Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(30)

“Sure,” she chirped, already wiggling in my lap.

I had about three minutes before she got bored of talking to me. I had to make them count.

Dread pooled in my stomach. Once I told her, there was no going back. No pretending. No ignoring. No figuring out how to build a time machine. Nothing. Once this clusterfuck hit her ears, it couldn’t be unsaid.

Even if there was a part of me that would always wish it could be changed.

“The lady who comes to teach you art, her name isn’t really Hadley. Her name is Willow and she’s your mommy’s sister.”

A slow smile split her face. “I have a mommy?”

My stomach wrenched. “You had a mommy, yes. Her name was Hadley.”

“Hadley is my mommy!” she shrieked.

Technically, the answer was yes, but she wasn’t talking about the real Hadley.

“No,” I stated firmly. “Her name was Hadley, but she died, kind of like Jacob’s grandma.”

Her smile fell so fast that I could almost hear the crash.

“But I’m sure she loved you and was sad that she didn’t get to meet you.” I wasn’t sure if that was true or not. But it seemed like the right thing to say at the time.

She stared at me, almost emotionless. I hadn’t expected her to crumble at this news. For kids, missing something they never had was a hard concept. I had a feeling losing her beloved friend and art teacher was when the emotions were going to come into play.

“So, the thing is, Willow, the lady who was teaching you art, she lied to us. And it was a bad lie. So, we can’t see her anymore.”

I waited for the fallout. Braced for the tears when her mind finally wrapped around my words.

Instead she gasped, full-on soap opera mode. “Hadley knew my mommy?”

“Yes. But remember, her name is actually Willow. They were sisters. Twins, actually.”

Another gasp. “Twins like Molly and Gabby?”

I nodded.

Gasping wasn’t enough that time. She palmed either side of my face, squishing my cheeks together as she often did when she got excited, and then yelled, “My mommy looks like Hadley!”

I pried her hands away. “Rosie, baby, listen for a second. Her name is Willow.” Why did I have to keep saying her name? It felt like a rusty blade from the past each and every time. But if I was being honest with myself, it was a rusty blade from the present too. I missed her.

Hadley.

Willow.

Whoever the fuck she was.

I missed her.

Rosalee hopped off my lap. “Can we go tell Hadley? She’s going to be so excited.”

Shit. This was going downhill fast. It was time to stop this runaway train. Blunt. And to the point. That’s what kids understood. “We can’t see Willow anymore. She lied to Daddy about a lot of stuff. I’ll get you a new art teacher. I’ll—”

“What? Why? You lie all the time. You told me I didn’t even have a mommy. Just a daddy. And you told me that you rescued a seal on Rosie Posie Day.”

I sat up straighter in my chair. She had a point. “I did do that. I was trying to protect you though. Except for the seal. That was a joke.”

“Maybe Hadley was joking.”

“She wasn’t.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes. I do.”

“You could be wrong. Did you ask her?”

“Sweetie. Rosie. Listen. There are good lies and bad lies. Hadl—Willow told bad lies. The kind that are not a joke. The kind that are not funny. The kind that could hurt people. I get that you liked her. I liked her too. But—”

“What kind of lies?”

“Bad ones.”

She stomped her foot. “Like what?”

I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s my job to protect you. And—”

“What kind of lies!” This was yelled at exactly one decibel below a dog whistle.

There it was. The confusion. The surprise. The anger. The rage. All the emotions I’d been feeling since I’d found out that the woman I was in love with was…well, not the woman I thought I was in love with. But this time, the hurt was ten times more potent because the emotions were ravaging my baby.

I scooted to the edge of my seat and plucked her off her feet, settling her on my lap again. “She told me she was your mommy. She tricked me so she could spend time with you.”

Her eyes lit. “But that’s a good lie. Uncle Ian does it all the time to spend time with me. He told you he needed my help at the bank, but we really just went to get ice cream.”

“Yes, but Ian was joking, and he’s not a stranger. He’s Daddy’s best friend.”

And then she backed me into the corner that I knew existed. The one that had a blinking neon sign over the top of it. The one that had two stools and a craft table. The corner that had absolutely nothing to do with me and the betrayal I felt.

“But Hadley is my mommy’s sister. She’s not a stranger.”

“Rosie.”

Big, fat tears rolled from her eyes. “She draws really good. And she’s fun. Please let her come back, Daddy. Please.”

I didn’t have much of a heart left, but it was breaking all the same.

Her bottom lip pouted. “When I lie, you just put me in timeout. Maybe you can put Hadley in timeout and she can come over next time.”