Chapter 3

After pulling unto the main road, Jenna glanced at her rearview mirror and saw her daughter smiling while looking at the cards she got. She was curious. “Tanya, what Valentine wish was Timothy talking about?”

Her daughter was shocked to hear her mother’s voice, not because of the question she asked, but because her mother broke her own rules. So she told her. “Mommy! You said no talking when you are driving!”

Tanya gave her mother the ‘look’ just to remind her of her own implemented rules which were - No eating. No drinking. No music. No playing and No Talking. When Tanya turned 2, she learned that No crying was one of her mom’s silent rule. Because whenever she cried, her mother would pull over and park on the side of the road and rock her to sleep. The car must be completely silent whenever Mommy was driving.

Yes, Jenna was one of those nervous drivers who practically hugged the steering wheel to her chest. However, having the need to drive herself and Tanya around over the last five years since her husband’s death had given her a tad of confidence to take her eyes off the road for a second or two. She had also learned to tolerate a manageable amount of spoken words, but she wasn’t going to let her daughter know.

“Alright,” Jenna smiled and turned her focus back onto the road.

“I can’t tell anyone, or it won’t come true!” Tanya had to sneak in her own last words when she noticed her mother broke her rules again.

After they got home, Jenna tried to dig it out of her again when they were having a snack before their next scheduled activity. But Tanya was dead set on not telling, no matter how hard her mother tried to tickle it out of her. However, she told her mother what Timothy’s wish was.

Scott, also known as Smirky man, was on the phone with a client while his son sat in the car seat shuffling through the bunch of cards he got from his classmates. After he was done talking on the phone, he glanced at his son from the rearview mirror and caught him with a huge grin on his face. Scott noticed he was looking at the same card again. He must have looked at it for the umpteenth time since yesterday.

“Hey Buddy! Are you looking at your favorite Valentine AGAIN?”

Timothy chuckled when his father emphasized on the word ‘again’ in a funny way. He showed his father the card Tanya gave him.

“Why do you only like her card? Don’t you like the other ones?” Scott meant to tease him.

“Because Tanya said my wish is going to come true!”

“Oh really?” Scott was curious now. “What wish did you make?”

Timothy giggled, thinking his father was trying to trick him. “I cannot tell anyone my wish, or it won’t come true. I can only tell Tanya and she can only tell me.”

Scott had to crunch his brain to figure out the logic to what his son just said. “So you are saying you cannot tell me your wish, but you can tell me Tanya’s wish?”

“Uh-huh!” His son nodded and giggled some more.

A memory of the male model from Tanya’s card flashed across Scott’s mind. “Does Tanya want to meet a movie star?”

“No!” Timothy gave his father a laugh that told him he was being ridiculous. “She wants to have a new Daddy!”

“What’s wrong with the one she has now?” When silence filled the van, Scott gazed into the rearview mirror and saw his son looking at him as if he was STUPID. Then an understanding came to him. “Oh, that wish might be a tough one to make come true!”

His son stared at him from the rearview mirror with weary eyes. It seemed he really wanted Tanya’s wish to come true for her. Scott chuckled, shook his head and brought his focus back to the road once again. He mumbled just for himself to hear. “Don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon, especially when she has that woman for a mother!”

Bowling followed by dinner at MacDonald’s was what Timothy wanted for Valentine’s Day. Well, dinner was supposed to be Timothy’s gift to his dad, but he could only afford MacDonald’s French Fries when he took the money out from his piggy bank.

When they got to the bowling alley, Scott couldn’t believe how packed the place was. He had thought the bowling alley would be the least busy place at 4 PM on Valentine’s Day. Well, he thought wrong and he also forgot it was Friday. And he obviously hadn’t been in the dating game for a while now. He approached the counter and was told they were all booked up for the entire afternoon and night.

Timothy was so disappointed. He had looked forward to this event with his dad since his grandparents told him they would be away for Valentine’s Day three weeks ago. Timothy didn’t want his grandparents to go away, so Scott had to coax his son by asking him what he would like to do on this special day. He named bowling but reservation never crossed Scott’s mind.

“Sorry Buddy!” Scott’s heart ached when he saw the disappointment on his son’s face. He tried to come up with other activities but they were all turned down in his head even before they had the chance to come right out of his mouth. He didn’t think going to the movies would be a good choice on this night. Ice-skating was not an option because his parents had warned him not to take his son there. Timothy had just recovered from a flu recently. So he gave up and asked his son for suggestions. “Is there something else you want to do tonight?”

Timothy shook his head quietly but his eyes were still focus on the lanes where children were having fun. He started walking towards the lanes to watch from behind the seats. Scott let his son watched for about five minutes before pulling him away.

“Come on, Buddy! Let’s go do something else before we go to MacDonald’s for our dinner.” Scott took his son’s arm and turned him around to leave. Suddenly, Timothy shook his arm free from his father’s hold and started running away from him.

Scott thought his son was running away from him to cry. The muscles around his heart tightened at the sight of his child getting away from him and he felt like a failure all over again. He was about to run after him when he spotted the reason for his son’s sudden 5-meter dash.

From a distance, he could see the woman talking to the cashier and getting her cash ready to pay for her game. She and her daughter were wearing a set of comfortable sporting attires. As he got closer, he could hear his son telling the woman and her daughter how his father had failed to get a lane because he didn’t make any ‘reasons’ for tonight.

Scott was starting to wonder why time increments of 5 minutes could affect his life so much when it came to this particular woman. If he had left 5 minutes ago instead of staying on to let his son watch some of the bowling actions from the lanes, he would not have ‘run’ into her again. Now, standing a few feet from her, he not only felt like a failure, he was certain the woman considered him a total loser for a father. He tried hard to push the thought away by telling himself. ‘Who cares what she thinks. At least my child is not looking for a new daddy! No matter how bad his current one is!’

Jenna looked into Scott’s eyes and thought she saw a sparkle of spite there. But she also saw his discomfort and guilt at the same time. She knew she had the upper hand right now and could crush his confidence as a father with one blow of her sarcasm if she chose to do so.

“Mommy, can Timothy join us?” Tanya pleaded.

Jenna met Timothy’s hopeful eyes. “You and Timothy can bowl while I watch.” Jenna explained to her daughter. “Mommy only made reservation for two.”

“Actually, your reservation is for four.” The cashier confirmed after typing something into the registry. “You have the entire section.”

Jenna was shocked at what the cashier told her, the first thing that came to her mind was the cost. “How much do I owe you in total?”

Scott noticed the cash Jenna was holding in her hand, he knew that would not suffice the amount that the cashier quoted for the total cost of the game which included shoe rentals. He could also see a tint of red appearing on her cheeks as she searched through her wallet a second time for cash. The cashier also noticed she was short. He gave Scott a look wondering why he was not doing something to save the ‘maiden’ in distress. Scott was slow to come to his senses.

“We take all major Credit Cards or Interact.” The cashier suggested patiently because he couldn’t see any plastic cards in the card slots of Jenna’s wallet. Scott finally came to his senses and reached behind to pull out his wallet.

Jenna gave the cashier a curtsy smile and was about to say something when someone put forth a Credit Card over her shoulder. “We’ll pay by Visa!”

Jenna froze for she recognized the man’s voice, and it didn’t belong to Scott.