Charlotte

It’s hard to separate myself from Lowell, but I do when Kimberly comes running into the kitchen with a big smile on her face. Until she sees Lowell, and it falls in surprise before her large eyes widen, and she smiles again.

“Hello.” She must remember him from yesterday.

It is more than surreal for me to see them in the same room. Something I never thought I might get to see, or if I did, it would have been on much different terms.

“Hey, kid, remember me?” Lowell crouches down, and Kimberly nods at him.

“Yes. Why are you here?”

I laugh despite the knot in my stomach, but it doesn’t come from not trusting Lowell or being unsure about how it may go between them. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m leaning toward it being a result of wishing the circumstances were different.

“For dinner with you and your mom. Is that okay?” Lowell grins and glances to the side at me. I smile back and then laugh at Kimberly’s response.

“I guess so.” She shrugs and shifts on her feet, still in her bright orange canvas shoes from school and jeans with matching orange shirt. Friday is her favorite day because I don’t make her do homework before her computer or television time. I don’t think I’m that strict, but I do like her to have a routine.

“Okay then, I’m glad you agree.” Lowell stands, glancing at me with a smile as he moves behind the counter.

“Did you shut the computer down?” I ask Kimberly.

“Yes.” She takes a dramatic breath as she opens the fridge without much ease, and grabs one of her small strawberry milk cartons, her favorite drink. I have to bribe her to drink water most of the time.

“Okay. Help me set the table.” I pat the top of her head as she trots by me and into the dining room.

“She’s so adorable.” Lowell chuckles.

“And stubborn.” I roll my eyes.

I reach up to the cabinet for plates standing on the very end of my tiptoes to drag them with my finger since I can’t reach that far. I still have to put them high up, though, because Kimberly likes to snoop in the kitchen.

“I got it.” Suddenly, Lowell appears behind me, his body close enough to feel the heat of him.

I set down on my feet, my hands on the counter as he pulls out three matching plates and bowls from the cabinet.

“Just two.” I turn around. He smirks down at me, his cologne flooding my brain mixed with the natural scent of his body as I inhale it. “I’m always worried she will break the glass.” I clear my throat to say something so that I don’t let myself fall in his arms again—mostly because Kimberly could come walking in, but also because I’m not sure where it would go and what it would mean. We seem to be straddling a very thin line between coming together as parents and as a couple. I know it will take him a while to adjust to the former since he only found out yesterday he is a father. But I am impressed, and surprised, that he took to it so well. I feel lucky he doesn’t want to fight me or turn this into an even bigger problem. This can work, and it could be complicated by us blurring lines together.

He seems to feel this too when he pulls away from me and doesn’t stop until he is on the other side of the kitchen. I take everything out, plate the food, and Lowell helps me carry it to the table. Kimberly did a good job setting it with our brown placemats that match the table and silverware. Her plate and bowl are a cartoon image of one of her favorite shows with a matching cup and utensils.

Kimberly, as always, doesn’t waste time before eating and talking about her day at the same time. She mostly doesn’t like school, which isn’t a surprise for someone her age, and hates most of the obligatory group activities like anything having to do with her grade. It’s funny now, but I’m pretty sure I felt the same way when I was in school.

“Do you know what you want to do when you grow up?” Lowell asks her. He has barely eaten, but he doesn’t seem nervous to me at all. I think his stomach is in knots like mine because I have only eaten half of what is on my plate too.

“I don’t know.” Kimberly looks right at him, another thing she doesn’t do to strangers—only Catherine, her grandparents, and me—but she is different with everyone else. It’s easy to watch them and see how similar they are. Things I never noticed or could place before, I see them now.

“Well, what do you like to do?”

“She takes ballet classes,” I say.

“Is that what you like?” Lowell asks her as if I hadn’t said anything. I lean forward on the table, and Kimberly blinks her eyes at me before turning back.

“You can tell me, Kimberly.” Lowell chuckles. It makes Kimberly smile too, and she nods.

“I do like it.” She laughs, turning to me. “I almost tricked you, Mommy.” She laughs, and I join her, amazed by how clever she is again, sensing she would have tricked me into thinking she didn’t like ballet.

I’d like to say she at least got that from me.

“I got these out for you.”

After dinner, Kimberly has perched herself in front of the television, and Lowell helped me clean up in the kitchen. When it’s time for him to leave, I almost don’t want him to go. Since he is the only one besides family who has come over for dinner or come to the house in general, I don’t want to confuse Kimberly into thinking something else is going on.

“What’s this?” Lowell takes the box as he stands in front of the main door to leave the house. His smile is crooked as he peers inside. I watch the angled line of his nose down to the sides of his jaw and full lips, his eyes beaming as they find mine again.

“Just some pictures. And a video.” I cross my arms, my pulse irregular as I await his response.

“Oh, nice… a video?”

“Yeah, some parts of the birth and after.”

He furrows his brow and makes a face at me. “It doesn’t show any of the gory stuff, does it?”

I laugh aloud in shock. “No, Lowell.” I laugh again. “You can watch it. The pictures are from years back. I take a lot of them actually. Most of them are recent, and I have a few I haven’t developed yet.”

“Thank you. This is almost as good as the real thing, I guess.” He smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and it’s probably the saddest I have ever seen him in the midst of all this.

I step forward until I reach the end of the box between us as he holds it.

“I’m sorry, Lowell.”

His eyes find mine, blazing, as he forces a smile. “Yeah, I know. Enough of that, unless you want to keep telling me. This is good enough. But I want to spend more time with her. Maybe just the two of us, so she doesn’t feel like you’re watching her.”

I nod slowly, not having agreed yet. I’ve been her one parent for so long. I know she behaves differently around me, and he should also get that bonding time with her.

“Okay… I’ll ask her.”

“A five-year-old?”

“She’s a person, too.”

He chuckles. “Yeah. I know.”

“She shouldn’t feel forced to because I said so.”

He nods. “Okay. I get it.”

“But we can have dinner again tomorrow. We can go out.”

“It might be a little late if it’s okay. I have practice and then a press conference, but we have a home game Sunday, so I don’t have to travel.”

“That’s fine.” I blink, looking up at him, again torn between what to do.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Yeah.”

He leans down and kisses my cheek before he turns and leaves.

I spend the rest of the night with Kimberly. She easily distracts me with her musings until bedtime, and I’m alone again, constantly thinking of Lowell as I fall asleep. He greets me again the next morning. I tell myself I never got to wake up next to him back then, and I wonder if I even want to now.

I know how I felt about him back then, but it is easy to tell myself I was only young, he was the star athlete everybody loved, and I was no one special. But that isn’t the case now. After so much time and all this, the emotions are flooding me too quickly.

“Mommy, you aren’t listening,” Kimberly whines from the back seat. I hadn’t realized I was so in my head as I was driving her to Catherine’s place. They spend most Saturday mornings together because it’s when I do my weekly check balancing at the salon, and Kimberly hates to sit in one place too long.

“Sorry, honey, tell me again.” I smile at her, but she still gives me her funny look which only makes me smile.

After that part of my day is done, I busy myself at the salon. I do my small tasks at the salon to burn time until I pick Kimberly up. The same routine as always.

“Hey, package for you, boss.” One of my stylists swings by me on the way to my office.

“Thanks.” I walk around her and meet the man standing in the doorway, young and bored-looking with a blank expression on his face. He hardly pays attention when he confirms my name and then hands me the envelope, quick to exit the room when he does.

The manila envelope is plain, and I wonder why it didn’t come with my other mail until I open it.

The header almost makes me quake with anger, but the sender’s name is what makes me feel the pang of betrayal deep in my gut.

Lowell served me with custody papers.