I supposed just watching Cal read her a story couldn’t really hurt, could it?
Walking quietly, I managed to get to the doorway of Fern’s bedroom without either of them looking up and seeing me. Cal was sitting on the edge of Fern’s bed while she laid down under the covers, snuggled up with her various stuffed animals. She loved those animals and was always having them act out elaborate adventures and dramas.
It seemed that Fern had picked out one of her favorite books for Cal to read—the story of a dragon with unusually shiny scales, that wasn’t a proper dragon, because he liked brushing his teeth and all those kinds of things. It turned out the dragon was really a prince, cursed by a witch, and could only be transformed back when kissed by a princess—except that he couldn’t tell the princess the truth about him, he just had to hope that if he was nice and kind enough a princess would do it of her own accord. Sort of an awkward, hilarious Beauty and the Beast scenario.
Given that it was one of Fern’s favorite stories, I had this damn book memorized, because I’d read it to her so many times. I could read that thing with my eyes closed. And Cal, I quickly realized, was not sticking to the script.
The poor dragon went on a bunch of misadventures before finding this princess, and Cal was making up quite a lot of those adventures—extremely silly and fun ones, and Fern was giggling along, loving it. As I watched she started adding her own suggestions, because she was never one lacking in imagination, and Cal just took those suggestions and went with them. The dragon met another dragon, and they saved a village from a volcano. He learned how to floss. He tried to be a pirate and failed miserably because he was too nice and couldn’t steal people or threaten to have them walk the plank.
My face started hurting and I realized it was because I was smiling, smiling wider than I had smiled in ages, watching Cal interact with Fern. No, watching—watching my daughter interact with her father. Watching the man I still had feelings for interacting with his daughter. Our child. Our child.
Suddenly it became too much and I had to turn away, walk back into the living room. If either Cal or Fern noticed, I didn’t hear anything about it. I sat down on the couch, my legs feeling wobbly. My chest ached so fiercely it was like someone had a hook in my ribs and was yanking on it.
I had never let myself imagine things like this, while I was pregnant or while Fern was growing up. It would have hurt too much. Now it was happening, really happening, right in front of me and what was I supposed to do with that? This was so close to everything I had wanted, yearned for, although admittedly when I’d been younger and thought about it, I hadn’t only been twenty-one when I’d given birth to our child, I’d been a few years older and more settled.
But still. I’d never known Cal’s stance on kids, aside from the fact that he didn’t have any. It wasn’t a topic I’d been able to easily ask him about. Now, I knew, or at least knew how he felt concerning Fern. He was so good with her, and she obviously loved him already.
It made me want him, crave him, even more. Knowing that he was so happy with our daughter.
The sound of Cal’s energetic storytelling ceased and I stood up, hastily feeling my face to make sure I hadn’t started crying. That would be embarrassing.
When I checked on them, Cal was quietly turning off the light and setting the book aside. He smiled and nodded at me, and I moved around him to sit down on the bed and kiss Fern goodnight. She smiled up at me sleepily. “Did you have fun?” I whispered. “Did you enjoy your story?”
Fern nodded. “I like Uncle Cal.”
It felt like my heart was being ripped right out of its chest. “I’m glad, sweetheart. I’ll see you in the morning, okay? I love you.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
The first time she’d said those words to me, I’d felt my heart stop. They were the words I hadn’t even known I was waiting to hear, and once I’d heard them, nothing else in the world had sounded so sweet. Every time I heard them, I felt alive all over again, and had to keep from doing something ridiculous like bursting into tears over how full my heart felt.
I supposed if nothing else, I ought to thank Cal for giving me Fern. She had changed my life in the best possible way, and I didn’t regret her, not for a second.