A Heart of Time

by Shari J. Ryan

  My chest tightens a little more. “You are the most thoughtful little girl in the world, Olive. Thank you for making me meals.” Her wet lips press against my cheek and her hands squeeze against my back.

  “We’re going to miss the bus,” she says. I look up at the clock, seeing we have five minutes to get to the bus stop down the street, so I scoop her up and head out the door. I don’t want to let her go. I’ve kept her by my side for five years. And to show for that, she’s probably the only five-year-old who could install a carpet with her eyes closed. Every day has been a “bring-your-child-to-work day” and I’ve loved it. Today will be the first job without her next to me in five years.

  By the time we reach the end of the driveway, AJ is pulling in. His window is down and his head is craned out of the window. “Is my big girl finally going to school today?” he shouts over.

  “Uncle AJ!” she shouts, wriggling herself free from my arms so she can run to his truck. “I’m going to school!”

  AJ throws the truck into park, hops out and swings his arms around Olive. It’s seconds before she’s sitting on his shoulders. “You are going to have the best day, little girl.” He tickles her senselessly until she’s hanging upside down and completely out of breath.

  “We’re going to miss the bus,” I tell him.

  “Well, Mr. Serious Pants said I have to put you down,” AJ says in a mockingly deep voice. “Can’t miss the bus on your first day, Ollie-Lolly.” With one last giggle, Olive runs back to my side, slipping her hand into mine.

  “Come’on, Daddy,” she drawls.

  “I’ll be back in twenty,” I tell AJ.

  “I’m heading right over to the job site. Just meet me over there when you’re ready,” AJ says. I give him a quick nod and continue toward the bus stop. “Hey, Hunt.”

  I look back at AJ as we continue to walk. “Yeah?”

  “She’s going to be great, bro. Don’t worry.” AJ is a man of many words, but most of them are filled with humor, sarcasm, or things I don’t need to hear. It makes up for my serious disposition, but when he says something from the heart, it means a lot.

  “Thank you,” I say, waving over my head.

  “I’m excited,” Olive says as we approach the bus stop.

  “I’m going to miss you today,” I tell her, taking in the scene of a half dozen moms and what must be ten kids. What if the bus driver doesn’t see her get on?

  “It’s just kindergarten,” she whispers into my ear.

  I chuckle against her cheek and place her down. She’s quick to take off, throwing her backpack to the ground so she can join the other kids running across the grassy area. She doesn’t know any of them but she doesn’t care. Olive makes friends with everyone she meets, just like Ellie did. I could learn a thing or two from my intelligent daughter.

  “Hi there,” one of the moms says as she approaches me with her hand outstretched. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

  I clear my throat from what feels like a gummy substance lodged between my tongue and tonsils. Keep your shit together, Hunter. “Yeah, ah, Olive and I just moved in a few weeks ago,” I manage to get out while shaking her hand—her warm, inviting, and surprisingly strong hand.

  “Oh, you’re the new neighbors in the yellow house?” she says, pointing down in the direction we walked from. I don’t look to where she’s pointing, though, since the wind blowing through her long, auburn hair seems to have caught my attention.

  “Yes, Ma’am, we are.” Ma’am? Really? Smooth.

  She chuckles quietly. “I’m Charlotte Drake. Welcome!” With an awkward pause because I can’t figure out how to say my name, she continues, “Well, I’m sure you and your wife will be happy here. This is a wonderful neighborhood to raise a family as you can clearly see.” She emphasizes her statement by looking back at all the children playing.

  My wife…my wife who should be here with us today, but isn’t. And just like that, I’m reminded how nothing about this day is as it should be. A pain forms in my stomach at yet another thought of what can never be. I don’t know how many important events in Olive’s life will be stolen from Ellie…from us as a family, but with as many as I can count so far, it is still as heartbreaking every time we experience another first. Ellie would have been so proud of Olive today…to see what an amazing little girl she is already becoming.

  Charlotte’s words are innocent, but they pack a punch harder than I’ve felt in a while. It’s not like I haven’t gotten the single dad questions before, but today I didn’t need a reminder that our family is broken. I was also hoping a new neighborhood would mean a fresh start, a life without sympathetic looks and the outpouring offers of help. Although appreciated, I wish everyone would give me the benefit of the doubt and realize I can handle things. At least, I say I can handle things, although some things I’m still not great at.

  “It’s just Olive and me, actually,” I say, offering her this peephole of information—information I’m only giving because I know it won’t remain hidden for long here anyway. My response causes her to loosen her grip and slide her hand out from mine.

  “Oh,” she groans, her captivating lake-blue eyes squinting tightly as if she wants to punish herself for accusing me of having a normal life. “A divorce. They’re horrible. I just went through one myself. At least the asshole left me the house.” She lets out a loud sigh and covers her face with her hands. “Sorry. TMI.” Her eyes for a brief moment and she drops her hands down by her sides. “Anyway, it’s been a long summer, and I was starting to feel like the only one in this neighborhood among the fifty other happily married couples. You know, we should start a divorcee club here. Right? We should. That should be a thing.”

  Her rambling is humorous and so are her assumptions of me being divorced. I have, in fact, tried to convince myself over the past five years that I’ve been going through a horrible divorce. I have even tried to make myself believe I hate Ellie and this was my only option. But in no world could I ever hate her. “I’m actually not divorced,” I say. “My wife and I had a great marriage.” Charlotte looks dazed for only a second before her pretty eyes grow wide. The meaning of “had a great marriage” and not being divorced must have clicked in her head.

  “Oh my God,” she breathes. Placing her hand over my shoulder, she pulls in a sharp breath and asks, “Did your wife—did she—?” There’s no beating around the bush with this one.

  Again, I have to do the nod and force my lips into a straight line across my face, hoping she doesn’t force out any further details. I’m not sure if it’s normal or not, but even though an entire five years has passed, it doesn’t matter how many times this question has been asked, everything inside of me still aches the same way it did that night I had to say goodbye. After this long, I think it’s safe to say this pain will never go away but I don’t think it should, and I’m not sure I want it to. Ellie’s missing out on the life we were supposed to live together. I get to live it and she doesn’t. I should feel the pain for her. “She’s no longer with us,” I say, looking past her, watching Olive’s unbreakable smile as she holds an invisible microphone up to her lips and belts out the new Taylor Swift song she’s had me playing for her on repeat.

  When I refocus my attention on Charlotte, leaving the moment of despair behind me, I find her with her hands clasped over her heart. “That little girl is lucky to have you,” she says. “You’re a good man. I hope you know that.”

  I’m a good man for taking care of my daughter? She turns around and calls her daughter over, then Olive, too. Her daughter looks like she might be a bit older than Olive, but probably no more than a year. Both girls come running and Charlotte kneels down in front of them. “Lana, today is Olive’s first day of school. Will you sit with her on the bus?”

  “Mom,” Lana says, exasperated. “We’re already new best friends.” Lana giggles and snatches up Olive’s hand. “Olive is so funny.”

  “Yeah, we’re already friends, and you know what?” Olive says with deligh
t. “We live right across the street from each other. Isn’t that great, Daddy?” I look up at Charlotte, wondering why she failed to mention living across from the “new neighbors.” I guess maybe it is because we’ve been hermits since we moved in, and with the car in the garage, we haven’t been out front much.

  “That’s great, girls. I’m so glad,” Charlotte says.

  The yellow monster coming to steal my daughter catches my eye and I know now that I have to come to terms with letting her go. “The bus is coming,” I tell them. The sinking pit hits the bottom of my stomach as the bus comes to a screeching halt. I’m supposed to let Olive climb onto this contraption that some random person is driving and let her go off, alone, to God knows where. I can’t do this. I grab Olive and hold her against me, running my fingers through her blond curls. It takes all the courage I can conjure to say, “You’re going to have so much fun today, and I’ll be right here waiting for you when you come back. Okay?” I place a kiss on her cheek and squeeze her a little harder.

  She kisses me back and pulls her bag over her shoulders. “Don’t forget to eat your breakfast,” is the last thing she says before making the hike up the three mountainous steps of the bus. My throat is tight and my heart is pounding, but I have to control myself—if not for Olive’s sake, then for the fact that I’m surrounded by six smiling women. Why are they all looking at me the way they are? And why do I feel like a little girl whose balloon just popped?

  I watch through the windows of the bus as Olive plops down in the second seat. She’s so tiny, I can only see the top of her head above the windowsill. I can’t see her face. I can’t tell if she’s scared or happy. She has to be happy. She has to be. As the bus door closes, her hand slowly pokes up above her head and she waves—this slow, unsure wave. Shit...that does it. I’m done. I turn around, avoiding goodbyes, as well as the staring faces of all the moms looking at me like I’m crazy, and I jog down the hill toward the house.

  When I get home, I lock myself inside and lean against the door. I need to destroy something. I take all of the mail on the coffee table and throw it against the wall. That didn’t suffice. Next is the damn coasters Mom gave me as a housewarming gift—I chuck each one of them against the wall individually, still feeling only the slightest bit of relief. It’s just school—she’s just going to school but letting her go hurts like fucking hell and I shouldn’t have to do this alone—that’s why I’m mad. A logical reason, as far as I’m concerned; regardless of the fact that if I were watching someone behave the way I am right now, I’d tell them to man the hell up. I’m not interested in taking my own advice, though, not today anyway.

  A knock on the door pulls me out of my moment. A moment similar to others I allow myself to have far too often. I jump up; worried it could be Olive...or something—even though that wouldn’t make any sense. She’s on a bus. To school. A normal part of life.

  Whipping the door open, I find Charlotte on my doorstep. Her hands are tucked into the pockets of her jeans and the expression on her face tells me she’s as unsure about standing on my front step as I feel about everything right now. “You okay?” she asks sincerely—the “I get it” type of sincerity, not the type of sincerity where she’s talking to me like a child. Without giving me a second to respond, she continues with, “We’ve all been there. You’re just the only one with a kindergartener this year. The rest of us went through the pain last year. There were six of us standing on the curb in tears as the bus took off for the first time.” She pauses to catch her breath and then lets out a soft laugh. “At least Olive went willingly. You wouldn’t believe what I had to do with Lana last year. I had to drag her onto the bus kicking and screaming. It was like this horror movie. You would have thought I was dropping her off on the side of a deserted road.”

  “Yikes,” I offer as a condolence.

  “Yeah, I know, right? Once she was on the bus, she stood up on the seat and pressed her hands up against the window, crying for me. I felt like the worst mother in the whole world for the entire six hours she was gone. As you may have noticed, this year seemed a little easier.”

  I look at her for a long minute, unsure of what to say since I already used up my “Yikes” remark. What else is there to say? “I’m glad things went better for her today.” Could I sound less interested, or humored by her approach to making me feel better? I tell myself every day to snap out of it and act like a decent person, but it’s like everything inside of me is black and cold. I only have enough warmth inside for Olive. The bitterness just pours out of me and chases everyone away.

  “Well, if you want to talk—I...” she points across the street to what I now know to be her house. “I’m just across the street.” Charlotte turns on her heels and releases what sounds like a lungful of air.

  “Did I do her hair right?” The words slip off my tongue before I realize I’m calling out for help. What the hell am I doing? I don’t ask for help, encouragement or sympathy. I close doors in people’s faces and hang up on phone calls filled with questions I don’t want to answer. I am closed off and not concerned with what anyone else thinks about my life or me.

  Charlotte releases a hearty laugh as she turns back around. “She has great hair and the headband is adorable. You really are doing just fine.”

  “I grew up with a brother. Having a daughter sometimes feels like I’m living in a foreign country where no one speaks English.” This is exactly how I’ve felt since the day Olive turned two and grabbed her first Disney Princess doll off of a shelf.

  A mischievous look spreads across Charlotte’s face and she retraces her steps up to my front door—where I’m standing. “Do you have coffee?” she asks.

  What kind of question is that? Is there a parent awake at this hour that doesn’t drink coffee? “How could I survive without it?” I laugh.

  “Do you have more than one coffee cup?” Is she inviting herself over? Is this what parents do when their kids go to school for the day? Hang out and drink coffee while they share secrets on how not to screw up their kids’ lives?

  “I have four, believe it or not. They all came in one box—so I didn’t really have a choice,” I answer, smirking a bit. The wittiness pouring out of me is something that has felt unnatural for so long, it feels foreign leaving my lips, but standing in front of someone who understands my current pain, the camaraderie isn’t unfortunate. In fact, I’m surprised to realize it feels kind of nice.

  “Do you have enough coffee to fill more than one cup?” Charlotte continues, squinting through one eye as if is she’s waiting for me to say no.

  “Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?” I finally ask, not that I wasn’t cornered into asking, but I can do coffee. I can be a normal human being for just a few minutes today. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that she’s incredibly gorgeous. A distraction that looks like her would be okay, I suppose.

  “Oh my gosh, thank you so much!” she says, as if it’s an unexpected invitation. “I ran out of coffee this morning—mommy brain. If you didn’t invite me in, I was just going to beg you for some coffee beans. I don’t even have a grinder, but I’m so desperate that I would have pounded the hell out of the beans just to get my fix.”

  Her joke makes me my laugh—a real laugh—not like the laughs I offer AJ when I’m trying to make him stop a bad joke before it completely rots.

  I lead Charlotte into my house, through the living room, and into the kitchen. I wonder what she’s thinking about the couch cushions, coasters, and mail lying on the ground from my recent Tasmanian Devil fit. “A Keurig,” she says, eyeing the coffee maker. “I like the way you think.” I pull a chair out from the table and offer her a seat. “You’re settled in pretty well for moving in so recently.”

  “I don’t like feeling displaced,” I say while pulling down a couple of mugs from the cabinet.

  “I hear ya,” she mutters in return, looking at her nails, inspecting each one as if using that as a distraction. Her sudden shift in mood has me questioning if I said som
ething wrong.

  I retrieve the sugar and cream and place them both down in front of her. “You okay?” I ask.

  “I’m sorry for being rude,” she responds without skipping a beat. “I shouldn’t have so slickly invited myself in after only knowing you for twenty minutes. I really did just want to ask for coffee, but...that’s weird. So is asking you if you had more than one cup. Considering the circumstances, that wasn’t funny. I’m sorry. I don’t exactly know anyone else on our street since we’re the only two with kids, so knocking on their doors would have been even weirder. And the bus stop moms all live two streets away.” She lets out a loud groan. “Hi, I’m Charlotte and I like to ramble and make a fool out of myself immediately after I meet a nice person.” Her nervous laugh actually puts me at ease.

  “I did the inviting; you’re fine,” I grin. I’m smiling. I almost forgot about sending my child off to war.

  With the mugs both filled, Charlotte pulls a napkin from the pile in the middle of the table and wipes away a sprinkle of fallen sugar. I find myself watching her hands, remembering the way Ellie’s hands looked as she was wiping down our counters. Our counters were always very clean. Everything was always very clean. Ellie was what she’d refer to as a clean freak. I think it was a little OCD, but she preferred the term “clean freak.”

  The clattering of the two mugs clinking against each other pulls me from my thoughts of Ellie, forcing me to refocus my attention on the stranger sitting before me. If we were in the old house, I probably would have clawed Charlotte’s eyes out at the thought of another woman placing her hands anywhere Ellie’s hands had been, but that is one of the many reasons I needed to sell our house. I was basically living in Ellie’s coffin with her. Except I’m still alive.