of the exclamation that wanted to come out about how relieved I was that he actually showed up. But he doesn’t need to know that the chance of him disappearing again had kept me from sleeping soundly in my own bed. He’s here now, and I’m determined to focus on the present, not the past.

“I got an Americano and latte for us. Wasn’t sure which one you liked, so you can choose. And a hot cocoa for Lizzie.”

“Hot cocoa? In June?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t kids drink this sort of stuff year round?”

“What’s in the bag?”

“Bagels. With three kinds of cream cheese.”

“Lizzie wants pancakes.”

“Pancakes?” he asks as though he’s never heard of the flat breakfast discs. “Where can you buy pancakes?”

I go to grab the bag of bagels from him, fully intending to tease him about the fact that he apparently doesn’t know where pancakes come from, but then my fingers graze over his. We’re close enough that his cologne paints the air between us with subtle thoughts of more mature matters than pancakes. And while I’m this close to him, without any thought as to the why or the consequences, I kiss him.

It’s not even on the lips. Just a peck on his cheek. But it’s signal that, at least for me, there’s something still there between us. And while I know that in just thirty seconds I’ll be completely focused on my kid and her meeting her father for the first time, there’s a tickling at my libido, fighting as I push it into to the back of my mind.

Once we hit the front door, I’m back to being a mama bear.

“Remember what I told you. Once you’re in her life, you're here to stay.”