Page 31 of Peaches & Pistols

“Vanessa pushed for us to get married while she was pregnant, but I barely knew the woman. Maybe it makes me a piece of shit, but I had no desire to marry her just to ‘do the right thing.’ I didn’t trust her. I never even moved her in.

“She had a good job and a nice place, a support system. I figured we’d co-parent, but I wasn’t in love with her and had no desire to be in a relationship with her. But I sure as hell went to every prenatal visit and was in the delivery room to see my daughter enter the world. I’ll never forget how it felt when they handed Harper to me, and I got to hold her for the first time.

“We tried to make it work, co-parenting, that is. But Vanessa got disenchanted with motherhood quickly and left town.”

“She just left?” Mia seethes, and her mama-bear instincts validate the rage I’ve felt all these years.

“Mmhmm. It took years to track her down, but she signed away her parental rights on the spot. I changed Harper’s last name to Clark and got her new documents, and that was the end of Vanessa’s existence in Harper’s life. I worried for a long time she’d pop out of the woodwork. I don’t anymore. Some days I’m grateful. Other days I’m livid that she cared so little about her own child she never came crawling back.”

“What a bitch.”

The laughter that bursts from my core scares us both, making both of us laugh harder. Never would I have expected such a sentiment to come out of my docile Mia, but it endears her to me even further.

Mia’s laugh unlocks something long lost, deep in the cavern of my chest.

If Vanessa was the storm, Mia is the sun.

11

Used the last of the milk if you don’t mind picking some up.

Get your email on file with the school for Harper. My ass almost missed picture day.

No more fucking glitter.

Park on the other side of the stairs. Blocked me in yesterday.

Porch light is out. Don’t try to change it, I’ll do it.

Forgot your phone again.

Ithumb through my growing stack of nonsensical notes from Greyson. It’s been weeks since he got me my phone and insisted I use it. But the only way he communicates with me is through scrap paper.

His notes are practical, borderline rude, but butterflies dance in my stomach every time I spot one of them on the counter by his coffee pot.

I always write back; and my notes are always gone, replaced by another of his. I’m sure he doesn’t keep mine, but for some asinine reason, I haven’t been brave enough to check the kitchen trash to see if my notes are ever on top of the pile.

I took a zippy bag from the pantry to store his notes in, and I keep it in the top dresser drawer Everly can’t reach.

I finally felt safe enough to unpack—not that there was much to unpack. I went through the bins of Harper’s old clothes and let’s just say Everly’s set with hand-me-downs for eternity. That means I was able to buy myself a few basic items at the consignment shop down the street.

One of the things I bought was a small crossbody purse with a built-in wallet that fits my phone too. I know exactly where our important documents are, I check on them every single day. Everything else I carry with me in that little purse.

Sometimes I forget to take it off when we get home. Home. What a strange concept. I never had a stable home growing up. Carter’s house was never a home, it was a prison. But this small second-story apartment feels more like home after only a few weeks than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.

I’d like to think Everly feels comfortable here as well. I sheltered her from as much as possible at the old house, but she’s an intuitive child, and I’m sure she picked up on more than any child should have to.

Rapid knocking on my bedroom door has me fumbling the notes back into the zippy bag and closing the dresser drawer as quickly and quietly as possible.

“Mama! Are you ready? I wanna go!” Everly hollers through the hollow-core door.

I’ve been getting dressed for far longer than necessary because we’re heading out to Lucky Spurs Ranch for Greyson’s sister’s birthday party. Two of my shirts are drenched with stress-sweat because I’m attending the party as a guest, not as Harper’s nanny.

The Andersens have been nothing short of incredible to me and Everly, but I haven’t really socialized with them.

I haven’t had the same experiences as many people my age have. I didn’t mess around in high school because it was hard enough to graduate when moving schools so often, and because I stopped caring about much at all after Charlie died.

Then I was swept away under Carter, and he didn’t allow me to have any friends. I was permitted to make small talk with his friends’ wives at work events or gatherings, but they were so different from me, as well as older, so I mostly kept quiet by his side.