I Hate California

twenty one

I was packing up Sage's suitcases when the door bell rang. Sage gasped behind me and then darted out the room.

I caught her arm, "Hey, you don't open the door by yourself remember?".

As we reach the bottom of the steps, I could see the monitor from here, Joe was here. I wasn't expecting him to pick up Sage until tomorrow night.

"Daddy!" Sage yelled as she ran to the door.

I opened the door and Joe looked down, like he was ashamed to be here. "Sorry, I had business in the city and was wondering if I could just stay the night, since we're leaving in the morning", he asked.

I don't know why, but that just made my whole mood better.

"Of course! No problem, come in" I said, opening the door to him.

"Daddy! I missed you!" Sage yells, jumping into his arms. I watched as the two whisper loving things to each other and how he swayed them back and forth.

Joe went back into the guest room and I showed him all of Sage's suitcases that were already prepared to go back. She had gotten so many new things here, but I separated what I wanted to keep at my place and what she was going to take back to her Dad's.

"Thank you for taking care of Sage for longer than I expected, I can really tell how much she loves you and how much you care for her" Joe whispers as Sage went to play in the playroom.

"Don't mind it, she's my daughter. All those times I've missed with her, all those years, these couple weeks weren't anything difficult" I tell him with a soft smile.

That's when we heard a crash in the next room and ran out.

"Baby!" I yell, as Joe and I ran into the playroom.

Sage was lying down next to her playhouse, silently giggling to herself.

"I fell..." She whispered covering her mouth. She has this habit of climbing onto the roof of the play house and one day it's going to come falling down, I keep warning her, but she won't listen.

"You need to be careful babe" Joe says, picking her back up.

Joe and I just took a seat on the floor in the corner of the room, watching Sage play. It was so heartwarming to see her play with one thing and move on quickly to another. She was so good at keeping herself occupied.

"I can't believe the world knows about her already" Joe says as we keep our eyes on Sage.

"I know, it's hard to believe. I haven't been online so I haven't seen anything, I've been too scared to" I confess, looking down at my hands.

I felt him put his arm around me, "Hey, remember what we talked about? As long as she's safe with you and I, nothing can hurt her".

He was right, at least I wanted to believe him. As I stared at my whole world in front of me, I've never been this protective in my whole life.

"Mommy, can you be the student" Sage asks, running over to me with her fake glasses on.

"What? Why do I have to be the student?" I joke and she laughs.

"You have to! You and Dad are my students!" She exclaims running back to her desk.

Joe and I ended up playing school with her for about an hour. There were many lessons that Ms. Sage Alwyn had to teach and I was surprised by how serious she took everything. She even put Joe in time out for laughing during class time.