Page 75 of Minted

She’s laughing when she walks out the door.

I’m watching replays of my favorite football games when my phone rings—and it’s Barbara. My heart races, and I answer. “Hello?”

“Hey,” a small voice says that is definitely not Barbara.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Ricki,” the girl says.

“And Nikki. You’re on speaker. We’re in the bathroom.”

“I’m guessing your—er, your foster mom doesn’t know you have her phone.”

“Definitely not,” one of them says. It’s really hard to tell without even having their faces to go by.

“Without seeing which of you has her hair back, how will I know who’s Ricki?” I realized quickly that was their tell—Ricki’s hair is always pulled back. Nikki’s is usually down so she can hide her face when she gets nervous.

“It doesn’t matter,” one of them says.

The other one says, “We just called super quick to tell you this.”

Ping pong, it’s back to the first. “Look, Barbara just spooks super easy, okay? It’s because of that British idiot, but she really does like you.”

“I know,” I say.

“Oh,” one girl says. “Wait, you do?”

“She told me that,” I say.

“But really, she loves you too,” one of them says. “She talks about you all the time, and when she does, her face gets all weird and she gets all, like, fluttery.”

“Fluttery?”

“Like, when her eyelashes are like blinking and she’s waving her hands through the air.”

I laugh. “And fluttery’s good?”

“Very good,” one says. “Sometimes when your mom dies, you’re just sad, and you need more time to get over it. I think she’ll get over it quick.”

“Wait, you mean she’ll get over losing her mom?”

“Well, yeah, that and her dad and her husband dumping her. It was a bad year.”

“I know,” I say. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

And when they hang up, I realize that those girls aren’t going anywhere, either. If they’re calling me to make sure their foster mom is happy, they already see her as a lot more than a person providing them a hotel room and food.

They see her as their mother, at least a little bit, already.

And that means that if I get my way. . .they’ll have a father too. I should be freaking out at the idea, but I’m not. I actually like it. In fact, if Dave weren’t on a cruise right now, I’d definitely be calling him for tips.

Me—a dad, with two adorable little girls.

Imagine that.

15

Barbara

---