Pirate Smile

I watched her climb up the ladder, slide down, race around to the other side, and start all over again. My head and neck assumed the bobble head position. I couldn’t take my eyes off Delilah. This little person was a part of me. I scrutinized every last bit of her, from her facial expressions down to the freckles on her arms. If she walked like me, I wanted to know. If she scrunched her nose up when she was trying to choose between two things like Holly, I wanted to know.
Delilah hardly looked my way at all. She just kept running her laps around the playground, occasionally bumping into a bigger kid—or the bigger kid was bumping into her, I couldn’t be sure. It was almost tiring, watching her exhaust herself. But for the first time since Holly left she was smiling—sort of—and that was huge.
I sat on the bench, unsure of what my part in this was. The other parents were playing with their kids, but then again the other parents knew what the fuck they were doing.
I stopped and thought about what I was saying to myself—parent.

P-A-R-E-N-T.

And then the whole cycle started itself over again.

I wasn’t even sure if Delilah wanted me to play with her. On the walk over, she stood only as close to me as she had to—whatever little relationship we had built up over the past few days went out the window as soon as Holly left the apartment.
Delilah took a seat at the opposite end of the bench after she’d finished playing on the slide and cast a sidelong glance my way. She looked like a mopey little cocker spaniel.

“You’re not done, are you?”
I tried to sound as upbeat as I possibly could—we’d only been there for about an hour. But then, maybe she was worn out—I know I would have been fucking dry-heaving after all that. Delilah shook her head and glared at the swings with a determined gleam in her eyes.
“I’m going to swing.” She looked down at her dangling legs. They were a little on the short-side, like Holly’s.
Holly had told me about the infamous swings before she left. Delilah, as much as she tried, could not get the hang of it.
“Do…you need a push?” I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted her to ask for my help—what if I pushed her right off of the seat?
After mulling it over for a few minutes, she nodded her head slowly. Every little bit of air left my lungs as I pulled myself up off the bench.
Delilah stood between the swings, looking back and forth between the smaller swing and the bucket seat swing. She frowned, cautiously stepping toward the bigger swing, and then stepping away. After a few minutes she made a decision. She began squirming her way onto the seat until she fell and landed in the sand. I jumped forward, kneeling beside Delilah. Her lower lip trembled just a little bit and shoved her glasses back up her nose. I tried to give her an encouraging smile. Holly would probably kill me if she got hurt on my watch.
“Oh, honey!” An older woman, who had taken an interest in staring me down earlier, rushed to Delilah’s side. I’d noticed her son give Delilah a good shove in line for the slide. “Are you alright?”
Delilah shook her head, furrowing her brow as she looked over at me. I made a face that only she could see—I wanted that woman intruding just about as much as she did. I offered my hand to help her up and, to my surprise, she took it. Now that she knew we were on the same team she had a reason to like me.
“Well I bet your brother can help you up the one over there, sweetheart.” Her eyes raked over my hands, especially my empty ring finger.
I cringed. This conversation was definitely going to turn south any second. The woman raised an eyebrow as she looked from Delilah to me. Delilah bit her lip as she backed into my legs. I suddenly felt incredibly protective.
“I think she might be too young for this one,” she whispered. My jaw clenched. Was this some sort of Playground Police?
“She’s four.”
At this point, I was waiting for Holly to jump out from behind a tree and yell “gotcha”.
“She’s a little one then, isn’t she?”
I ignored her comment and looked down at Delilah. She wasn’t there. I looked around frantically until I spotted her sitting on the bench. Relieved, I sighed and jogged over to her.
“I’ll help you on the swing, yeah?” I gestured toward the play structure. Nobody was going to knock my kid and get away with it.
Delilah shook her head and looked away.
“Wouldn’t…it be fun to tell Hol—I mean your mom—that you went on the swings?”
When she didn’t say anything, I shrugged and sat down beside her, making sure to keep enough space between us. We sat for a while, just watching everyone else run around. Delilah stared at the swing-set so intently. I figured this would have probably been the time to offer up an anecdote, but I didn’t really have so I just kept my mouth shut.
“Ya’ know,” I stood up. “I think I’m going to swing.”
I chose my swing carefully, making sure I wasn’t inadvertently stealing from some teeny-bopper. I occasionally looked over at Delilah. She was watching me like a hawk, her bright eyes wide. Her hands were folded in her lap. Kindergarten Cop was still standing off to the side monitoring everything.
After a few minutes, Delilah finally jumped up and ran over to me.
“Alright, kid, let’s do this.”

…

We sat across from one another in a little sandwich place a few blocks from the apartment. After she’d peeled the crust off her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Delilah sipped her chocolate milk quietly staring at me. The kid was so fucking shy; I knew she got it from Holly. Despite the way she spoke and her sarcasm, Holly pretty much kept to herself.
I watched a family in the corner booth. The man and woman looked like they were in their late twenties, and they had two small girls. If he could do it, couldn’t I?

“So what, you didn’t do it this time.” I tried making her feel a little better. “At least you tried, right?”
She shrugged. Her eyes averted back to the remaining chunk of the sandwich.
“I bet your mom is really proud of your for trying.” Hell, I was proud of her for trying. If we could just super-glue her ass to the seat, I think everything would work out alright.
We ate in silence for a while longer. It wasn’t nearly as bad as what I’d psyched myself out for. She wasn’t running around trying to bite me or anything, so that was a major plus.
“Um,” Delilah chirped. The sound of her voice made me jump. “I have to go…potty.” She whispered the last the word, her face turning bit red.
“Shit.” I quickly covered my mouth as Delilah’s eyes widened. This was the part I’d been dreading all day long. “Do you…need help?” To my relief, she shook her head.
It felt strange, waiting outside of the women’s bathroom. I garnered several stares—I probably looked like a mountain man with this beard—but a few of the ladies smiled at me. When the door opened, Delilah walked out with her arms were stiff in front of her body, her hands lifeless at the wrist. I wasn’t going to say anything, but she looked really disgusted and a little bit zombie-like.
“I couldn’t reach the sink,” she said, mispronouncing nearly every word.
“Uh oh.”
I’d seen mothers take their sons into the bathrooms all the time, so why couldn’t a father take his daughter? I scooped her up, allowing her to leave her board-like arms out in front of her. Before I backed in through the door completely, I looked around. It was empty.
“If anyone comes in, close your eyes.” This probably counted as some sort of child abuse. “Alright?”
Delilah nodded her head sharply, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Well nobody’s in here yet, so let’s get these hands washed.” I smiled a little, adjusting her above the sink so she could squirt the soap into her palm.

We left for the apartment, without any inappropriate visuals while taking care of personal hygiene. That right there should have earned me three gold stars. I assumed the rest of the afternoon and evening would go by just as seamlessly.
I consulted Holly’s list and decided it was time for an afternoon showing of The Lion King. Delilah conked out on the couch about half-way through, and I followed suit.
It wasn’t until I stepped out for a smoke that things went awry.

“Caleb, man,” I hissed into my cell. As careless as he looked, Caleb was always worrying. “I’ll fucking be there, alright?” Glancing over my shoulder, I took a sharp drag. Delilah had woken up by that time and was occasionally peering up from her coloring to watch my every move.
It hadn’t even been a week and Caleb was already going postal over my whereabouts. He had taken this mini-vacation as a sign that I was quitting the band. Of course I told him he was a fucking idiot for thinking that, but it didn’t stop him from insisting on knowing when I’d be home to work out the kinks from the Chicago show. Caleb always got this way when we played a show in Nashville. It was like he felt we had to be at an entirely different level for the hometown crowd.
“Fuck, you seriously think I’m phasing myself out?” I rolled my eyes, mindlessly pounding the wall. “I just wanted to stick around and see Holly for a little, man. What the hell is wrong with that? You don’t see me getting on your ass when you want to go somewhere with Lily.”
I turned around to stamp out the cigarette when our eyes met. Delilah had given up on coloring a picture of some trees, and was standing on the balcony.
“Shit—I mean, oh Jesus.” I blew the remaining smoke. “Caleb, I’ll call you back.”
Delilah slowly backed into the living room, eyes on the ground. She tripped over the door frame, crashing into the sliding door. I knelt down beside her, trying to think of something to pull out of my sleeve.
“How about we get some ice cream?”

…

Delilah had calmed down quite a bit after she had an ice cream cone in her hand. At first she was reluctant to leave, but then I told her she could choose any flavor she wanted, and have as many scoops. It was like the only thing I had going for me was my ability to bribe.
She and I sat on the bench outside of the ice cream store people watching, or rather I watched Delilah people watch. We hadn’t spoken since the incident on the balcony. A steady stream of strawberry ice cream was running down her chin. Holly would have probably just reached over and wiped it off, but I wasn’t so sure if it would fly if I did that. But of course, I was never one to let an awkward situation pass me by.
I reached over with a napkin, startling Delilah to the point where she dropped the entire cone into her lap. Never mind the stream, now we had a flood. She looked at me as if to say, “Who the fuck do you think you are, ruining my perfectly tasty treat?” and then her lip quivered. I had to give her credit—for spending the day with a complete stranger, she had held her tears in for quite a long time.
“Delilah, I’m sorry.” I was about to pick the ice cream cone and then wondered whether or not that was a taboo area. I desperately needed a guide book.
She picked up the cone and placed it in my open hand, and took the fistful of napkins I offered. The kid knew how to clean up—definitely Holly’s offspring.
And then she smashed the napkins in her lap, almost making more of a mess. I looked from the pink and brown glob in my hand, to Delilah, and back to my hand.
“Alright, well…no big deal. We can get you another one?” Delilah shook her head solemnly. “No? OK, well we can go back home?”
To this, she nodded tenaciously.
I quickly dumped the cone into the garbage and grabbed some more napkins. Delilah trailed behind me walking like she’d crapped her pants, an enormous pink, sticky stain on her shirt and pants.

She refused to hold my hand as we walked back to the apartment. Instead, she trudged ahead of me with her head down. I looked away for one—one—second and when I looked back she was crossing the busy street as if she didn’t realize she was even doing it. My stomach flip-flopped as I leapt out to grab her, shouting her name. A car whizzed by, honking, just as I scooped her up.

“You can’t do that.” I shouted. Was this me taking responsibility for something? I couldn’t scold her. “You have to pay attention, alright? Just...hold my hand, got it?”
I was pretty much shouting this stream of words in her face, wondering to myself where they were coming from. And then she started crying. It was quiet at first, just tears pouring from her eyes and a soft whimpering, but the minute we set foot in the building the floodgates opened up and she began wailing.
I wanted to cry too, because I had no idea how to make her stop.
We got into the apartment and she just stood there, face red as a tomato.
“I want my mom,” she whispered. Then she looked at me indignantly and ran into her room, slamming the door.

I could not handle this.