“That’s what my mom thinks and she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, so…”
“She’s worrying you’re wasting time. I keep telling her to chill. You’ll figure things out. Everything’s temporary,” he mumbled, propping open the fridge for a deep dive inside. “She thinks you needa be in real estate like her. You know how it is—if it ain’t her way, it ain’t no way.”
Rosalie laughed it off; a hollow sound that warbled uncomfortably in her throat. She couldn’t think of anything else to do. She collected the handful of PB&J sandwiches and dropped them into her mommy bag. Henry was too busy digging in the fridge to notice her exit.
Being Saturday, she had promised Remi a mini picnic and trip to the bayou. Beyond the brush surrounding their home, the wetland was a short fifteen-minute walk away. Rosalie explicitly forbade Remi to venture there alone, but that further intensified her curiosity. Every morning since they arrived in St. Aster, she pressed her nose to their second-story bedroom window and exclaimed she could see what she called, “the grassy pool.”
They began their stroll hand in hand. Remi insisted on stopping for ladybugs. The little red-and-black insects were her favorite. She stooped low enough to allow the ladybug to crawl onto her hand, giggling in delight as her invitation was accepted.
“Look, the ladybug wants to come!”
“There’s room for one more. Tell her she’s welcome.”
“What if it’s a boy? Can ladybugs be boys, Mommy?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Should I name it? He can come home with us!”
Remi jumped upward, cupping the ladybug in her palms. For the next few minutes she gushed about how the boy ladybug was her new pet and how he was going to live with them forever. Rosalie hung on each word as if the possibility was plausible. She didn’t dare dash Remi’s spirits. Ma had done enough of that to her growing up…
“What’s Daddy doing today?”
Rosalie choked on air, sputtering out a cough. “Daddy? Remi baby, we’ve talked about that already, remember?”
“But…but he’s not gone forever?”
“Daddy’s on a break.”
The vague answer didn’t satisfy Remi. Her brows bunched close, long lashes fluttering with her fast blinks. She was trying to make sense of what that meant. Truthfully, Rosalie was too. She didn’t know what his break entailed or how long it would last. Just that he had vanished out of their lives indefinitely.
No number. No email. No social media. No updates from his family. Nothing, as if he never existed. As if they never married, spending seven years together, bringing a daughter into the world. None of that mattered to Clyde in the end. He was done with her, which translated to being done with Remi, as well.
It was harder to put into words than she anticipated. How to explain to a child that the man who was supposed to love and protect her unconditionally was no longer in the picture—that he likely would never be in the picture again. As a grown woman recently divorced from him, the man she thought was the love of her life, she struggled with the heartbreak. The sting of his rejection hurt to the bone. How could she possibly expect Remi to handle it?
The bayou emerged among the towering cypress trees. Rosalie welcomed the distraction as Remi gasped and tugged her hand free. She trundled forward, mouth agape. The thick reeds parted for them, scratching their shins. Twenty feet ahead, the green water rippled from the late morning wind. The duckweed floating atop its surface whirled into different patterns. A lone frog hopped along, carefully leaping his way to the gnarled branches bent over the water.
Remi’s fascination rendered her speechless. She wasn’t one for nature, but the bayou was the rare exception. Rosalie understood why. A sense of calm swayed in the air as gentle as the breeze. The bayou’s seclusion shut out their troubles. Frenzied thoughts fell by the wayside, quieted by the lull of the water stream and distant coo of birds.
“Mommy, it’s like The Princess and the Frog.”
Rosalie’s smile was warm. “Yes, baby. Just like the movie.”
“There’s a frog too!”
They settled on a bench off the bayou, situated next to an old cabin long since abandoned. The last owners of the home had also left their rowboat, oars propped up on its sides. Something Remi pointed out as they munched on their sandwiches.
“Can we live in the cabin? We’ll be by the grassy pool!”
“It’s called a bayou, Remi.”
“Bayou sounds funny.”
Rosalie shared a small giggle with Remi. The wrinkle in her nose was like looking in a mirror. Clyde had often said how much Remi resembled her; it disappointed him that she hadn’t come out looking like him. Though Rosalie suspected Remi would be on the taller side thanks to his genes. She was already taller than Rosalie was at her age.
They made quick work of their PB&J’s and the juice boxes she brought along. Remi was telling Rosalie how excited she was to see Maxie on Monday when she caught on to noises that weren’t the bayou. They were distant voices growing louder by the second. She figured out who they belonged to only as the owners appeared.
Nick and Maxie nudged their way past the leafy brush. In Maxie’s hand was a knotted broken-off tree branch that she swung like a sword. Nick laughed watching her duel an invisible enemy. He gave her the space needed for her swashbuckling fight, at ease with one hand in his pocket.
The appropriate thing to do would’ve been to look away. The father and daughter deserved privacy on their afternoon outing. Besides, she wasn’t one to stare. She was on her own outing with Remi. They needed the alone time to bond. She assumed it was the same for Nick and Maxie.
Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to pretend. Once she saw them, she saw them. She saw Nicholas Fontaine, who husked out a laugh as carefree as his twirling, sword-wielding daughter. He was in his natural form like this, in Maxie’s presence, being the attentive father he was at his core. There was something inherently attractive about that.
When she tried to swallow, gulping down more air, the block in her throat wouldn’t allow it. She was left to flounder for a breath, sitting beside Remi and acting like deep down she wasn’t overcome with…something.
Nick stopped in his tracks. It took Maxie a second longer to follow. Their matching sets of pale green eyes gleamed and their mouths fell open in a laugh of shocked delight. They broke out into an instant trot, cutting the distance down to a foot.
Remi leapt off the bench to meet Maxie halfway. The girls clung to each other in their customary bestest friends hug. Rosalie was much slower. She rose with palpable caution off the bench, barely able to grapple the breathless feeling inside of her. Nick’s grin was lopsided, showing his perfectly straight teeth.
“We can’t seem to stay away from each other.”
“What are you two doing here?” Rosalie’s voice was more of a croak than the frog on the bayou.
“It’s Saturday. Maxie, what are Saturdays for?”
Remi and Maxie had let go of each other, excitedly chatting. Maxie interrupted herself to answer Nick’s question. “Saturdays are for papas and kiddos!”
“That’s right. Saturdays are papa-kiddo days,” he said brightly. He fixed Rosalie with his gaze, winking at her. “Maxie and I always come out here. She likes to try to catch the frogs.”