Picture Perfect

Chapter Seven: Tyler

Chapter Four

I battle a mountain of roast potatoes

"So," I said, sitting opposite Saskie at the table. "How was your day with Daddy and Andrew?"

Saskie shrugged, pushing the food about on her plate without actually eating much of it. Sorcha was out seeing friends while she was back, and it was just the two of us for dinner. Saskie hadn't said much since I picked her up. Colin had seemed a little quiet too, but he usually was when he said goodbye to Saskie.

"Did you do much together?" I asked her, hoping to elicit at least a small response.

"Watched a movie," she replied, but didn't offer any further information.

I hesitated. I didn't want to push her if she was feeling lousy, but I wanted to know why, in case she was sick. "Are you feeling okay? Do you think you can tell me how you're feeling?"

She didn't reply for a bit, her forehead creasing a little as she thought. I could tell she didn't really know how she was feeling, so I patiently waited for her to sort through her thoughts on it. Eventually, she just said, "Daddy's not coming home, is he?"

I felt my stomach sink a bit. My words caught in my throat, but I managed to say, "No, sweetie, he's not coming home."

Saskie nodded glumly. I felt awful. I had thought she'd accepted the separation, but now I could see a small part of her had held onto the thought of Colin coming back. I had to admit, she wasn't the only one. Part of me had held onto it for a few weeks.

"Your daddy," I said without thinking, and when Saskie looked up at me I forced myself to keep going. "He wasn't happy with me, Sask. He was super happy with you, and he wants to keep being happy with you. But he wasn't happy with me, and that's okay. It happens sometimes with partners. Sometimes we just stop being happy with each other. And it's best to just change the relationship to being friends, than to end up being really unhappy."

Saskie nodded again, her eyes back on her plate. "I don't really get it. How can you be happy for a long time and then not be happy anymore? If Andrew wasn't there..."

She trailed off, but I knew the end of that sentence. If Andrew wasn't there, Colin wouldn't have left. I knew why she thought that, and god, I'd shared that thought a few times myself. I swallowed. "I thought that, at first. And if Daddy hadn't met Andrew, I think it would have taken him longer to realise he wasn't happy with me. But it still would have happened, baby."

She looked at me. "But you were happy."

"I was, yes," I nodded.

Saskie's mouth turned down. "That's sad, then. And scary. What if you stop being happy with me?"

"Well, that's the nice part about being a dad," I smiled at her a little. "Dads don't stop being happy with their babies. Even if you grow into a moody teenager that spends all her time on her phone. I'll still be happy with you."

She smiled a bit at that. "Promise?"

"Promise," I nodded, and then hesitantly added, "And daddy feels the same there, about you. Just because he's not living here, doesn't mean he doesn't love you very much. You just have to put up with him living with Andrew." I winked to show her I was joking.

She giggled a bit, taking an actual bite of her dinner. "I like his dog."

"That's a start," I grinned. "Hey, do you fancy going to see Grandma and Grandpa this evening?"

Saskie brightened; she loved my parents. "Yes!"

I had put off the visit as long as I could; I hadn't wanted to be an inconsolable mess around my mum, because she worried far, far too much. My parents had loved Colin, treated him like another son for all the years we'd been together. They doted on Saskie like proper grandparents, from the very day we'd adopted her. Adoption, in retrospect, had been a blessing; I didn't know how people went through divorces and didn't feel a kick in the gut whenever they looked at the child that resembled their ex. Saskie was Filipino-Irish, being born to Filipino parents in Ireland. She had been put up for adoption when she was only six months old, due to the unfortunate death of her parents.