One Kiss for My Last Month novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Question
At the divorce hearing a nine-year-old reborn from a life of regret says she wants her father; her mother only asks for Sundays, and Maddy counts the days to the Friday her heart stops.
"Maddy Eichelberger," the judge said. "Which parent do you want to live with?"
The whole courtroom turned to look at me.
I was nine years old, sitting in a chair too big for me.
I had been asked this question once before.
The first time, I said "Mom" before the judge finished the sentence.
Then I spent fifteen years watching what that answer cost her.
Mom sat at the left table in her gray cardigan with a folder in her lap.
Dad sat at the right table with his lawyer and his mother, my Grandma Maureen.
Grandma Maureen had pressed a peppermint into my hand in the hallway.
She had told me I was a brave girl and that nobody was angry at me for anything.
Mom did not tell me what to say.
She looked at me and waited.
I knew that if I said her name, the Eichelbergers would make her pay for it again.
This time the bills would be somebody else's problem.
So I said it.
"My dad."
Dad glanced at his lawyer and gave a small nod.
Grandma Maureen put her hand over her pearls and smiled at me.
Behind us, a woman whispered, "That poor mother."
Mom's face did not change.
She nodded once and folded her hands over the folder.
"Do you contest this, Mrs. Eichelberger?" the judge asked.
"No, your honor," Mom said. "I'd like to keep Sundays, if the court will allow it."
"Sundays, ten to four," the judge said. "Granted."
Dad signed where his lawyer pointed, and it was over.
In the hallway, Grandma Maureen took my face in both hands.
"You'll have everything at our house, sweetheart," she said. "A big yard. Your own room. Nobody will ever make you sad."
She turned to Mom with her kindest smile.
"Signe, dear, would you hand me that folder? Her school papers and her doctor's records. It's easier if it's all in one place."
Mom held the folder a second.
Then she gave it to her.
"Thank you, dear," Grandma Maureen said, and tucked it under her arm.
The elevator opened at the end of the hall.
A woman stepped out with a little boy on her hip, a blond woman in pink scrubs and round glasses.
The little boy saw Dad and threw both arms out.
"Daddy!"
Dad went very still.
"Alana, not now," he said, too late.
"Sorry we're late, babe," the woman said. "The sitter's car wouldn't start, and Eli would not..."
She stopped, because she had seen Mom.
Mom looked at the boy's face.
It was Dad's face, round cheeks and a cowlick in the same spot.
"How old is he, Craig?" Mom asked.
Her voice was quiet.
"Three in June," the woman said, and her smile slid off.
Mom did the math where everyone could watch her do it.
Three years and some months ago, Dad had told her he was working late every night for a month.
"Let's not make a scene in a courthouse, Signe," Grandma Maureen said. "There's a child here."
"I'm not making a scene," Mom said.
She wasn't.
She did not yell at Dad, and she did not look at the blond woman again.
She just got down on one knee in front of me on the courthouse tile.
I had known about Eli.
In my first life I met him when I was fifteen, and he had my father's cowlick even then.
I had not known Mom would find out this way, with strangers watching and the judge's door still open behind us.
"Sundays," Mom said. "I'll be at the gate on Mill Street at ten. One kiss when you come and one when you go. That's all I ask."
"Okay," I said. My voice cracked.
She tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear.
"Take the stairs slow at your dad's, okay? Don't run them."
She had never told me that before.
I ran everywhere, and she had always let me.
I told myself she was only sad.
Dad took my hand then, and his hand was damp and quick, and he walked me out to his truck.
Grandma Maureen sat in the front seat and passed me another peppermint over her shoulder.
Through the back window I saw Mom come out onto the courthouse steps, alone.
She walked to the curb and put two fingers against the glass beside my head.
I put my hand on the other side.
Then Dad pulled out, and she got smaller and smaller until the road turned.
I counted on my fingers.
Four Sundays, which meant four hellos and four goodbyes, which meant eight kisses, and that was all the time I had left with her.
In thirty-two days, at 2:15 on a Friday afternoon, in front of my whole school, my heart was going to stop.
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