Smitten

A single dad drops his daughter off at her male friend's house for a school project and means to only stay briefly accidentally falls for that friend's mother, a single mom.

Henry was never sure if he was raising Aspen to the best of his ability. 

He had never known what love was until that cold January morning in the hospital twelve years previously. He had been brought up in foster homes, many of them. He had known kindness, but the negative influences in his life had outweighed the good. That morning he held his new daughter, the mother had given her up to the authorities and named him as the father. She was his. A perfect feeling he had ever known had swept through him. He was rocked to his core, He knew he would do anything in the world for her. He would be her hero, her keeper, the one who gave her cuddles and kept her safe. He would be the one she called "daddy" as a toddler and "dad" as she grew older and found the latter word too childish. He loved her.

Parenting is the one job you never quit. Every day is a new chance to get things right, to sow the seeds of love and confidence. We guide and nourish, allowing our children to develop into the people they were born to be. We help them find what they love, what their talents lead them to. 

And then, we let go. 

We watch in anxiety as they try out their "wings," yet are proud. We let them know that their home is still their home should they need it, and that their parents are still there just as before. They are our children for life and our love for them is eternal.

Henry hums as he cleans the breakfast dishes he had used, but Aspen is still at the table. She's slumped at the breakfast table, her brows creased and face tense. When he sits back down at the table, the dishes were forgotten and coffee in hand, he asks "What's up?" his tone casual and light. 

Aspen scowls at her scrambled eggs, "I don't know whether to do basketball or swimming. I like both but I only see Claire at swimming."

He takes another sip and then continues, serious faced, "I see, well, what's does your gut tell you? Which one do you want more?"

Aspen's face crumples again, "I don't know!"

He makes his face straighter than a poker player and says, "Penny, you're not going swimming." For a fraction of a second, the corners of Aspen's mouth twitch upwards, until her conscious mind asserts control again. Then Henry says "Actually, no, you're not going to basketball." Aspen's face is serious all the way from her eyes to her mouth, no pleasure at all, not even masked. "OK," He says, "We'll finish this set of swim lessons, then switch to just basketball. You can still see Claire every week, OK honey?"

Aspen smirks, realizing her father had once again played her mind like it was a piano. "Yeah, OK," she nods before taking her dishes and rinsing them off. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you but I have to go to Emmett's house this time."

"Who? Emmett? That's a boy's name!" Henry scowls.

Aspen laughs out loud. "Yes, Dad, that's a boy's name. Emmett's the guy I've been working on the History project with for the past two weeks. We need to do finishing touches on the poster, but he took it to his house and his mom doesn't have a car, which means we need to work on it at his house and I need you to drive me because he lives all the way over on Peach Hill." 

Henry frowns. Why was she so logical? Oh right. He was that way, and after a DNA test, he knew she was his daughter. Truly his. The one thing he hated about his situation with Aspen was that her mother wasn't there. In fact, he hadn't even known he got a girl pregnant during his playboy days during high school and his early years of college. Then, there was a cop at his door holding a bundle of pink and white blanks in an infant seat. His mother was furious as she spoke to the cop, insisting that they made a mistake. 

It wasn't her Henry Jackson's daughter. It was another Henry Jackson's daughter. 

He wanted to drink in that moment, the moment with that little girl in his hands. Her eyes were more brilliant than he could have dreamed they would be, her hands more delicate. She felt so light, looked so perfect and smelt so divine. He was her protector for as long as he would live and his love for her will last for all time.

Her eyes matched his, like a clear lake in a dark forest, if you looked closer at that lake you could see the round shallow crevice filled with completely transparent water. The water didn’t tug or ripple in the closed off space, though there was reason enough to. In that already unnaturally beautiful scene was two identical and gigantic green koi fish - trapped in an unbreakable and frighteningly fast chase for each other's long tails, fusing into a seamless circle. The only thing that got through their immortal war was a white light from the moon, a gracious beam to caress the bodies of the two. How it bounced off their scales making the water turn a paler green. "Mom," he interrupted her argument with the cop.

She had turned to see him holding the little bundle in his arms, not even realizing he had taken the infant's seat further into the house. He had tears in his eyes, then. "There's no way this angel isn't my daughter. She has my eyes."

She kicked him out that night. 

He didn't care. He packed all his things into his mini-van and called his friend, Felix, and told him his story. Felix had a cheap but nice studio apartment for him in San Francisco ready in minutes. From that day on, it was just Henry and his daughter, Aspen Hadlee Jackson. 

And now, his little angel wanted to go over to a boy's house for a logical reason. "Will his mom be there? Or his dad?"

"His dad walked out when he was two. He doesn't remember him, but his mom will be there. She works as a veterinarian from home. They have a whole clinic built into their huge basement," Aspen explained while packing her bag for school."

"Why can't you just work on it at school?" Henry asks.

"Don't you remember? He took it home and where would he store it all day? Mr. Beauldaire doesn't want his room filled with all the projects. And we can't keep it anywhere else."

"Fine...I'll drive you after your swim lesson..." he mumbles unhappily. Aspen grins and kisses her dad on the cheek before yelling a 'thank you' over her shoulder as she grabs her coat and leaves the small house to walk to the school's bus stop in the neighborhood.

~|/~

Henry hummed in surprise at the home in front of him, which had an attractive boy with who he could was his mother waiting on the porch. Peach Hill was a small neighborhood in the middle of nowhere outside of San Francisco. The houses were of few to none, with neighbors a good distance away. This house was long and narrow, perhaps only twelve feet wide at the front, but it stretched some thirty feet back like a giant shoe box. It was two stories high and had a one story extension at the rear of the kitchen. The wooden framed sash windows were propped open with sticks and the brickwork, perhaps once a jaunty yellow, looked dirty with over a hundred years of London grime. A small rose garden had been planted in front, and although it had obviously once been carefully planned and loved, it was now riddled with wild daisies and marigolds.

"Mr. Jackson?" the boy asked, walking towards the car with a welcoming but mature smile. He extended a hand for Henry to shake, and Henry took it.

"Yes. You must be Emmett?" Henry asked, shaking the boy's hand before releasing it. The boy nods and motions for Aspen to follow him into the unique home. She smiles and together they dart into the home.

The woman he recognized as a girl he'd been to high school with, though she was a year younger than him. Her name was Moira, and she was still as stunning as he could remember. He'd see the other boys trip over themselves in her presence, she was that beautiful. But he'd refused to be like that with anyone, just because they were born with a more symmetrical face. Apparently, that's why she liked Jeremy. No-one could figure out what a girl like that wanted with a guy like Jeremy, but Henry guessed just treated her the way her family did like she was just a normal girl. Henry had tried to do the same, but he didn't have as many classes with the junior, while Jeremy did.

Thinking about it, he could see both Moira Nights and Jeremy Lowry in the boy, Emmett's face.

"Well, I'll be. You're Henry Jackson, right? You played basketball," Moira smiles.

"That I did. You're Moira, correct? You married Jeremy Lowry right after high school."

"That's me."

"Aspen told me Emmett's father walked out...was that..."

"Yes, it was Jeremy. I dropped his last name after that, and I have full custody of Emmett. What about you? I see no wedding ring yet your daughter is my boy's age."

"Aspen's mother left her at a police station days after her birth and identified me as the father. A DNA test proved it to be true. Even if she wasn't really mine, though, I was going to adopt her because I felt love for her like I hadn't felt ever before. Honestly, I have no idea who Aspen's mother is. I was a bit of a man-w***e during the end of my high school days and the start of my college years."

"I see," Moira nods. She sighs, "Looks like we both got unlucky, didn't we?"

"I dunno...did we? I don't think I've had anything bad happen except when I let my sister take Aspen out for her birthday, and she brought Aspen back and my daughter had multiple ear piercings and a nose piercing."

Moira laughed, and Henry almost melted then and there.

People think of laughing as a noise that comes from the mouth, but when Moira laughed it was nothing like that. The laugh was in her eyes, in the way her face changed into that vision of relaxed joy and unrestrained mirth. Yet truly, it wasn't in her face either. Her laugh came from within, it was just the way she was wired. 

People like her just have more flexible brains - as if all that humor bubbling around in her was yoga for her synapses. Just being around her for those few minutes was better than a whole day of self-absorbed pampering in some all-day-spar. Just the sound of her gales, her snickers, her giggles, was enough to transport Henry far far away from his worries and the tension of his everyday life.

As Henry and Moira continued to talk while their children worked, Henry couldn't decide what he was feeling.

He admired everything about her, from the way the breeze blew her hair to the soft Irish lilt to her voice. To him, she looked like some kind of water sprite. But what really made him fall head over heals for her was the way she spoke of her son. She held so much pride in the boy that could love in the way she had wished Jeremy could.

Admiration wasn't enough to describe how he was feeling, though. Neither was the silly word "crush".

There was something about Moira that makes him feel young inside, but not in a childish way. She wakes the pure side of him, the best side, all the facets of himself that only require love to be healthy and whole. An eternity to be with her would be serenity, contentment. Their energies vibrate in such a unique way, each the perfect compliment to the other. 

He's not "in love," he's well and truly smitten. 

Any other could only be a poor reflection, no more substantial than an early evening shadow. Moira is what makes his heart strong. Her smile alone burnishes his soul into a beauty it could never have achieved on its own. Before they met he was one, now he's a half, yet somehow so much more than he ever was before.

A silence falls between them, and Henry decides to go bold or go home. "Aspen will become embarrassed if I stay any longer..."

"Ah..." Moira sighs, disappointment filling her eyes. 

"But," Henry smiles shyly. "I might have to ask Emmett and Aspen's permissions first, but if I get them, would you let me take you out to lunch or dinner sometime soon?"

Moira's smile became gentle. "Only if they both say yes. It's all or nothing when it comes to your daughter and my son's lives."

"I completely agree. You'll hear from me soon," Henry says before sliding back into his beat-up red truck. Moira waves gently as he drives away and a soft feeling fills his gut before bubbling up through his torso.

Henry has lived long enough to know that what they just shared, you can't replicate with another. Those looks, the words spoken, this feeling, is just them. He could travel the world and the seven seas; He'd still have to come right back here if he wanted true love. It's not that nobody else wants him, or her, but that they were born to spark and run the same course. They were the protectors of one another, confidence and true friends-to-be. The trust he's given her, that she'll hopefully give him, is what keeps people safe in this world, in this life. So whether his heart beats another day or another hundred years - it is hers.

"Yeah," Henry mumbles to himself. "I guess I'm smitten."

Reviews

[matrixmark]

A very good introduction with regards to Henry. Also, the intro regarding Aspen was good too; it was easy t see and visualise because, we have seen it on a tv/movie before.

Liked this line - realizing her father had once again played her mind like it was a piano. - Perfect words and perfectly placed.
As usual - You dialogue is excellent.
Grammar wise - Couldn't see anything wrong.

Your writing is a charm to read and I really don't know what else to say. I liked the story and I can see that it could go on for another number of chapters and would be intresting to see a number of relationships build on from what you have written down here.

Mark.

[marc binard]

Good read with great insights I into parenting and those times where previous adolescent and adult love/relationships merge.