Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“I’m gonna say at least through the end of next week. Linda’s right eye was twitching when I picked him up.”
Sam chuckled, and we’d started eating again when the back door opened.
“Hey,” I called out to my daughter, because there was no one else it could be.
Nothing.
Getting up, I went out to the laundry room and saw that she’d dropped her duffel, put her shoes where they went, hung up her mask, and was washing her hands in the sink next to the washing machine. Walking up beside her, I saw that she looked like a racoon. Her mascara and eyeliner had been smeared all to hell.
“Sweetie?”
She turned and lunged at me, arms around my waist, hugging me. Enfolding her in my arms, I clutched her tight, my face in her wet hair.
“Love?”
“It’s not bad,” she whispered. “It’s nothing bad.”
But it felt bad.
“Tell me something,” I pleaded with her. “Before your father comes in here.”
She took a shaky breath, leaned back, and looked at me. “I got my period.”
“Okay. But you’ve had your period many times since you were thirteen.”
“I know.”
I was lost.
She sighed deeply and eased free before she leaned over the washing machine. “Mrs. Holmes’ sister was visiting. She and her daughters were there, and when she asked me why I didn’t want to go swimming, I told her I was hurting a little. But then she suddenly looked all sad, and when I said it was okay, that it was just cramps, she said she felt really sorry for me.”
“Who was sorry for you?”
“At first just Mrs. Holmes’ sister, but then Mrs. Holmes too.”
“Okay.”
“It turned out they were sorry because I don’t have a mom, and they said that must be really hard sometimes, and they felt sorry for me.”
“Oh, well, that’s kind of nice,” I told her, relieved that’s all it was, putting my hand on her cheek.
“I don’t think so, because then they said that someday, when I have a baby, they hope I have a great mother-in-law so I’ll have help, and I got really mad.”
“Why?” I asked her. “You were sad about that when you got your first period, about not having a mother, don’t you remember?”
“Yeah,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “But it ended up being fine. Auntie Aja was here, but you were ready, you were on it with the heating pad and the body pillow––”
“Yeah, I might’ve gone a little overboard,” I teased her.
“But I don’t need a mom!”
“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. You can still want a mom,” I said, taking her into my arms as she started to cry again. “Wanting a woman to talk to and have in your life with you, that doesn’t diminish me.”
She lifted her head and stared into my face. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“You won’t be hurt?” she asked me in a tiny voice.
“No, B, I promise.”
She grabbed hold of me tight, squeezing me like she hadn’t done in a while, and sobbed.
When Sam leaned into the room, I shook my head, and he scowled, but he stepped back out before she saw him.
“I—I—I just don’t want you to ever think that I feel like I missed out or––”
“No, sweetie,” I soothed her, rubbing her back, holding her close, kissing her forehead. “I promise I won’t. I know you love me.”
She sucked in a breath.
“Really, I swear,” I crooned, rocking her gently.
Once the crying calmed to weeping and then sniffling and finally to a couple hiccups before I made her hold her breath, and then once those were gone, blow her nose, I asked her how she got home.
“Uncle Aaron sent a car for me.”
It took me a second. “I’m sorry?”
She took a breath. “Well, see, Uncle Aaron called me to talk, because we’re doing the online auction next week on Instagram for those daycares that he’s doing that emergency funding for, and I was still crying when I answered the phone.”
“Why were you––”
“And he asked me what he could do, and I said I wanted to go home, and he told me he would come and get me except he and Uncle Duncan were stuck downtown because of the road closures and stuff, so he sent a car for me instead.”
Jesus. In the rain, on a Friday night. Yet another thing I was going to have to talk to Aaron Sutter about. “Okay, well, next time just call us, all right?”
“I was going to but––”
“You talked to him first. I understand.”
“Yeah.”
“Why were you crying, though?”
“Because I broke Mr. Holmes.”
I’d been told by my husband, on many occasions, that talking to my daughter was eerily similar to talking to me. “I thought you were having an issue with Mrs. Holmes,” I clarified.
“I was, and when she saw I was upset, she apologized, like, a billion times, and I told her it was fine and I was trying to forget about it,” she explained. “But then, like, an hour later, me and Kay, his sisters and his cousins were all running around, chasing each other, when Mr. Holmes came home. And I guess he didn’t see us, and so he was suddenly, like, right there, in front of me, in my way, and I couldn’t stop, so I had to either plow into him or flip over him.”