“I hope I’m not offending either of you by saying this, but I do think you need to know.” She turned to Rachel. “Aiden doesn’t have a dad, right? He isn’t in his life?”
Heat crept up Rachel’s neck and she hoped she wasn’t blushing. It was just a fact. A fact that rarely embarrassed her. But she normally wasn’t in the position of talking with a teacher about an issue with her usually sweet, thoughtful son and getting called out on it.
She cleared her throat. “No. He never has been.”
She was pretty sure that Nick just stole a glance at her ring finger.
Miss Goodrich held out a hand like she was presenting Nick. “And Holly has a dad who’s always there for her.”
The revelation shocked her even more than the jealousy comment did. Aiden’s dad had never been in the picture. Aiden did have an uncle who he loved and who was great with him, though. She had always promised her son that she would find him a dad someday, but he had never even mentioned being sad that he didn’t have one. Between that and the fact that Rachel had grown up with a dad who wasn’t the nicest guy even when he wasn’t drunk, it had somehow never occurred to her that Aiden would feel that loss.
Yet Rachel knew that dads were important and made a big difference in a child’s life. She knew he needed one, but she hadn’t realized he had gotten to the age where it had become so important.
Shedidwant to find someone and get married. Shedidwant him to have a dad. But like so many things as a single mom, it just never really fit into her plans.
Miss Goodrich turned to Nick. “Holly’s mom passed away, right?”
Rachel sucked in a breath as a pang of sadness hit her. She found herself glancing at Nick’s ring finger and the gold band that was there. He seemed to sense Rachel’s gaze on it because he twisted it around his finger somewhat self-consciously before he pushed his hands into the pockets of his pants.
“Yes. Just before Thanksgiving last year.”
Miss Goodrich gestured to Rachel. “And Aiden has a mom who does everything with him.”
Nick shot Rachel a glance before looking back at the teacher. “You really think that’s why they’ve been fighting so much?”
She nodded. “I do. I’ll keep helping all I can at school, but I just wanted you two to be aware in case opportunities come up at home where you can discuss it with your child.”
Both she and Nick nodded. She wondered if his head was as full as hers was right now.
“Now come in,” Miss Goodrich said as she waved them into the classroom, “I got both of your papers saying you are willing to help with the set, so let’s talk about the project.”
Aiden and Holly joined the three of them at the table in the back of the room, and Miss Goodrich talked about their Christmas program. Rachel kept glancing at her son, trying to guess what was going on in his head, and had to force herself to focus on what his teacher was saying.
Miss Goodrich said that several parents had filled out the request for help form. Parents had offered a padded armchair and a rug for their stage living room, and some parents donated cash, so they should have enough for the supplies they needed to make the fireplace.
“Neither of you has a Santa costume that will fit a six-year-old, do you?”
She and Nick both shook their heads.
“That’s okay; we’ll get that taken care of. So all we need the two of you to do is to make a fireplace and chimney about four feet wide and about eight feet tall.”
Rachel gave Nick a smile, mentally crossing all her fingers that this guy knew the first thing about making a large fake fireplace because she sure didn’t.
Apparently,what they needed was to have all four of them go to The Home Improvement Store and get a four-by-eight-foot piece of plywood and several two-by-fours, which Nick arranged with the store to have delivered to his house before the four of them set off to shop for the other supplies. Aiden and Holly wanted a brick fireplace, and they found some 3-D Styrofoam brick panels that looked like real brick and were lightweightenough that they wouldn’t make the project unmanageably heavy.
“Okay, construction adhesive…” Nick said after he turned the cart onto an aisle with dozens of options. Rachel scanned the columns of products, trying to land her eyes on anything that said construction adhesive but finding nothing.
Holly picked one up, her eyebrows drawn together, and looked at her dad. “This is caulking, right?”
“What’s caulking?” Aiden asked, tripping over the unfamiliar word.
Holly turned to him. “After you put in the baseboards, you squirt a line of this along the top of it and smooth it out all pretty. It makes that little space disappear.”
Aiden turned to Rachel. “Disappear?”
“Not disappear,” Rachel said. “It just hides it.”
“Some of these are just used for one thing,” Nick told both kids. “Glue or caulking. But some, like these over here, can be used for both.”
