That had been six months ago. Nick did his best to raise their daughter but it wasn’t easy being a single father. He still had to work but he didn’t like the idea of leaving his daughter with strangers, so he had quit his job and lived off his savings. Well now the savings were getting low and he couldn’t afford the apartment anymore. When he called his mom and told her the situation she had berated him for not calling sooner and begged him to come home and bring Amelia with him. She told him she would be willing to watch her granddaughter while he worked if he wanted to and that they could stay as long as they wanted.
Now as he sat in his car looking at the house he had grown up in he looked over at his daughter. She was all he had left of Priscilla and he still cried himself to sleep some nights seeing how much the little girl looked like her mother. Amelia was asleep in her car seat, her dark brown hair curled around her face. He very gently pulled her out of her car seat and climbed from the car.
He walked up the walkway with his little bundle in his arms and smiled as he barely reached the porch before the front door opened and his mother held her arms out for her granddaughter.
Nick had always thought his mother was an attractive woman. At 5’8″, with a slender build, she had Nick’s jet black hair and violet eyes. She had been a real looker when she was younger and in Nick’s opinion age had just made her more beautiful. He had asked her once why she never remarried after dad died but she had just smiled, reached out took his hand and said that once you had the best, there was no comparison. Nick hadn’t really understood what she meant until he lost Priscilla. There were several women who would have loved to take the dead woman’s place in his heart and bed but Nick wasn’t interested. He had been celibate the last six months and didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Nick handed Amelia to her grandmother then got busy unloading the car. There really wasn’t much, just clothes for him and Amelia, and a few mementos that he wanted to pass down to his daughter someday. He had sold off everything else finding the memories too painful to deal with. Once he was done he sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee while his mom fed Amelia. “It is so good to have you home.” She said with a smile reaching out to take his hand.
Nick smiled at her and shrugged. “I wanted to make it on my own.” He said taking another sip of his coffee.
Jessica looked at her son and shook her head. “Family is important Nick. You should have come home right after Priscilla died.”
Nick growled, this was an old argument. One he didn’t want to rehash. “We’ve talked about this mom.” He said glaring at her.
Jessica just shrugged and looked down at her granddaughter, “just saying.”
Nick just rolled his eyes and stood up, she was always just saying. He gave one last look at his daughter then left the room deciding to get cleaned up and try to get his life back in order.
Nick put Amelia in the crib in his old bedroom and looked down at her with a smile. She was fast asleep and he knew she would probably sleep through the night. She had never really been a bad baby parse; she didn’t have jaundice or any of those things that most babies seemed to come down with. She had been healthy and perfect her whole life.