“Maybe Melissa can handle it?”
There was also the babysitting incident.
Melissa had let Emma watch IT because, according to Melissa, Emma had promised she “wouldn’t get scared.”
Emma slept between Ryan and me for four nights. She still deeply distrusted balloons.
So we kept looking.
Advertisement
There was also the babysitting incident.
Then one afternoon, Travis found me standing beside my car in our driveway, complaining to my mother on the phone about after-school care.
When I hung up, he was leaning against his fence.
“What time does Emma get out?”
“Three.”
“My rehearsal finishes at two-thirty on Tuesdays through Fridays. Place is two blocks from her school. I can walk her home.”
He was leaning against his fence.
I actually laughed. “You want to pick up a seven-year-old from elementary school dressed like that?”
He looked down at his leather vest.
“Good point. I’ll wear a tiara.”
I smiled for what felt like the first time all week.
We did everything properly. The school copied his ID. I filled out the authorization forms. Travis was officially added to Emma’s pickup list.
Advertisement
“I can walk her home.”
Emma thought it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her.
Ryan did not.
“I don’t want our daughter depending on some biker every afternoon,” he said the first night.
I was washing dishes. “He’s not some biker. He’s Travis.”
“I know who he is.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t want our daughter depending on some biker.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
“You trust people too easily.”
I told myself he was being an overprotective father. I understood that. Emma was our only child. Ryan worried about everything from strangers to school buses.
So I let it go.
For three weeks, everything was great.
“You trust people too easily.”
Every afternoon, Travis walked Emma home.
Advertisement
Every afternoon, she was there when I got back.
She loved those walks. At dinner, she would talk about them constantly.
“Travis showed me how motorcycle engines work.”
“Travis says crows remember faces.”
“Travis knows how to whistle with two fingers.”
