Bailey
Coming home from school on that Tuesday was like any other day of any other week. I’d been to practice, and I’d had tea at my grandma’s like I’d done forever, but when I arrived home at eight-thirty p.m., my mom’s car was in the driveway. It was unusual, she usually worked until nine at the office. I’d panicked because I usually did my breakfast dishes and my chores when I got home, and I was scared that mom would be mad at me.
“Mom,” I called out as I walked in the front door. There were voices in the kitchen, and I walked towards them. My mom was there with two of her girlfriends; they were drinking wine and talking seriously. As I walked through the door my mom and my aunt Cate smiled at me, but Kimberly ignored me. She’d hated me since her son had fallen out with me the year before.
“Bailey.” My mom motioned for me to sit down with a grimace on her face. Open on the table was a letter, and as I sat down, my name jumped out. The letter was written in my dad’s hand and I reached over for it when Kim snatched it away from me.
“No,” my mom said, “let her see it, Kim. She needs to know what her father has done.”
Kim passed me over the letter as I sat down at the island, surrounded by my breakfast dishes. My eleven-year-old eyes widened, and I ran my finger through my blonde hair as I took in the letter. It wasn’t addressed to me, but my mom.
Henri,
I know this might come out of the blue, but I can’t have Bailey around anymore after the last week she was here and disappeared. We have two toddlers and can’t have her acting the way she is. It hasn’t been an easy decision, but I feel it’d be best for Bailey, Josie and Julian if Bailey stopped visiting. I will put the money for her into a trust fund that she can access at twenty-five, but both Lexa and I think she is just reacting to the atmosphere between us. You’ve never forgiven me for falling for Lex and leaving you, Louis, and Bails, and this has been passed to Bailey. She has never respected me, and I can’t have her in my home with my children.
I know doing this to her so soon after losing Louis is going to be hard on her, but you need to get her some help. She isn’t stable and she needs therapy.
Tell her how sorry I am that this arrangement hasn’t worked out. I love her, and she’ll always be my oldest girl, but she needs more than I can give her.
I’m truly sorry.
Terry
My heart stopped and tears stung my eyes; my dad had cut me out of his life. I looked at my mom and she shrugged at me. I raced from the kitchen and locked myself in my bedroom as I realized my dad didn’t want me in his life anymore. I’d lost Louis and now I’d lost my dad too. It hurt so bad, and I spent the night sobbing and destroying the pictures of us together, cutting him out of the pictures of Louis.
My dad had walked out on my mom and me two years ago. He told me he’d always love me, I’d always be his baby girl, but he’d gone on to marry Alexa, and she hated me. She made my life miserable any time I went to visit and last time I was there she put me on the bus home but didn’t tell my dad, and he went crazy looking for me. He didn’t believe me when I told him she’d sent me home and this was the result of it.
The next day my mom called me into the kitchen.
“Bailey, come here, please.” I walked into the kitchen at seven-thirty and sat down at the counter, watching as she poured me OJ and put pancakes on my plate. My mom didn’t do hugs or come over all lovey-dovey. She wasn’t cold, just aloof, but I knew she loved me deep down.
“Bailey, I know what your dad did hurt you, but it’s okay. You’ll be okay.” She nodded at my plate and I began eating my food in silence. I didn’t want to talk about what my dad did. She sat across from me with pursed lips and drank her coffee. As the clock hit seven-fifty, she dropped me off with Leah, our neighbor.
The daughter of immigrants from Mexico, Leah was tall, caramel-skinned, and exotic. She was slim and strict, but she wasn’t mean, and I loved her.
“Morning, Bailey,” she’d say every morning and I‘d smile and nod at her, before sitting by her window, watching for the school bus with Alice, her six-year-old daughter.
As the school bus arrived, we’d go down together and get on the bus since it went by the elementary school before stopping at my school. I sat on the bus with her tuning everyone out and let her off at her stop. This was how my life went until I was fifteen.
Four years later
I arrived home from school and saw my mom was home. This was unusual and since the day my dad’s letter arrived, I’d spent more time with Leah and Alice because my mom went to work early and worked until after I was in bed every night. Weekends she went to conferences and during the holidays I spent time with my dad’s parents, though this got less and less and last summer I only spent one weekend there.
I was a good student and I worked hard at school. I wanted to go to university to become a doctor or an art history major. But I was only fifteen and I had plenty of time to decide on my path in life. I didn’t have many friends, because I was shy, painfully so. Wendy, my best friend, put up with my paralyzing shyness and awkwardness around everyone.
She was overtly funny and always cracked a joke whenever I froze up around new people to make me relax. She was especially good at helping me when the boys from school were mean or made fun of me.
The boys at school asked me if I was a boy because I was as flat-chested as I had been at nine. I hated the boys at school. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to leave them behind while I went to university and became a valuable member of society, and they worked in a fast-food place. At least that was what I was hoping for.
As I walked into our apartment, something was different, and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. My mom greeted me at the door of the foyer with a hug which had my back stiffening from the unusual act of affection. She pulled me into the living room where a strange man was standing. She had her brown hair swept up in an elegant chignon, fancier than she usually wore, and she had a gray silk dress on with navy blue heels.
“Well, hi, you must be Bailey?” His smile was kind, and he looked at my mom with genuine affection as she nodded at him. “I’m Shawn Christie. How do you do?” He reached out his hand to me and I glanced at my mom once before shaking his hand. He shook gently and smiled at me again.
My blue eyes widened at his expensive watch. My dad had one like it, and before mom and I lived in our apartment, my family lived in a huge house in the countryside with a pool. But once my dad left, he’d sold the house and told my mom he’d buy us somewhere else to live.
She told him no chance, that she’d support Louis and me without his help, so he told her that he’d put the alimony into a trust fund for me and that I could access it when I was twenty-five. He’d also set up a college fund for me and added Louis’ college money when he’d passed to make sure I had enough to get through school.
Louis was my big brother. He was sixteen when my mom and dad divorced, but he’d been killed after a car accident just after my mom and dad split. Since then my mom had closed off. I shook my head and glanced around at the door, wishing I could run to my room and close the door, but my mom caught my glance and shook her head. I knew I’d need to tough it out.