Alicia struggled through the day. Jon had asked to pick Hope up from school today. Combined with coming home to find him asleep on her couch, and waking up to him, it was just too close to those could-bes that she had imagined since she looked into his eyes that first day.
There was no doubt left in her mind - she loved him. The question was - how could she make him see that? Make him understand that the scars did not matter. That he was the same man, no, a better man than he had been that night. The only man she wanted in her life. Or Hope's.
Her thoughts kept straying down those paths. She had messed up several orders already. She felt like a tightly capped bottle of soda. All of this was shaking and shaking her. The pressure was building up inside, and she was not sure when or how she was going to pop.
She wanted to slink away to a corner somewhere and cry. She wanted to walk out into the desert and scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to hit something hard. And most of all, she wanted him to hold her tight and never let her go. Promise her that they would get through it all somehow.
Her talk with Chris had helped her to understand a bit more. She got that Jon was worried that she might be confusing pity and their history with genuine feelings. But she wasn't. She was sure of that. She did not pity him at all. In fact, she had pitied him more that night for the emotional baggage his wife's death had caused than she did the physical scars now.
But how could she explain to him something she did not understand herself? There was just some connection between them. It was what had caused her to do something so out of character as to propose that ludicrous no-strings-attached one-night stand that had resulted in Hope's conception.
It was that same connection that she had recognized in his eyes that first day, even if his features were changed. And it was that connection that made her yearn for something more with him. The problem was that she had no words to put to that feeling, that connection. And until she found them, she knew the situation was virtually Hopeless.
"Mama, Jon and Chris are coming to my school tomorrow," Hope burst through the door like sunshine after a storm.
She held out her arms as her daughter raced to embrace her. She met his gaze as she wrapped their little girl in her arms. "Thank you."
She was not sure if she was thanking him for picking up Hope at school or this most precious gift of all. Those tears that she had wanted to slink away and cry gathered in her eyes. She released Hope and brought the back of her hand up to wipe them away. She drew fresh air into her lungs and forced her voice to remain calm just as she forced a smile on her lips.
"So, what is this? Why are Jon and Chris coming to your school, sweetie?"
"Miss Mandy wants to talk about ax-ceptunce?" Hope smiled, revealing a missing tooth, her first.
Alicia gripped her daughter's chin, "What is this? You lost a tooth? You didn't even tell me it was loose."
"It was only a little loose, Mama. But then we were playing soccer with these boys in the park, and I got hit with the ball. It started to bleed, and when Jon checked, it came out."
"What? You got hit with a ball?" She turned on Jon, "And you didn't think to call me? Our daughter gets hurt, and you can't be bothered to even text?" Her eyes went wide as she realized what she had revealed in her anger.
But Jon was not flapped. He crossed the room to stand behind Hope, his good hand resting on her shoulder. "It was not that bad. I had first-aid training, so I knew what to look out for. Hope was fine, except for the tooth, and that would have come out soon anyway. She ran right back to the game."
"Still, you should have at least texted me. I mean, her first tooth is a big deal," Alicia mumbled.
Hope smiled as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a scrap of notebook paper that was folded into a tiny square. "That's what Jon said. So, we saved it. He says that the tooth fairy gives extra for first teeth."
Alicia stared over their daughter's head at him. After being a single parent for so long, she was struggling. Sharing these kinds of firsts with him was not something she had ever considered until recently. And the reality of it was starkly different from what she had imagined.
Jealousy. She was jealous of Jon. Of his new role in their daughter's life. It was an emotion she had not expected or one that she knew how to handle. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
He shrugged and forced that awkward one-sided smile that she was coming to realize meant he was as uncomfortable as she was. "No, you're right I should have phoned you. I'll do better."
If Alicia had thought that Hope had missed her faux pas, her next words disabused her of that notion. "Mama, is Jon gonna be my Papa? I don't mind if I only have one. Most of the other kids only have one. Amy is special cause she has two, plus her daddy that died."
***
Jon saw the deer in the headlights look on Alicia's face. He knew this was his chance, an opportunity he might not get again, to take this situation under control. To steer things his direction.
He knelt on the floor next to his little girl. His eyes met hers, just a shade lighter than her mothers. Just as trusting.
"What would you think of the idea, Hope?"
His daughter threw her arms around his neck. Nothing had ever felt better. He looked up at Alicia; he could see that she was struggling to manage the situation. Well, almost nothing. But the feeling of rightness he felt in her mother's arms was distinctly different.
Hope drew back, her little hand caressed his cheek, the badly scarred left one. "So, that's why you stayed the night last night? You moved in? Like Chris and Noah did with Amy and her Mom? You'll read bedtime stories with me? Say our prayers? And tuck me in now? You'll walk me to school and pick me up every day like Chris and Amy? Oh, I can't wait to tell all my friends at school that I have a Papa too."
Jon's heart stuttered to a stop at her words. He was more than a bit nervous about tomorrow. Chris had volunteered him for the 'freak show and tell' as he had jokingly called it. He liked Hope's teacher and admired what she was trying to do with the children.
But Jon knew human nature. There would always be bullies. And he worried about how having him as her father would affect Hope in the long term.
Then again, despite all that Alicia had done, Hope was struggling without a father. Maybe Chris and Miss Mandy were right. Maybe if you taught understanding and acceptance when children were young, then things could be different. He certainly hoped so for his little girl's sake because the die was cast now. He smiled and nodded his head.
