Then I was opening up the door of my parked car in the park and I could see her for real. She was sitting at one of the picnic tables in the shade with her back to me and instantly my body refused to respond to command.
I stood there frozen, wanting her to turn and see me and we would live out my fantasies of reuniting that I had been obsessing over since I had made this date four days ago.
Her soft silky hair was longer than I remembered but wondrously the same and she was much bigger than she had been in my imagination but perfectly healthy. She was busily playing with a toy and I suddenly had the urge to push it off the table because today was my day with her and it was stealing her attention.
I finally found the courage in a deep breath and stepped forward onto the grass, my heart thundering inside my head drowning out the sound of just about everything else around us, and I couldn't stop my hands from finding each other as I twisted my car keys around and around between my fingers.
I felt like a school kid about to go out on his first date with the most beautiful girl in the school and something inside me wanted desperately to throw up.
Her mother sat across from her at the table and she said something, though I couldn't hear what she said over my beating heart, which made my little girl turn around slowly to look at me. I smiled in response and then she turned back to her toy. Confused, I looked to her mother whom only returned my smile as if something completely awful hadn't just happened.
My darling, my baby girl, the person that I had yearned to see more than any other person on this entire planet had surveyed me and dismissed me in one single glance.
My heart immediately stopped beating. Where was the little girl running into my arms, the sound of her voice calling out to me, the overwhelming shower of kisses?
Then the realization slapped me so hard I took a step back with horror, I was a total stranger to her, and she probably couldn't care less if I was there. I looked at her mother once again and she returned with an uncommitted shrug. She mustn't have told her.
She doesn't know who I am.
My insides curled up tightly as I approached the table and sat on the bench by her, keeping a respectable distance.
I had wanted this reception to go very differently, my throat clamped shut at the thought of wanting to hold her but I forced myself to stay back because I didn't want to frighten her with sudden unsolicited affection and I suddenly found it very difficult to swallow as I prevented myself from following through with my desires.