I watched my little girl at play with the other children and as there weren't any other seats available I sat next to her mother.
She didn't speak to me as I watched her daughter but I could feel her looking at me, she was a stranger to me also, different hairstyle, different clothing. I could see that life had taken her somewhere that she wouldn't have ended up with me.
I had nothing nice to say to her. I had already wasted years of my happiness hating this person that had wronged me, not for the reasons why our relationship fell apart but for hurting me so deeply by stealing away the only thing beautiful to come out of our relationship, and now I blamed her for the emotionless distance in my daughter's eyes when she looked at me.
I had wanted this woman to be my wife, the mother of our children and to share the rest of our days and nights together, not knowing how cruel and heartless she would be.
Now I held no feelings for her other than being thankful for the chance to rekindle what she had broken between me and my baby girl in the first place.
I thought that I had prepared myself for the worst possible outcome of today, but as I watched her daughter glance back at us sitting there my heart futilely screamed out for her to love me back even after all the things that must have been said about me while I wasn't there to defend myself, but something in me knew the cheers and waves were meant for the woman next to me and I realize that I couldn't have possibly prepared myself for what I was feeling today.
My entire body needed to hear her call out, "Daddy, watch this," as she played, but this didn't happen.
Then in the pit of my gut I realized the man that she thought of now as 'daddy' was someone else.
I had offered a couple of times to push her on the swing or to climb to the top of the slide with her, I just wanted to be near her, but she declined me very sweetly, very shyly and I would find myself back on the bench sitting silently and uncomfortably with her mother.
The other children, under watchful parental eyes not far away, seemed more interested in my willingness to play with her than she did, it was extremely difficult to shrug it off nonchalantly when her distrust in me cut into my heart so deeply.
I couldn't stop myself though from smiling and marveling at her cleverness and how easily she got along with the other children, and long before I was ready for it to happen her mother touched my arm, "It's time for us to go now, I'm taking her to the fair this afternoon. Did you want to say good bye?"