"White dress or this pretty blue one?" Juliette had learned it was best to give her daughter a choice of outfits. That usually curbed any disagreements over Cadence's penchant to wear stripes with prints if left alone to choose her own clothes. Juliette was hoping she'd choose the blue dress so she held it up a little higher in the air and moved it closer to Cadence.
"This one," Cadence clutched the frilly skirt of the white dress, squeezing it in her hands.
"Okay." She hung the dress from the doorknob and turned back to her daughter's closet. "And your shoes…" She stood on her toes, stretching to reach the small box containing her daughter's dress shoes. "Are way up here. Daddy must have put them away."
"I wanna wear my cowboy boots." Cadence picked them up from the closet floor and held them up to show her mother. "Aren't they pretty?"
Juliette turned around and glanced at the fringed leather boots as she lowered her arms. "Your boots are very pretty, but I think for tonight I'd rather you wear the other shoes."
"Mama, please? Auntie Scar got them for me. They're pink and that's my favorite." Cadence pouted, dropping the shoes and crossing her arms over her chest. "I don't like the other shoes."
"Cadence, just the other day you told me you loved your dressy shoes." Cadence set her jaw and Juliette recognized the look as one of her own. She sighed, knowing the conversation could easily turn into a battle of wills. She remembered the parenting advice her mother in law had once given her. Don't fret the small stuff. In the grand scheme of things, this was tiny. Who cared if the boots didn't at all match the style of her dress? "All right, baby. But if I let you wear those boots you have to promise you're gonna sit real still while I fix your hair."
"Okay, Mama. I will." Her daughter beamed up at her before plunking down on the floor and pulling one of the boots on.
"Wait a minute," Juliette said. "Let's get you dressed before you put your shoes on, silly girl." She helped Cadence change clothes, pulling the dress over her head and zipping it up before letting her daughter put on the mid-calf cowboy boots. She had to admit they didn't clash with the dress as badly as she thought they would.
"All right. Let me do your hair and then I have to get ready myself. Daddy will be here soon." She picked up a hairbrush from the dresser and glanced at the clock on the wall. She'd hit snooze a couple times before finally rousing Cadence from her nap and now they were a little pressed for time. She sat in the ugly but extremely comfortable green chair in the corner of Cadence's room and motioned for her daughter to sit between her legs. Cadence picked up her baby doll before walking over to sit down. She placed the doll between her own legs, a small pink comb gripped in her hand as she began combing the doll's hair. It had been a special thank you gift from Uncle Will and Uncle Kevin for being the flower girl in their wedding a few months before. The baby doll was currently her favorite toy; she had named it after them, carried it everywhere and wouldn't go to sleep unless she had it in bed with her. "Willa Kay's hair is yellow like ours."
"Blonde, baby." Juliette corrected her while gently pulling the brush through her daughter's hair.
"Is blonde the same as yellow?"
"Yes."
"Okay, blonde." Cadence had a much heavier hand than her mother and roughly raked the comb through the doll's head. "Nana's hair is blonde and yours and mine. Was your mama's hair blonde too?"
"Yes, it was. A beautiful sunny blonde just like yours." Cadence's hair was very similar to Jolene's, straight with just a bit of a wave near the ends.
"But Daddy's hair is brown. And Grandpa." Cadence pulled through her doll's hair again and Juliette was sure Willa Kay would have been complaining if she were real. "But Papa Glenn's hair is blond."
"Uh, yes." Juliette giggled, thinking of her manager's toupee. "It probably is still blond."
"Where is Papa Glenn? Is he on a tour?"
"I think he's…" she trailed off, realizing that she actually didn't know where Glenn was. He was still technically her manger, but he'd taken on other artists at her insistence. There'd been no point to him waiting for her to go back to work when she hadn't been sure if or when she would. "I'm really not sure where he is, baby."
"Can we call him?"
She checked the clock again. They had time for a quick call. "Not a bad idea. I'm sure he'll want to talk to you." She hadn't seen Glenn in a few months, not since he'd left on the first leg of a tour with one of the artists he was managing. They'd been separated before when he'd either quit or been fired, but that time felt a little different. He stopped by the house to say goodbye and she remembered hugging him for a long time before pulling away. "I'm gonna miss you," she told him, trying to hide how upset she was. Of course he saw right through that.
"I'm gonna miss you too, kiddo." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Call me anytime you want. I'll always be there for you."
They'd spoken several times since he'd been gone, but not as often as she might have liked. She put the hairbrush down and picked up her phone to dial Glenn.
He answered after just a couple rings. "Hey, honey," he said.
"Hey, Glenn." He said something in response but there was so much noise in the background she could hardly hear him. "I didn't hear you. Are you at a sound check or something?"
"Yeah," he yelled a few seconds later. "It's too loud, Juliette. I can't hear. I'll talk to you later, okay?"
The call ended abruptly and Juliette looked at her phone in surprise. "Sorry, baby girl," she said, setting the phone down. "Papa Glenn couldn't talk right now. We'll try again tomorrow, okay? But right now we have to finish getting ready for our date night with Daddy." She rested her hands on Cadence's shoulders, silently reminding her to be still before gathering her daughter's hair into a loose braid.
"Mama, can you braid Willa Kay's hair like mine?"
"Hmm, I'll try. Is she gonna sit still for me?"
Cadence giggled. "Yes."
"Or is she a wiggler like you?" She finished the braid, secured the end with a barrette and then leaned over to tickle her daughter's sides. Cadence squirmed, laughing as she scrambled away.
Juliette picked the doll up from the floor and did her best with the thick synthetic hair. Willa Kay's braid wasn't as neat as he daughter's but she didn't have time to redo it. "Here, baby." She stood from the chair and handed the doll to Cadence. "I'm gonna get dressed. Stay in here and play and I'll be back in a little bit."
"Okay."
After one last glance at Cadence, Juliette left her daughter's room and headed down the hallway towards her bedroom. She opened her closet door and walked inside, searching for a pair of heels to match the designer pants she'd chosen to wear. She bent over, reaching for a pair on the bottom shelf when she spied a bright orange piece of paper in the corner. She pulled at it, carefully tugging it free from beneath a box where it had been squished. It was crumpled, but she recognized the origami bird immediately.
She and Avery had only been dating for a little while when she'd told him that her father used to make paper cranes for her before he'd been killed. It was one of the few memories she had of her father, one she cherished and she'd been fighting back tears when she told Avery how he'd make the bird fly over her head before presenting it to her with a flourish.
That first one from Avery was a heartbreaker. Lopsided and clumsy, made from a piece of lined paper he'd torn from a notebook. He'd given it to her during the same week that he'd told her he loved her for the first time, when she was still wrestling with her guilt over what had happened with Jeff at the BMI party. He'd figured out how to fold origami for her. It was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her and only served to make her hate herself even more for the mistake she'd made by having sex with Jeff. After Avery broke up with her she kept it in a drawer, unable to trash it but unable to look at it again. She'd almost forgotten about that first crane until after they married and he folded a white one, leaning over to balance it on the mound of her belly one afternoon after she woke up from a nap.
"You're getting better," she'd told him, holding it up in the air so that the light shining through the window refracted off the crisp white paper.
The morning after they came home from the hospital with Cadence, he served her breakfast in bed and she found a diminutive pink crane peeking from behind her biscuit. "Avery," she'd breathed as she plucked it from the breakfast tray. "It's perfect."
It became a thing he did, a small gesture of affection, though she never caught him actually making them. There were times when the reason was obvious; the day after she finally agreed to start dating him again she found two turquoise cranes kissing on the kitchen counter. But sometimes there was no reason she knew of and she'd find one in a random place, in the bathroom behind the mouthwash or next to the coffeemaker. If he left the house before she was awake she might find a crane on the other side of the bed, resting on his pillow as if it were poised to take flight. She had accumulated quite the flock in a drawer, birds of all colors and sizes.
It was a while before she realized he was numbering them, his familiar handwriting marking the underside of a wing. This one from the closet floor was 27. She remembered finding that one in the fridge, perched on a container of yogurt that had expired while they were on their honeymoon. He was well into the 50's by now, the latest having been discovered on her nightstand just a few nights ago. She'd been holding it in her hand when she climbed in bed to thank him; the small, delicate brown scrap of paper had been quickly forgotten about when her husband circled his arms around her. The next morning she brushed her toes across something sharp and found the bird buried near the bottom of the bed, a little worse for wear for its misadventure but still mostly intact. That crane rested comfortably in her drawer, unlike the orange one she held in her hand. She fumbled with the paper, reshaping it as best she could.
"How'd you manage to get out of your sanctuary?" She asked, frowning as she slid open the drawer and dropped the crane inside. She reasoned that the bird was an older one, a honeymoon gift. They had been remarried almost a year, it could have fallen out of the drawer at any point since then. Her phone rang, interrupting her thoughts and she left the closet to answer it. "Hey, babe. Are you on your way?" She returned to the closet, finally retrieving the shoes she'd been after.
"Hey," her husband said. "No, I haven't left yet. I'm sorry, hon, but -"
"Avery." She didn't bother trying to hide the incredulity in her voice as she stood, dropping the pair of heels she'd just picked up. "Are you canceling?"
"No, I'm not can- as if you'd ever let that one go." Her husband sounded a little muffled through the phone but she could hear the amusement in his tone. "I just need a little more time. We're still fiddling with the song. I can tell we're gonna go long and I don't want you guys waiting for me." He paused, said something to someone in the background that she couldn't make out. "I called Bo to pick you up."
"Why'd you do that?" She hadn't even seen Bo in months, much less needed him to chauffer.
"He can drop you off and we'll just take my car back home. You've got about…" he paused again and she could picture him pulling the phone away from his ear to check the time. "An hour. Are you already dressed?"
She abandoned the shoes and left the closet, glancing down at the capri-length yoga pants and oversized T-shirt she'd been wearing most of the day. "Not exactly."
"Do me a favor and wear that dress, the black one I like with the lacey back - you know the one. Please."
"I know which one but…" Juliette frowned at his unusual request as she walked into their bedroom. "I already had something set out." She stood in front of their bed and looked at the clothes she had spread out across the bedspread. "Um, maybe. What about you? You're not changing?"
"I grabbed something this morning. I had a feeling the day might go this way."
"Okay. Well, let me go, I've gotta hurry. And Cadence is in her room being very quiet so I need to check on her."
"Yeah, that's not a good sign. I'll see you soon then, babe. Bye."
"Bye." She tossed the phone on the bed and considered the clothes she had been planning to wear. Pants, white shirt, short-waisted jacket. Nothing at all like the cocktail dress Avery had asked her to wear. She stepped back into the closet, easily finding the one he'd been referring to. It had been a birthday gift a few weeks before, which was odd in and of itself because Avery had never really been interested in what she wore. Even if asked, his standard response was, "You look beautiful," to whatever she had on, including the ratty pair of sweats she used to wear to physical therapy.
She laid the dress next to the pants and chewed her lip, thinking for a few seconds before starting towards her daughter's room. She could make up her mind after checking up on her. It was never a good idea to leave Cadence alone for too long.
"Baby girl," she called as she walked down the hall. "Bo is gonna pick us up soon." She slowed to a stop as she walked through the door, cut short by the sight of Cadence's hands covering something in her lap. "What are you doing?" she said apprehensively. Her daughter startled and looked up at her. Juliette could see the black top of the Sharpie market clutched in her small fist. "Cadence Barkley, what are you doing with that?" She held her hand out for the marker. "You know better than to play with these. These are permanent and you could - oh." Juliette inhaled sharply when she saw Cadence's hands move to cover something else. She recognized Willa Kay's plastic toes between Cadence's fingers. "What did you do?" Juliette crouched, taking the doll from her daughter's lap. Cadence had scribbled on the leg of the toy, leaving a line of dark ink down the left leg. Juliette looked at her daughter in confusion. "Why would you do this?" She asked, making sure to keep her voice even. "When your uncles gave this to you they wanted you to take care of it."
Cadence's shoulders slumped as her face crumbled. "Is Uncle Will gonna be sad at me?"
"No," Juliette said, smoothing her hand over her daughter's hair. "No, baby. I don't think it's possible for Uncle Will to be sad with you, but I don't think he expected you to destroy his gift. And you really wanted this baby doll."
"I didn't 'stroy her, Mama. I wanted her to be the same as us."
"The same as who, Cadence? Mama doesn't understand."
"As me and you. See," Cadence stretched her leg out and pulled the skirt of her dress to the side so her mother could see that she had also drawn on her own leg with the marker. "Now we all have a scar and all of us are the same. And it won't ever go away because it's permament."
Juliette looked down at her daughter's leg and could see that Cadence had done her best to imitate the scar on her leg. "That's why you…" She sank the rest of the way to the floor, staring at the doll she held. Sitting cross-legged she could see the smooth scar tissue peeking out from beneath the edge of her yoga pants.
"Mama," Cadence put her hand on Juliette's knee and moved so she was in her mother's line of sight. "Was I a bad girl?" Her face was pinched in the way it was when she was trying not to cry.
"No, sweetheart." Juliette set Willa Kay aside and pulled her daughter into her lap and hugged her. "You're a very good girl." She squeezed Cadence and then pulled back so she could look into her eyes. "But we don't draw on our toys or ourselves. Okay?"
"Okay." Cadence drew the word out to three syllables and a look of sadness remained on her face.
"Hey." Juliette leaned closer to her daughter. "Thank you for telling me why you drew those scars. You did that to be like Mama?" Her daughter nodded and Juliette licked her lips, thinking about how to handle the situation. She marveled over having a daughter who wanted to be just like her when she'd wanted so desperately not to be like Jolene. "You know, we have a lot in common. We both have blonde hair and we both love to sing and-"
"And our nails are the same!"
"Yes, that too. But you know what? We can't be completely the same. You have your daddy's beautiful blue eyes, but mine are a different color. And I can't color my eyes blue, can I?"
"No," Cadence giggled.
"I love that you have your daddy's eyes. And his ears." She tickled her daughter's ear, smiling as the little girl laughed. "I have a scar because I was in an accident but you and Daddy don't have one."
"Because we wasn't there."
"Right. You weren't there and I'm so thankful that you weren't, baby, because you might have gotten hurt." Juliette blinked, holding back tears. She did not even want to consider what might have happened if Avery and Cadence had been on that plane. She shook her head a little and smiled at her daughter. "It's okay that you don't have a scar, baby girl. Mama and Daddy love you just the way you are. Do you understand?"
Cadence tilted her head and nodded slowly.
"Good," Juliette said. She glanced at the clock on the wall. "I tell you what, since you drew so neatly how about you keep it tonight but when we get home, we'll wash it off, okay? Off of you and Willa Kay."
"But you said the marker was permament." Cadence reminded her.
Juliette raised her eyebrows. "Well, that's true…" She licked her thumb and rubbed it against her daughter's leg, hoping the ink would smudge. It didn't. "Hmm." She scratched her nose with a finger as she thought. "You know what? Daddy will figure something out. He's a smart cookie."
Cadence giggled. "Daddy's a cookie?"
"Yep." Juliette stood and held her hand out to Cadence. "And you're my sweet angel."
"I know what you are, Mama."
"What's that?"
"A chicken."
Juliette rolled her eyes when Cadence started laughing. "Oh, I should have seen that coming."
"Hey, Bo. It's so good to see you." Juliette ushered her driver inside the house and gave him a hug. She stepped back, noticing the suit he was wearing. "You didn't have to get all dressed up just to drop us off."
"No, I-"
"Oh, no." She put a hand over her mouth, cutting in before he could finish. "Did you already have plans? I'm so sorry." She turned around and called for her daughter. "So what is it?" She asked, turning back to Bo. "You got a hot date later tonight?"
Bo chuckled but didn't deny it.
"You do!" She said. "Anybody I know?"
Cadence ran down the hallway towards Bo and threw her arms around his waist. "Hi, Bo!"
"Hey, Cadence. How are you?"
"I'm good," she said. "I know a joke."
"Oh, boy." Juliette opened the door and motioned her head for them to walk out in front of her. "Get ready to be entertained."
Bo dropped them off in front of the restaurant after dutifully laughing at Cadence's chicken joke in route. He helped Cadence down from the car and then held his hand out for Juliette.
"Thanks, Bo," she said, stepping down from the car. "Have fun on your date." She held her daughter's hand as they walked inside and approached the host. "I'm meeting my husband. It's under Barkley."
He led them into the restaurant. She pulled at hem of the dress as she walked, belatedly wondering if she'd made a mistake in choosing to wear it. It fit fine, but it left her legs - her scar exposed. Her husband would neither notice nor care but she was still self-conscious about it.
"Mama, can I have the big girl drink again?"
"What big girl drink?" She smoothed the dress over her hip. "Oh, a Shirley Temple? I don't know," she squinted down at her daughter. "Are you a big girl?" She teased.
Cadence nodded. "I'm 4."
"I know. You are getting to be such a big girl." The host held the door to the private dining room open and she continued holding Cadence's hand as her daughter entered the room in front of her. "Thank you," she said, glancing back at the man as she walked into the room.
"Surprise!"
Juliette jerked backwards, accidentally pulling Cadence with her. Her mouth dropped open and she covered it with her free hand as she realized what was happening. She barely registered her daughter saying, "Whoa." Her friends, her husband and Glenn had all been waiting to surprise her. She put a hand over her heart in an attempt to calm it, unsure of whether to kiss her husband or kick him.