Page 109 of Roommate's Guide to Love

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porter

“Porter…can you say Porter?”

“Gah goo ooo.”

“Close,” I say, though it’s not close. But she’s cute, so she gets a pass. “How about Po Po? Pah? Come on, baby girl. I know it’s hard, but you can do it. You can do anything.”

The more I ask Grace to same my name, even if I’m using the gentlest of my baby voices, her look to me is still the same.

Simply: What the fuck do you want me to do? Isn’t it enough that I’m adorable?

And she is, especially since the bow she’s wearing today is literally as big as her head. I mean, it had pasta noodles on it. How was I not supposed to buy it?

“Bah bah!”

“Yeah yeah, you got ‘bottle’ down, don’t you,” I say as I hand her the sippy cup that I realize she means. “One day, little one. One day.”

“Still nothing on the name front?”

“No,” I groan as Quinn enters the house and I roll to my back on the floor. The second I’m not looking at her, Grace does her downward dog/army crawl to the new toy she’s been obsessed with.

It’s a mixing spoon and bowl. And not even one that came in the kids’ kitchen set I spotted at the store the other day that I might’ve bought. Nope. Just a regular old spoon and bowl.

“I know you want the words, but I want the steps,” Quinn says as she sits down next to me. “She’s so close.”

I really didn’t understand the true meaning of baby-proofing a house until the past few weekends. I thought I had it covered. But then I saw a parenting blog about when they start walking, how much more they can get into, and it’s then that I realized my house was a walking death trap.

It wasn’t. Just a few things in her reach that I wasn’t ready for.

But, because of that, I summoned Wes, Simon, and a few of their friends to help me Grace-proof this house.

Now the house is padded, plugs are covered, and nothing is within her small reach. Now, we’re just ready for the steps.

And it’s not like she’s behind. We’re just impatient. According to the pediatrician and every baby blog in existence, she is a little delayed on her words, but we’re told it was nothing to cause concern about considering the upheaval in her life, and us not knowing anything major in her developmental history. The doc even said if that’s all that’s wrong to consider myself lucky. He’s shocked by how well adjusted she is and how good she took being thrust into a life she didn’t know. She’s eating well—the white board is constantly updated. She sleeps through most nights and is overall a very happy baby. When I think about it, it really makes me wonder how overwhelmed Missy had to be, or how hard it was raising her in the same house as Bonnie, for her to give her up. Because this little one is a light on a dark day, and I know my life is going to be better with her in it.

“How was book club?” I ask Quinn as she comes to lay down next to me.

“Great!” She says, sitting up, nothing but excitement radiating from her. “The kids are loving it. They’re at the part where…”

She doesn’t trail off. In fact, she starts talking a million miles a minute about a middle-school novel that I knew nothing about before Quinn Banks came into my life, and now I know everything. And yes, I’m listening. It means a lot to her, so of course I am. But I can’t stop watching her features as she goes on about the book, the students, and how much fun everyone is having. When Quinn is like this? Free and truly happy? There’s nothing more beautiful.

“Oh! And listen to this! I was talking with one of the sixth-grade teachers today. She saw me in the library and wanted to introduce herself. She came in at the end of the book club meeting so we started chatting about what I was doing. As we were talking, we came up with idea for a virtual book club for classes this year! It’s like a buddy reading, pen pal thing. How awesome is that going to be?”

I lean up to meet her, because I can’t help but kiss the girl right now. “It sounds amazing.”

“I’m so excited,” she says as she situates herself on the floor with me. “Being in that library today, even though school is still a few months away, it feels so right.”

“Was it strange?” I ask. “Being back in school, that is?”

She shakes her head as she links her fingers through mine as we watch Grace bang on the bowl. “Not as much as I expected. Honestly, when they told me I could go in during the summer to get everything ready, I figured it was a test to see if the building would collapse from the second I opened the door.”

“Did it?”

She looks back at me, a mocking glare being thrown my way. “No, smarty pants. It didn’t. The door did get stuck for a second, so I was convinced they already locked me out, but I just gave it a tug.”

I laugh. “Well, that’s good. I’m glad you’re liking it.”

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