His Daughter

Sad conversations

Third Person POV:
Time had passed quicker than Scarlett had come to realize. She had been stuck in her head all day, her mind racing with thoughts all connecting back to the morning's events.

She had never seen, well heard, Colin so angry, so different. Nor had she ever seen Carter in such distress. Sure she'd only come face-to-face with the young child a few days prior, but her limited time with her was enough for Scarlett. Carter was a sensitive child. Emotional. She could see how gentle she was. Like a little ray of sunshine. It hurt her to know that Colin just didn't seem to understand his own daughter.

After the two had left, Scarlett had spent upwards of twenty minutes trying to calm and reassure Rose. The young girl's soft cries were like a stab to the heart for the woman. Rose was never a crier, not even as a baby, so to see her so upset was jarring.

Her usual tactics that seemed to work on the younger of the newly deemed sisters were lost on the older. No rocking, pacing, sweet nothings, or even skin contact was enough. In the end, the only thing accredited for stopping the girl's cries was a lack of tears. She'd run out of the salty drops that fell from her eyes. It was safe to say the uncommon occurrence had rendered her capacity limited.

With the only reminder of such happenings being the sticky trails that bleached the child's now red and puffy cheeks, the two stayed cuddled up on the couch for the last ten minutes before they needed to leave.

Scarlett was hesitant to send Rose off for the day after such a traumatic morning, but it was obvious the girl needed the distraction of surrounding peers and fun summer activities to stray her focus on the questions she and Scarlett pondered so deeply. So, before long, the woman had found herself bidding a short goodbye to the now-happy child and heading her own way to work.

The woman had barely had the time to notice how caught up she was as she was thrown from meeting to meeting for the remainder of the morning. It was only when she was eating a late lunch that she had finally taken notice of the time.

It was nearly 1:30 in the afternoon and she silently cursed herself for not having called Carter's MiMi yet. She had told herself she would do it on the way to work after dropping off Rose, but the events following the departure had racked her brain causing her to forget.

Pulling out her phone and excusing herself from the team lunch, Scarlett stepped into the empty meeting room and pulled up the contact. Taking a moment to collect herself for the tough discussion ahead of her, she took a deep breath before pressing call. The phone rang a few times before the distinct sound of the line connecting was heard.

'Hello.' the voice sounded tired.

'Hi, um it's Scarlett.' the woman took another breath, 'Is this Carter's MiMi?'

'Oh, hi Scarlett. It is, but I've told you before just call me Kerry!', She was right. The two had met several times before during the almost year that Scarlett and Colin had been dating. While Scarlett had continued to refer to her as Mrs. Kelly, the older woman had scolded her countless times over just using her first name.

'Right, of course.' she sighed, 'Um, well I had meant to call you this morning, but things got crazy and it slipped my mind. I wanted to talk to you about Carter.'

She could hear the breath the woman on the other side of the call released at her words, 'I imagine something happened.'

Scarlett was taken aback, though she collected herself before speaking again, 'Yes, it did. We had a very rough morning. Some things were said that should not have been said. And feelings were hurt and tears were shed. An-'

'Colin.' the older woman said.

Scarlett was confused, 'I'm sorry?'

'Trust me, Scarlett, unfortunately, I know my son and this does not sound like it would be far from previous matters. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but this was Colin, was it not?', the woman explained, 'He said something that took you back a second and made you think 'the nerve of this man' or 'is he really serious right now?' and Carter heard or was told it and shut down and now you're calling to let me know.'