The Rise and Fall of Hope

He pulls up to drop her off thirty minutes late. Since I've been pacing around near the window with the best view of the front drive I'm out on the porch before the door on the ever changing vehicle he drives can open and spill her out. She bolts from the car, anxious to avoid a goodbye scene and dashes around me to get in the house leaving me standing awkwardly waiting for him to retrieve her car seat from the back seat.

I dawdle, avoiding moments we might have to fill with conversation; moments he might decide to pick a fight; moments I might ask why in almost eight years it has never occurred to him to purchase a goddamn car seat.  He passes it over casually and makes a remark about her running off; he wants to make sure I understand she's not running from him. I smile and ease his concerns, saying something about kids being kids. The injustice of it, of me reassuring him, is sour in my guts., but I'm rung out and unwilling to spill any of it on our feet.

That's when I see her, the girl in the passenger seat. I lift my arm to wave, thinking it's one of his older daughters. But it's not, and the wave wilts, leaving my fingers the flaky brown petals of a dead flower. It's a stranger. She smiles at me. The smile of a girl who wants her boyfriend's baby mama to like her.

My eyes swing back to his and he actually smirks. His eyes dare me to say something about her age, his prowess, his audacity. I don't. My lips slam shut and stay that way, tight and unmoved. A part of me would like to go ask her to unroll her window and warn her about the path she's on but who other than I knows better,  knows it would only give flesh to the things he's told her about me. I know the way lies can blend with truth until it's impossible to see anymore. I remembered the way he used to speak of his ex-wife and then later hearing her side of their history after it mirrored my own. Of course, it was too late anyway. I know now she was already pregnant with his fifth child; already Baby Mama 4.

This last week there was a new girlfriend in the car. It's just a matter of time. It will start with the Disney Dad routine. Suddenly there will be trips to the zoo, movies, and ice skating. My baby girl will scamper in dragging a balloon behind her in a week or two and it will hover in her bedroom; bright with artificial color and puffed full of hope. The remains of the balloon will last longer then this relationship; a wrinkled reminder tied to her bedpost.