“Daddy, wake up. I’m hungry.”

“I’m up, almost.” My three-year-old daughter always woke me up in the morning by prying my eyelids open. I opened them up all the way to see a smiling cherub with curly red hair and blue eyes smiling at me. The room seemed cold and gray for a summer morning, probably a cloudy day.

“Daddy. Why don’t I have a mommy?”

Michelle. We were a couple from the third grade until the day she died, giving birth to Angel. I felt exhausted, but I think I got up.

“Hurry, Daddy, I don’t want to be late for the bus on the first day of school.”

She walked to the bus stop, the stop sign on the corner of Maple and Oak streets. Today chaos controlled the corner, with kids running around, dads with cameras shouting out instructions, and moms with big hankies, blotting out the tears of joy running down their cheeks. When the bus pulled up, Angel backed up against my legs.

“Angel, don’t be afraid. School is not a scary place.”

“I’m not scared, Daddy. Mommy says a good Christian should always be last.” She’s been imagining she talks to her mother. When all the other children were on the bus, Angel started to climb on when she noticed the little boy who lived next door to us, hiding behind his mother. She went over and took his hand, helped him get on the bus.

His name was Jimmy, and I think something happened at his house after we moved, but I can’t remember what it was.

The entire scene turned gray like a dark cloud passed overhead.

“Now remember Daddy, my friend Angela is eleven and her birthday is today just like me. Her mom’s name is Melissa, and she has red hair, just like mommy and me. Now don’t screw this up; she’s perfect for you, and you’ve been alone for too long. Mommy says you need to let her go.”

Mommy? She keeps bringing up mommy.

“This is their house. Come on.”

Did I drive over here?

“Daddy, this is Angela and her mother, Melissa. Mom, this is my Daddy, Peter Johnson.”

“At last, we finally meet. Please call me Mel. Angel talks about you all the time, and I feel like we’ve been friends forever.”

“Yes, she is definitely an extrovert, and I gave up trying to speak first years ago. So what’s with her calling you, Mom?”

“She called me that the first time Angela brought her home, just walked through the front door and said, ‘Hi Mom.”

I know this woman very well, I thought, and I feel like I’ve known her for years. Melissa and I talked while we watched the girls splash around in the pool with three other girlfriends. I already knew everything she talked about, stories about Angela and how Melissa’s husband died in Iraq. But, how is this possible? Didn’t we just meet?