Reminders of Him

The kids are supposed to be warming up, but Diem is standing behind home plate shoving T-balls into the pockets of her baseball pants. She’s got two in each pocket, and now she’s trying to shove a third in. Her pants are starting to sag from the weight.

I walk over to her and kneel. “D, you can’t take all the T-balls.”

“They’re dragon eggs,” she says. “I’m going to plant them in my yard and grow baby dragons.”

I toss the balls one at a time to Roman. “That’s not how dragons grow. The momma dragon has to sit on the eggs. You don’t bury them in the yard.”

Diem bends forward to pick up a pebble, and I notice she has two balls stuffed down the back of her shirt. I untuck her shirt, and the balls fall to her feet. I kick them to Roman.

“Did I grow in an egg?” she asks.

“No, D. You’re a human. Humans don’t grow in eggs—we grow in . . .” I stop talking because I was about to say, “We grow in our mother’s bellies,” but I’m always careful to avoid any talk of mothers or fathers around Diem. I don’t want her to start asking me questions I can’t answer.

“What do we grow in?” she asks. “Trees?”

Shit.

I put my hand on Diem’s shoulder and completely ignore her question because I have no idea what Grace or Patrick has told her about how babies are made. This isn’t my wheelhouse. I wasn’t prepared for this conversation.

I yell for all the kids to go to the dugout, and luckily Diem is distracted by one of her friends and walks away from me.

I blow out a breath, relieved the conversation ended where it did.

I dropped Roman off at the bar to spare him a trip to McDonald’s.

And yes, we’re at McDonald’s even though Diem didn’t wear her cleats at all during the game, because she gets her way with me more often than she doesn’t.

Choose your battles, they say. But what happens when you never choose any?

“I don’t want to play T-ball anymore,” Diem says out of the blue. She’s dipping her french fry into honey when she makes that decision. The honey dribbles down her hand.

I try to get her to eat her fries with ketchup because it’s a lot easier to clean, but she wouldn’t be Diem if she didn’t do everything the hardest way possible.

“You don’t like T-ball anymore?”

She shakes her head and licks her wrist.

“That’s fine. But we only have a few more games, and you made a commitment.”

“What’s a commitment?”

“It’s when you agree to do something. You agreed to be a part of the team. If you quit in the middle of the season, your friends will be sad. You think you can make it through the rest of the season?”

“If we can have McDonald’s after all the games.”

I narrow my eyes in her direction. “Why do I feel like I’m getting swindled?”

“What does swindled mean?” she asks.

“It means you’re trying to trick me into getting you McDonald’s.”

Diem grins and eats her last fry. I put all our trash on the tray. I grab her hand to lead her out of the store and remember the honey. Her hands are as sticky as a flytrap. I keep wet wipes in my truck for this very reason.

A couple of minutes later, she’s buckled up in her booster seat and I’m scrubbing her hands and arms with the wet wipe when she says, “When is my mom getting a bigger car?”

“She drives a minivan. How big of a car does she need?”

“Not Nana,” Diem says. “My mom. Skylar said my mom never comes to my T-ball games, and I told her she will when she gets a bigger car.”

I stop wiping her hands. She never brings up her mother. This is twice in one day we’ve brushed the conversation.

I guess she’s getting to that age, but I have no idea what Grace or Patrick has told her about Kenna, and I have absolutely no idea why she’s asking about her mother’s car.

“Who told you your mom needed a bigger car?”

“Nana. She said my mom’s car isn’t big enough and that’s why I live with her and NoNo.”

That’s confusing. I shake my head and throw the wipes in a sack. “I don’t know. Ask your nana.” I close her door and text Grace as I’m circling around to the driver’s side of my truck.

Why does Diem think her mother isn’t in her life because she needs a bigger car?

We’re a few miles away from McDonald’s when Grace calls. I make sure not to answer it on speaker. “Hey. Diem and I are on our way back.” It’s my way of letting Grace know I can’t say much on my end.

Grace sucks in a breath like she’s getting ready for a long explanation to my text. “Okay, so last week, Diem asked me why she doesn’t live with her mother. I didn’t know what to say, so I told her she lives with me because her mother’s car isn’t big enough to fit all of us. It was the first lie I could come up with. I panicked, Ledger.”