Chapter Three

Wyatt

“Daddy, wake up!”

Wyatt stirred in his sleep and slowly rolled over. He knew it was early. Too early. He could tell because the bedroom window was open and the air that seeped in was cool. Also, the birds weren't even chirping yet. They were still sound asleep, just like he should have been.

“Wake up!”

His eyelids felt like they were still way too heavy to open. He was in that half-asleep state now, floating somewhere between dreamland and reality. His daughter had stopped shouting at him for just a second while she climbed onto the bed. He could feel her little feet patter across the mattress. When she got close, she started jumping up and down on the bed. Each time she landed, she dropped her hands onto his side.

“Daddy!” she shouted.

Between her yelling and jumping, Wyatt finally woke up completely. He squinted as soon as he opened his eyes. Every light in the bedroom had been turned on and it felt like he was being blinded by it.

“Maggie, what is it?” he asked, rolling over to face his daughter.

He was greeted by her smiling face, which was hovering less than two inches away from his own. Her blue eyes were open wide, staring back at him. If she wasn't so darn cute, he would have been annoyed. It was hard to get upset at a face like that, though.

“You have to get up right now,” she told him.

Suddenly concerned, Wyatt hopped out of bed. His mind always tended to go to the worst case scenario. Ever since his wife had passed away a year before, he had been on edge. He worried constantly and found himself more jumpy than he'd ever been in his life.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, turning back to the bed where Maggie was seated.

He glanced at the clock. It was barely six o'clock in the morning. Something was definitely wrong. Maggie never woke him up that early. In fact, she usually slept in later than he did. Anxiety burst into his gut, immediately pulling him the rest of the way out of the fog of sleep.

“Daddy, I can't find my swimsuit,” she said, crossing her arms. “I've looked everywhere.”

“Your swimsuit?” he asked, letting out a breath of relief. “That's what you woke me up for?”

She nodded casually, as though it should have been the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes, Daddy. Why else would I wake you up?”

She's only four and she already is way too confident, he thought, smiling to himself. God help me when she turns sixteen.

“I have swim lessons today and I need it,” Maggie explained, hopping up from the bed and strolling toward him.

Her blonde hair was a total mess. Strands stuck out in every direction and tangles of it ran down her back. It made Wyatt smile, which almost made up for the fact that she'd dragged him out of bed before the sun had risen.

“Honey, your lessons aren't until noon,” he said, taking a seat on the cushy bench at the foot of the bed. “That leaves six hours until your lessons actually start.”

“I know,” Maggie said, crawling up to sit on his lap. “But you told me not to wake up Mrs. Mildred until seven.”

That's kid logic for you, he thought.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with the back of his hands and then chuckled. “I did say that, didn't I?”

“Yes,” she said, wrapping both arms around his neck to hug him.

Wyatt gently patted her back and closed his eyes.

If Caroline were still alive, she would have loved nothing more than to look for Maggie's swimsuit at six in the morning, he thought to himself. He sighed, trying not to think about what should have been. Caroline wasn't here and there wasn't anything he could do to change that.

“Alright,” he said, trying to hold back a few tears that were fighting to make their way out. Just the thought of his wife always made him cry. It didn't matter if it was a good memory or a bad one. Thinking about her and how empty his life felt without her always caused waves of emotion to wash over him. “How about we make some breakfast first and then we'll find your suit?”

“Okay!” Maggie squealed, her eyes lighting up. “Can I have my favorite?”

Wyatt brought his hand to his chin and looked up toward the ceiling, as though he was deep in thought. “Your favorite, huh? I can't remember what that is. You'll have to remind me. Is it green eggs and ham? Or was it sardines from the can?”

“Gross! You know what what my favorite breakfast is!” she squealed, not fooled by Wyatt's attempt at humor. “It's french toast with jelly on top.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. He gave her one more hug, smelling the watermelon shampoo in her hair. “That's right. I almost forgot.”

“Come on,” Maggie said, hopping off of Wyatt's lap and grabbing his wrist. “I'll help you.”

“You'll help me?” Wyatt asked, slowly standing up from his seat on the bench, with the help of Maggie pulling on his wrist. “Well in that case, how can I say 'no'?”

While Maggie escorted him out of the room, they passed the dresser. On top, was a single picture in a black leather frame. It was a photo of him, Maggie and his late wife, Caroline. It had been taken at the beach by a stranger. He stood in the middle of his small family, with his wife on one side and his little daughter on the other.

“Hold up a second, kiddo,” he said, stopping in his tracks and grabbing the picture from the dresser. “Do you remember this trip?”

He squatted down to Maggie's level, holding the photo out so that they both could see.

She nodded. “Yes, I remember. We built a sandcastle on the beach.”

“That's right,” Wyatt said. “Do you remember how bad Daddy got sunburned that day? I looked like a lobster.”

Maggie giggled. “Yeah, a big red lobster!”

Wyatt's heart ached as the memory of the family trip flooded his mind. It felt like only yesterday that they were there. It was the perfect vacation, spent on the beach in Costa Rica. He'd managed to take two full weeks off of work, which didn't happen very often. Being CEO of a pharmaceutical company didn't leave much time for the fun things in life. Still, he had organized everything so that he could get the time off and create an amazing trip for his family.

The vacation, as amazing at it had been, was also a bittersweet memory. Two days after this photo, Caroline had received the phone call from her doctor. The cancer that she had conquered five years earlier had returned and this time, had spread. It had flooded her lungs, kidneys and lymph nodes. Everything had gone so quickly after that.

“I still miss Mommy,” Maggie said, reaching forward the touch the picture.

Wyatt watched her little finger touch the face of Caroline and it broke his heart. He held back a wave of emotion, wishing that he could be a little better at staying strong for his daughter. There were times, though, when it was nearly impossible. Caroline had only been gone for a year and every single thing he looked at reminded him of her. He still hadn't been able to change anything in the house, for fear of losing her memory.

The pictures on the wall were untouched. Her walk-in closet, which was spilling over with designer clothes and shoes, still contained every article of clothing that had been there the day she'd passed away. Even her toothbrush was still in its holder in the bathroom.

He knew that he couldn't hang onto her forever. Someday, he'd have to let her go. He knew that Caroline wouldn't have ever wanted him to live like this. He was a total mess. The only thing that felt normal to him any more was Maggie and his job. Everything else felt foreign without Caroline in the picture. He'd become a walking zombie, living a painful nightmare where everything he saw reminded him of what he'd lost. He wished there were a way to take away some of the grief overwhelming him.

“I miss Mommy, too, honey,” he finally said. “I miss her, too.”

He tried not to think about Caroline. He tried not to remember the innocent way Caroline's stomach pain had started right after their wedding. How it had grown so bad she couldn't walk. He tried not to remember the doctor's face when they'd told her about the tumors in her uterus.

He tried not to think about Caroline's heartache when she agreed to the hysterectomy. When they realized she would never bear children.

At least they'd managed to have Maggie. They'd managed to find a way. They'd found a surrogate, a young woman that Caroline had adored. She'd carried Maggie and given Caroline the happiest years of her life.

Then the cancer had come back and killed her anyway.

They both stared at the photo for a moment longer, then finally Wyatt drew in a breath and stood up from the ground. He put the picture back on the dresser.

“What do you say we make some breakfast?” he asked, trying to inject some happy energy into his voice and mostly succeeding.

Maggie nodded, gazing up toward him. “Yeah, I'm hungry.”

He smiled and took her hand. The two of them walked out to the kitchen. It wasn't even daylight yet and he'd already been up and down the roller coaster of emotions. From happy to sad and from joyful to heartache. He'd been on this same roller coaster ever since Caroline's death and he feared he'd never get off of it.