Chapter 7
I have to come up with a plan… Mom and Danny can't be together! Mom is supposed to be my Mom, not Danny's girlfriend! Maybe I could pretend to be sick, and then we'd have to go home… no, then Mom'll put me to bed with chicken noodle soup. I hate chicken noodle soup, except when Grandma Monroe makes it.
I could… say Grandpa Monroe is sick and that we have to go home… no, that's not a nice thing to do. Grandpa Monroe would get mad, and say he's just fine, thank you.
I could… tell Mom Danny has a horrible disease that if we stay in New York she'll catch it and get really sick and then it'll be bad for both of us. No, I can't prove that, that's too hard.
I give up! I don't know what to tell Mom to make sure they don't get together. I could kick and scream and whine, but then I'd get a smack on the bum. Mom doesn't let me scream and kick and whine. She says its "immature" and "childlike", well hello! I am a kid! I'm seven years old!
Danny may be my dad, but he's not. He wasn't there for a long time, and now he wants to steal my Mommy from me. Well, he's not going to. Mom is my Mom.
And I'm gonna make sure he knows it.
Lindsay and Danny sat in the break room, cups of coffee in hand. It had been seven years since they'd talked to each other, and now here they were, on the same couch Maddie had been conceived on.
"So…" Danny began, pursing his lips. "How have you been?"
"Well…" Lindsay pushed the air out of her lungs, "since giving birth to your daughter, Danny, I've miscarried her twin sister, been on welfare twice, battled her grandparents for custody, and recovered from breast cancer."
Danny was in utter shock, "What?"