Page 8 of Enemy Daddy Next Door

Jessica closes the book and puts it down on her lap. It’s so big it basically obscures her legs completely. “You don’t like stories about sad mommies and daddies.”

I try to be honest with her. I know what it’s like to be withheld from emotionally. That was my entire childhood and then some. It’s my main goal in life to make sure Jessica feels loved and safe. Especially when it’s just me taking care of it. If I have to sustain my romantic life with one-off flings, so be it. Jessica needs all my love. “I don’t, sweet pea,” I say, softly brushing her dark hair from her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“When won’t mommies and daddies make you sad?” she asks with a frown. A genuine question. In fact, a good question.

“I don’t know, honey. You know, Daddy’s been through a lot.”

Jessica touches my hand, running her fingers along the veins that have started popping out as I’ve gotten older. “Maybe if Mommy came home, you’d feel better.”

Oh, fuck. Sometimes this kid just says things and stabs me right in the heart. Jessica doesn’t have memories of her mother, unless she has some memory that started freakishly early. “You know I’ve told you, Jess, Mommy can’t come home.”

Jessica’s shoulders fall as if she’s hearing that again for the first time even though I’ve said it so many times. In fact, she’s been bringing it up more and more as she’s gotten older. My excuses are lame and limp. Unless I tell her I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t think she’ll stop asking. But that doesn’t feel fair. I don’t want her to become an adult and have all this built-up resentment toward me because I shut her down from asking about things she deserves to be curious about. “Mommy loves you. That’s why she’s not here. I know that’s confusing.”

Jessica sucks in her cheeks. “Okay, Daddy.”

She buries her head in the crook of her arm and takes long steadied breaths. I can tell she’s trying not to cry. Where do they learn this? When do they start holding back like this? Is it my fault she’s not having tantrums and kicking and screaming because she wants something she can’t have?

I kiss the top of her head and rub her back. “Hey, what do you say to going out for some ice cream?”

Jessica lifts her head and smiles despite the sadness at the corners of her hazel eyes. A perfect combination of her mother and me dancing together in her irises. That’s what life was supposed to be like. Like the color of my daughter’s eyes. “Will they have chocolate?”

“Are you kidding? I bet they’ll have double chocolate chunk! Come on!” I scoop her up off the beanie bag, reveling in her excited scream.

At least I can still distract her with ice cream. But it’s only a matter of time before that trick stops working too.

3

AMY

“You want to do a follow-up to divorce?” Fiona asks with a sour face.

I have to laugh. “You sound absolutely disgusted, Fiona.”

Fiona gapes and then looks to the rest of my team. “That’s not what I meant.”

I grin. “I know that.”

“It’s just…a heavy follow up to a heavy book in the children’s market feels a bit like –”

“A risk?” I ask, glancing at the storyboard I made last night that now sits on an easel in front of my agent, editor, and a couple interns.

My agent, Kris, picks up where Fiona left off. “What I think Fiona means, Amy…” Kris is from Oxford and talks like she thinks she’s better than you. She terrified me when I had my first meeting with her. However, now that I’ve been working with her for several years, I know it’s completely out of her control and she’s actually a sweetheart. “…is that we’ve done the divorce thing and we need to move on.”

Most of the time. “It’s no good to just tell kids that divorce happens and not follow up with a comprehensive guide for them to handle it. It’s an ongoing grief. Something that will always be a part of them. It’s going to affect them their entire lives. All of their relationships. It’s…” I scan the room. Okay, Amy, you’re going a tad overboard… “It’s traumatic.”

“We know, kitty,” Kris says. “The book has also been traumatic, to put it lightly.”

“What do you mean?” I ask with a frown.

“The book on divorce was a risk. But we did it. because you, Amy, are a star. It’s a simple point of fact that Petunia is quite nearly a household name in terms of children’s literature.”

Must be a pretty small group.

“But…” Kris says, pursing her lips and looking down her nose at me through her cat-eye glasses. “The reception has been mixed. It vacillates between triumphant and vitriolic in both reviews and the messages we are getting from readers.”

I sigh. “So, what does that mean?”

“I hate to rein you in, kitty, but…” Kris looks back to Fiona. A handoff of sorts. They’d make a good pair on a football field.