All he knew was that she needed space and he needed to give it to her.
Speaking of personal space, Doris still had her arm linked through his, and as they approached the picnic table, he wasn’t quite sure how to pull away without offending.
By the grace of God, Chloe called, “Daddy, come here and look at my pink rock. Isn’t it pretty?”
When he reached Chloe’s side, his daughter held up a bismuth-pink rock, beaming at him as if she had painted a replica of the Sistine Chapel.
“It is gorgeous, Chloe,” Doris said. “What inspirational saying are you going to write on it?”
Chloe squinted toward the sky, pursing her little mouth and tapping her chin as if giving Doris’s question careful consideration.
Then her face brightened, and she said, “I’m going to write, ‘Come home soon, Mommy. I miss you.’”
“That’s very sweet, Chloe, but that will be the second rock you’ve painted for your stepmother. Don’t you want to write one you can leave in the park?”
Chloe’s face clouded. “I was going to leave this one in the park. I want her to find it so she knows how much I miss her and how much I want her to come home.”
Doris flashed a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Oh. Okay. Do whatever you would like.”
Aidan’s heart twisted. Good grief, they were little girls. How many universally inspirational sayings did a six-year-old know? He wanted to kick himself from one side of the park to the other for allowing Kate to hurt his little girl. Chloe had been through enough already. Now he had allowed her to form an attachment to Kate and Kate was going to leave, too. What the hell was wrong with him?
Chloe tugged at his sleeve. “What is it, sweetheart?”
She got up on her knees on the bench of the picnic table, cupped her hand and whispered, “What is a stepmother? Why did Miss Doris call Mommy that?”
Aidan drew in a deep breath, buying time to sort out his thoughts. “It is just another name for a mommy.”
He braced himself for her to push for a better explanation. Instead, Chloe cupped her hand again and whispered into Aidan’s ear again. “How do you spell ‘Come home soon, Mommy. I miss you’? Will you help me write it?”
Aidan debated whether he should try to talk her out of painting that on the rock, but he decided against it. Chloe seemed pretty set on writing a message to Kate. If he tried to steer her in another direction, she might get upset and he didn’t want to push her into a meltdown.
Choose your battles.
Doris walked up and stood next to Chloe. “Sweetheart, I have an idea. What if you paint ‘Throw kindness like glitter’? You could use the silver paint for the lettering, and I brought some glitter glue that you could use to decorate it. It would look so cute if you decorated your pink rock that way.”
Chloe frowned. “But my mommy is already kind. She already does that. I don’t have to tell her to be that way.”
Aidan’s heart twisted. Leave it to a kid to see the best in people. Of course, since day one, Kate had been nothing but kind to Chloe. If Kate couldn’t bring herself to stay in this marriage, he hoped that somehow, Chloe would not take Kate’s leaving personally. Couldn’t Kate see that, in a sense, she was doing to Chloe exactly what her father had done to her, even though she said she didn’t want to be like him.
“What if this rock wasn’t for your...um...mommy.” Doris glanced at Aidan. He gave his head a subtle shake, asking her to let it go. Either she didn’t understand or she was ignoring him because she continued. “The purpose of this group is to paint rocks so that strangers can find them and the positive messages we write can bring happiness into their lives. Don’t you want pictures of your rocks on the Instagram page? We can’t post pictures of ones we don’t leave for people to find.”
“My mommy needs some happiness,” Chloe insisted, her voice suddenly defiant.
Doris flinched.
“How about if I paint the rock with the glitter message and Chloe can paint her rock the way she wants to?”
Doris’s eyes flashed as she looked at Aidan. Obviously, she didn’t agree, and for a moment, Aidan thought she might challenge him. She didn’t, and it was a good thing. He didn’t think that this little rock group of happiness should be quite so stringent and inflexible. Good grief, the girls were barely six years old. Doris took a deep breath and blinked several times in rapid succession.
“I’m sure that’s fine.” Her voice was cool. She placed a package of multicolored glitter glue on the table. “I’ll just leave this here in case one of you wants to use it.” She made quick work of moving around the table and helping the other girls.
“Is everything okay?” asked the mom who was sitting next to him. Her eyes looked hungry for gossip.
“Sure,” Aidan said. “Why would it not be?”
The mom shrugged. “I’ve never seen....” she nodded sharply in Chloe’s direction “...quite so...” She made a face that Aidan guessed meant difficult, or maybe she was trying to show her concern? Chloe was busy smearing gold glitter glue on her pink rock and seemed oblivious. Still, Aidan didn’t want to talk about his daughter as if she wasn’t there.
“You know how six-year-olds can be. Could you pass the pink paint please?”
“Daddy, can you help me with my message to Mommy?”
Again, questioning whether he was doing the right thing by not steering her away from making that rock for Kate, he spelled out each
