Page 56 of Alfie: Part One
I missed him terribly. Every night when I went to bed, I looked over at the side that’d been his.
Goddamn him. Goddamn him and his lies and…
All of it.
He couldn’t be trusted.
Roughly fifteen minutes later, I didn’t know what felt more fake, the smile on my face or the makeup the girl was applying.
Trip had decided that he and I should be monkeys. Sans glitter, thankfully.
I sat patiently while the girl painted streaks of brown, beige, black, and…blue?
What kind of monkey was this?
Ellie was done first, and she bounced over to me with a big smile on her butterfly face. She was covered in streaks of pink, orange, purple, green, and yellow. Plenty of matching glitter lines too.
“You totally look like a monkey!”
I chuckled quietly, keeping still, and welcomed her on my lap.
Smile, idiot.
I fucking couldn’t.
I was getting sucked into a pit of despair. The curse of spending time with the kids and Alfie as a family. I felt so damn weak. I missed this more than I could say, and Alfie lying to me, hiding what he did for a living, was clearly not enough for me to manage an emotional distance.
“There! All done,” the girl declared with a bright smile. “I just think it’s so great when mommies and daddies get their faces painted too.”
Yeah, it was amazing. It felt great too, with the drying paint making it impossible to be comfortable. The slightest movement made me feel like the paint was going to crack.
Alfie and Trip were finished too, and someone offered to take our picture in front of a cartoon backdrop of Philly’s skyline, complete with monkeys swinging between the buildings and animals roaming the streets.
Alfie and I exchanged a brief glance, and I could practically read his mind. He was as miserable as I was. But we huddled together after handing over my phone to the guy, and he took our picture. Like a happy family.
Trip and Ellie were over the moon.
“I want that picture in my room!” Ellie exclaimed.
“Will you send it to me?” Alfie asked quietly.
“Of course.” I attached the picture in a text. “For what it’s worth, you make a very cute butterfly.”
He smirked a little.
“He totally does,” Ellie giggled. “Don’t scratch it!”
“But it itches,” Alfie defended. “I think I have glitter in my nose. If I sneeze, it’s gonna look like the Fourth of July.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
One pony ride for Ellie later, we were starving, and the line for the sliders was too long. So we found a barbecue truck instead and ordered a big family platter that we brought over to the picnic tables.
A table near the end had just cleared, and Alfie cleaned up the leftover napkins and two straws while I divvied up the food onto paper plates.
Considering we were very close to the petting zoo, I had a feeling Ellie was going to finish her food fast and go over there.
“Goddamn littering,” Alfie muttered and sat down.