reasons to go, reasons to stay ➸ camren

chapter twenty seven ➸ she was always happy

‘Scared’  Rowan sighed, looking up at her mother and then forwards at the small classroom. She clung to Lauren’s hand and bit her lip. Lauren looked down at her daughter and saw the anxiety radiating off of her.

‘Your mama would be proud of you, Rowan,’  she signed, kissing her hand and holding it up to the sky.

Rowan had been sad when she realized that everyone’s name didn’t have a hand motion assigned to it. So Lauren and her daughter had made up signs for people they knew.

Rowan’s name was represented with using both of her hands, as if putting two halves of a broken heart together. Lauren thought it was fitting, considering Rowan had basically put Lauren’s heart back together after Camila left.

Rowan wanted to make up the sign for Lauren’s name, and she thought long and hard about it for a few days until she finally decided. Whenever she referred to her mother, she would kiss her hand and hold it over her heart. They decided that Camila’s name would be the same thing, except instead of holding their hand to her heart, they would hold their hand up to the sky.

Rowan said it was sending Camila a kiss every time they talked about her.

‘I miss her’  Rowan signed. She looked down at her shoes shyly.

Lauren took both of her daughter’s hands and leaned in to kiss her cheek. ‘I miss her too, Ro. Can you be strong for her today?’

Rowan nodded and wrapped her arms around Lauren’s neck. She engulfed her mother in a bear hug. Lauren returned the hug, rubbing small circles in her daughter’s back.

‘You will have fun, I promise. The kids here talk like you do, I think you will like that,’  Lauren signed, reaching out and placing a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. Rowan smiled widely and nodded.

‘I think I will too, mommy,’  she kissed Lauren’s forehead back before glancing in the classroom. The teacher smiled warmly at Rowan and Lauren nudged for her to go ahead inside.

The teacher greeted Rowan at the door, signing to welcome her to class. Lauren giggled when Rowan looked back at her, astonished that another grown-up could talk with her hands, like she did. She gave her mother a wide grin before waving goodbye and following the teacher into the classroom.

Lauren couldn’t be more proud of the small girl she was blessed to call her own.

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The apartment seemed so lonely without Rowan to fill the noise with her boisterous voice. Lauren found herself looking at the clock often, trying to make time speed up so she could collect her daughter from school soon.

Eventually Lauren gave in to temptation. She knew she’d be early, but there was a shopping center right next to Rowan’s school that had caught her interest when they drove by.

As she drove the long drive to her daughter’s school, she found herself realizing how empty life would be once Rowan was old enough to go away to college. Without Camila or Rowan by her side, life would be miserable for Lauren.

She passed Rowan’s school and pulled into the next parking lot, scanning the stores and trying to keep her mind away from Camila.

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Work was especially slow today, and to make matters worse, Camila wasn’t the only employee at the store. Another boy, Chase, was behind the register. Since she had nothing to do, Camila took her bag and hid away in one of the far aisles of books where people rarely shopped. The classics usually got no attention. No one was interested enough to try and decipher their meaning. Except for Camila, and the occasional high school student with a required reading project.