by Claire Adams
As far as them coming to the party, I had no worries of it being awkward at all. I hadn’t heard anything from Christina to indicate that she would actually be showing up to her birthday party. I had called and extended the invitation via voicemail, but she never responded back in any way. At that point, I had just given up on Christina, just letting her make her own decisions and focusing on our lives there at home.
“So, what was your favorite place?” I asked.
“I would have to say the Maldives, hands down,” he replied. “The water was bluer than anything I had ever seen, the air was warm, the water was warm, and you could just lay there all day, soaking in the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. We rented a sailboat when we were there and learned how to scuba dive. We saw some really beautiful parts of the ocean, places that I thought only existed on television.”
“That sounds amazing,” I replied. “What about Greece? Kayla went nuts over that postcard, and I could tell that she really wanted to go there someday.”
“It was so beautiful,” he said. “And the people there were so friendly, all of them. They laughed, joked, and really showed us some amazing hospitality. How have things there been?”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to get into the discussion that we would eventually have to have.
“Well, that is convincing.” He chuckled. “All right, spill it. I know something is up, just from the way you said ‘okay’ and tried to divert the conversation.”
“I wanted to talk to you about it in person,” I said with a sigh.
“Well, that’s not possible right now, so tell me over the phone,” he said.
“All right. Alissa and I have been dating,” I blurted out, pausing and waiting for his response.
Instantly, I flinched, feeling awkward again about the fact that Alissa was my stepsister. I had completely forgotten about that whole thing, but now that I was having to admit my relationship to my father, it was rearing its ugly head all over again. I didn’t want to have that come creeping back into our relationship. It was the reason that we almost didn’t take the chance on each other in the first place. I thought I had come to peace with it, but as I sat there waiting for my father to speak, I realized that I might have buried it instead of making peace with it. Either way, it wasn’t going to affect whether I continued dating Alissa or not. I just knew that it would make things a hell of a lot easier if my father didn’t have those insecurities as well. I really didn’t want this conversation to turn into an argument.
“You know, it’s crazy how we can sometimes find things we didn’t even know we needed until they hit us over the head,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much I needed my wife until she looked me straight in the eyes and told me that I was either all in or all out. I had to choose. In reality, there was no choice to be made. By that point, I was already head over heels and couldn’t imagine my life without her in it. She really pulled me out of the depression that I had trapped myself in for years after your mother died. Again, I didn’t realize I needed love until it was hitting me straight over the head.”
“Very true,” I replied. “You don’t feel strange about it, though?”
“Look, son,” he said seriously. “You need to open yourself up to love. You have gone far too long without it. After what Christina did, it makes me wonder how long you had actually gone without love in your life without even realizing it. Your heart needs to be completely healed, and you deserve to find love with whoever makes you smile and gets you up every day. Knowing your stepmother, it doesn’t surprise me at all that you were able to find love in my new wife’s daughter. They are loving and caring people. I am happy for you, and I hope that Kayla is taking it very well because it is good for her, too.”
“She struggled at first.” I chuckled. “But we can talk about all that when you get back. I don’t want to take over the last few days you have on vacation.”
“All right, son,” he said happily. “We will see you on the Fourth then!”
“I can’t wait,” I replied, saying my goodbyes and hanging up the phone.
I stood there for several minutes, running that conversation through my mind. All that fear and unknowing turned out perfectly fine in the end. My father understood that Alissa and I were good for each other and good for Kayla. Out of all the people I expected to be against our relationship, I figured he would be high on that list. Apparently, that wasn’t the case, and I was happy to see that his travels had softened him quite a bit. I let out a deep breath and shook my head, walking over to the fruit bowl and grabbing an apple. I felt so much better knowing that the hardest person in my life to please, supported Alissa and my relationship. It was just more confirmation that the whole stepsibling things was nothing to worry about at all.
I tapped my fingers on the table, listening as Kayla walked around upstairs, probably dancing to the music coming out of her new stereo. The kid was a trip, and I had walked in more than one time to see her dancing like a mad woman to some English boy band or to old school Michael Jackson. She was someone who marched to the sound of her own beat. I put the apple core in the trash and headed upstairs to let Kayla know that her grandma and grandpa would be bright and happily there for her eighth birthday party. I knew that she was stressing about it a lot, and though I wanted to make it a surprise, I didn’t want her to miss out on even a second of her birthday party, wondering where the people she loved were.
As I climbed the stairs, I felt even calmer than I did before, knowing now that the weight of telling everyone about Alissa and me had been lifted off my shoulders. Now, all there really was to do was live life to the fullest. There wasn’t anything that I could see ruining the perfect place that I had found myself in with one of the most beautiful women I had ever met.
Chapter 28
Alissa
It was only a couple of days until Kayla’s birthday, the day my mom got back from her honeymoon, and of course, one of my favorite holidays, the Fourth of July. I wanted to get something really special for Kayla from me for her eighth birthday, and I knew just from being around her how much she loved dolls. So, early that Saturday morning, I grabbed Bella from her house and dragged her out to the nearest USA Dolls shop and started to peruse the shelves for the perfect reflection of Kayla herself. I didn’t want it to be too girlie because she was a strong-willed young lady and wasn’t a fan of tutus and ballerinas. Bella was happy to be out of the house, and I thought it was adorable that I could already see a small bump in her stomach.
“So,” I said, standing beside her in front of the walls of dolls. “How is that little munchkin of mine doing?”
“Good,” she said, rubbing her tiny belly. “The doctor said everything looks amazing, and it was completely normal that I wanted to eat an entire chocolate cake in one sitting.”
I laughed. “I would totally exploit that. You know how much I love food. I would definitely be the girl that gained a hundred pounds from my pregnancy. I wouldn’t even feel a damn bit bad for eating the entire cake, and I might even take out someone’s hand who tried to take it from me.”
“You are too much,” Bella said, laughing. “I am picturing you sitting on the kitchen floor, shoveling cake in your mouth and growling at anyone who even attempted to get close to you.”
“Have you told Mom yet?”
“Nope,” she said. “I have a really fun idea to tell her, and I’m going to do it at Kayla’s birthday party. I want it to be a grand surprise since it’s the first grandchild, besides Kayla of course, that she will be welcoming into the family.”
“That is going to be amazing,” I said. “Mom is totally going to freak out. You know how much she loves babies. She almost died when she found out about Kayla, and she isn’t even a baby. Mom is going to also probably drive you nuts, so be prepared.”
“This is why you need to just give in and start popping out babies,” she said. “If we are both pregnant, we would like, short circuit our mother, and then we could rewire her after the b
abies were born. I think it is the perfect solution to keep her from going apeshit and driving me nuts about everything.”
“Uh, I don’t think that is a good plan at all.” I laughed. “Besides, I remember what she was like during your first wedding. She was obsessed with every single detail, and she would like, call you in the middle of the night because Google got ahold of her, and she loved something she saw on there.”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “That was a bit too much for me. I mean, there was a point where we literally tried six different cake decorators. I ate like five pounds of cake that week and had a hard time getting into my dress.”
“No, you had a hard time because it was basically painted on you.” I laughed.
“That is very true,” she said. “I could barely walk around.”
“You were the penguin bride.” I laughed.
“I’m serious,” Bella said. “Just go ahead and get it over with. Start knocking those babies out.”
“Have you forgotten that just a week or so ago, I was crying in my wine glass because Ryan broke up with me? I think I might want to wait on the babies until I am more secure in my relationship. Besides, I have my hands full with Kayla, and she isn’t really technically mine. I am standing in some doll shop two days before her birthday, having zero clue as to what I should get her. If this is my test for being a mother, then I am afraid that I might be failing miserably.”
“No,” she said. “You know that if you were failing, Ryan is a tough enough dude that he would break things off. You’ve always had a serious ability to work with children. It is like one of your life gifts, which will come in handy when this little bean comes out rocking and rolling like her mother and father.”
I laughed loudly, scanning the dolls and thinking about how absurd it was for me to be talking about having children. I had only just started a relationship with Ryan, and there were specific societal guidelines for these kinds of things. My mood went from laughing to serious really quickly when I realized that the thought of a long-term future with Ryan was something I had already given some thought to. The whole, forever thing, I hadn’t figure out yet, but I definitely could see myself in his life, in this capacity, for a very long time. I could truly see a rest of our lives kind of relationship with Ryan. It was a staggering revelation, and I moved across the room to avoid Bella noticing my change in personality. The last thing I wanted to do was admit that I was thinking about the long-term with him, and not just the here and now. I didn’t want to have her freak out and go crazy, thinking I was already halfway down the aisle.
“How about this one?” Bella held up a military-themed doll, but I shook my head and wrinkled my nose.
Of all the things that Kayla was not, was a girl that I could see growing into being a member of the military. She had very strong views on the world from a seven-year-old’s perspective, and I could tell she had a little bit of Bella’s peace, love, and free-spiritedness inside of her. I didn’t want to bring that conversation up at her birthday party. I also didn’t want to go with any of the stereotypical “girl” jobs like seamstress, which I was pretty sure they didn’t have, stay-at-home mom, ballerina, secretary, and any of the other ones that had a history of oppression for women. I wanted her to feel like she was powerful enough to do any job, no matter who historically worked in that profession.
After several more rejected ideas, I was about to reach the end of the wall of dolls and disappointment started to creep into my chest. However, as I walked forward, I could see a doll in a white baseball uniform, holding a glove and a bat. If nothing else was perfect about my child intuition, this was exactly the thing that Kayla would love. She was a huge baseball fan, and now that I was back, I was going to press Ryan to start taking us as a family to the games.
I grabbed the doll and turned to Bella, holding it against me and smiling big. Bella laughed and nodded, remembering what I told her about Kayla and how much she liked baseball. I walked up to the front and paid for the doll, standing to the side to wait for them to gift wrap it for me since I was the worst present wrapper to ever walk the earth. I watched as Bella wandered through the rows and rows of dolls, rubbing her tummy and humming a sweet tune. I hadn’t realized until that moment right then how good of a mother that Bella was going to be. Sure, she was a bit flighty and had some seriously different views on life, but she was also incredibly caring and had been motherly to me for as long as I could remember.
I nodded to Bella as I grabbed the wrapped box and started heading for the door. I was so excited about the doll, I wanted to give it to her straight away, but I knew that would mean I would have to pick out another present and that was not going to happen. Shopping was not really something I liked unless I was shopping for someone else’s house for work purposes.
“Do you think Christina will show up?” Bella asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Ryan hasn’t heard from her at all. He left an invitation to the party on her voicemail, but she didn’t say a word back. I am pretty sure he has just completely given up on the idea of her showing very much interest in anyone but herself. He is staying open to her wanting to spend time with Kayla, but she isn’t saying anything. I can’t even imagine how hard that has to be for him. On the one hand, you want to protect your child from the harm that could come with keeping Kayla’s mother in her life. On the other hand, he wouldn’t feel okay making the decision for Kayla as far as her mother was concerned.”
“If she shows up, I am going to trip into her with a piece of birthday cake.” Bella laughed.
“She is in for quite a surprise if she does show up.” I laughed. “I am pretty sure she still thinks that Ryan is living a life of solitude and depression, when in fact, he is having a blast with me.”
“I just don’t know how any of you do it,” Bella said, shaking her head. “That woman is seriously a disgrace to our gender and is exactly the reason why we get labeled in so many ways. A woman who would abandon her own child, especially at an age like six when they are really coming into their own, is not a woman at all in my opinion. Just the fact that Kayla is having her birthday party and Christina isn’t going to be there is a true testament to just how much she shouldn’t be in Kayla’s life. How can you just ignore the fact that it is your baby’s birthday? My kid is getting all of my attention on their birthday, no matter what is going on.”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I mean, I agree with you one hundred percent, but it still isn’t something that I can make any decision on whatsoever. Part of me thinks that this would be a good lesson for Kayla. A hard lesson, but a necessary one. I wish that I could just make Christina disappear so that Kayla could move on and start to feel loved, protected, and cared for by me and her father.”
In reality, I was unsure about the entire thing, not knowing if I was even allowed to have an opinion about it. Since I got back, we tended to keep Christina out of our conversations, knowing what kind of impact that she had on us. Ryan would update me on her status every once in a while, but she didn’t bother him like she used to. He told me that it was because he had me, and that what she thought was irrelevant and not useful when it came to working through our relationship side by side. My main concern was that Kayla stayed healthy, joyful, happy, and kept her mind pointed to the future. I never wanted there to be a situation where Kayla was so strongly affected by an event that it sent her spiraling down like she had been when her mother had left.
This was going to be Kayla’s day, and I was going to be there to support her, regardless of who else showed up. She was now more than just my boyfriend’s daughter. She was now my little best friend, someone to be there for me when I needed it the most. And it was obvious to me that I wasn’t just in love with Ryan. I had fallen in love with his daughter, too.
Chapter 29
Ryan
I was really excited to be celebrating the Fourth of July and Kayla’s birthday at my house this year, utilizing the fenced-in backyard, the bouncy houses, and being
able to contain her friends for a good amount of time. Seven and eight were definitely years of exploration and extremely loud voices, and I was glad that I didn’t invite every kid she knew to the party. As I stepped out onto the porch, I looked over at my father and stepmother who had arrived earlier, looking completely rested and invigorated from their trip. They were so excited to see us, and Kayla almost fell over her own feet trying to get to her grandma, who scooped her up in her arms and talked sweetly and gently to her like she usually did. Kayla showed her the new bedroom, her new interior design software, and told her all about how much she loved Alissa and how we were dating. It was a good thing I gave them a heads up first.
Juan showed up, bringing a case of beer for the adults, some popsicles for the kids, and his lovely girlfriend Maria, who Alissa immediately did everything she could to make her feel at home. The two of them actually had quite a bit in common, and they hit it off, Maria jumping in to help Alissa set everything up for the kids and try to keep them all in one cohesive motion. I knew that all these kids at once would be a lot for Alissa, but she didn’t even bat an eye, going straight to work and being the superwoman that I was so used to her being. Not to mention the fact that she looked absolutely gorgeous in her red, white, and blue sundress and sandals, with her hair pulled half back and the rest spilling over her shoulders.
Bella was standing in the back, trying to avoid too much conversation with her mother since she was trying to surprise her with the baby news in about an hour. She had worn a loose-fitting, long dress, but it was getting harder and harder for her to continue hiding that baby belly that was starting to poke out just enough to make it noticeable, or at least like I had serious bloating going on. It didn’t help that her husband wasn’t there to help take the attention off her since he had a business trip out of town. The rest of the people were the kids, about a half dozen of them running around, laughing, and causing some serious damage to the candy station that I was now thinking might not have been a wise choice.
