An Innocent Thanksgiving

For now, though, she was small, and I could just make her day by taking her to the park, pointing out the birds we saw, and pushing her on the swing. And that—that was all that I needed, too. My darling girl brought joy to my life in a way I could never have fathomed before becoming a parent.

I was looking down at Fern, smiling at her—I found myself smiling at her a lot, like the lovestruck idiot that I was when it came to my daughter—and so I didn’t see him. Fern did.

“Uncle Cal!” Fern said. That was how she’d been introduced to him at Thanksgiving, and as far as I was concerned, that was how he would stay to her.

But—wait what the fuck was Cal doing here!?

My jaw dropped like a fool as I watched Fern run up to Cal to say hi. She’d been showered with love and adoration from the moment she’d been born, so she was a friendly and outgoing child as a result. She seemed to think that the world was just full of good people and kindness, and honestly, I wanted her to keep thinking that for as long as possible. Of course, I taught her about stranger danger, and all that, but I never wanted that joyful spark of treating each person she met as a friend to ever really leave her. The world was full of enough cynical, frustrated, jaded people—people like me—and I wanted better for my daughter.

Cal was sure enough standing at the end of our walk, hands in his pockets, wearing a soft dark red turtleneck and a fleece jacket with dark jeans. He looked unbearably handsome, his hair a bit windswept, and in another life—a better life—I could have walked right up to him and kissed him hello. I wanted to do that, to walk up and kiss him and say hi, and have him put his arms around me, and ask how my day was, and…

I shook myself. That wasn’t my life. That wasn’t our situation. I had to give up such stupid, foolish daydreams. I wasn’t a child anymore, crushing on her father’s handsome, successful, charismatic best friend. I was an adult, and I was reaping the consequences of those daydreams.

“Hey, Fern!” Cal crouched down with a big smile so that he could hug her hello. “How’ve you been?”

“Great! We’re going to the park!”

“The park?” Cal stood up. “Mind if I join?” He looked at me as he said it.

I folded my arms. “What are you doing here?” I tried to keep my tone carefully neutral so that Fern wouldn’t realize that anything was going on.

“We have an unfinished conversation between us,” Cal replied, his tone also neutral.

“So you decided to ambush me?” I asked, lowering my voice but keeping a smile on my face so that Fern wouldn’t notice anything was up.

“Well, seeing as how you ran away, I didn’t see how else I could talk with you.” Cal shrugged. “I mean business, Maggie. I’m serious here. I’m not letting this go. I didn’t know before but I know now and I want to talk about this, seriously, and not have you just declare that things are the way they are and walk away.”

I bit my lip. I really wasn’t sure what the right option was here. I wanted to keep Cal away from me, for the sake of my own heart. And I felt that I had a right to not tell Cal about Fern. But now that he knew about her, didn’t he have a right to try and be a part of her life?

I really didn’t know.

“We’re going to the park,” I said. “Like Fern said.”

“Great, then I’ll join you.”

Yay.

The park wasn’t far away, but suddenly the walk felt ten times as long as usual. Fern was skipping ahead, sometimes turning around to skip backwards so she could talk to us at the same time. Cal watched her with this soft smile on his face, like he was drinking her in, and I couldn’t help but empathize. He looked the way that I felt when I was watching Fern—happy but also with this sense of wonder, like I couldn’t quite believe that this person really existed and could be so wonderful.

When we got to the park I told Fern to go ahead and play while Cal and I had a quick talk. She was happy to go and climb, and we sat down on a park bench.

“What are you doing in Nashville?” I asked, struggling not to sound too accusatory. I thought I knew why he was here, but I wanted to be sure. He wanted to talk to me about letting him be a part of Fern’s life, and I had no idea how I was going to answer that or what to do with it.