Page 12 of Everywhere You Look

The trill of an outgoing FaceTime call fills the air as the twins squabble over my phone.

“¡Chiquitinas!”

“Tía Camila!”

My Tía chatters away to the girls as they run into the kitchen, no doubt wanting to show Camila the dough they helped me prep earlier that has been setting in the fridge. I scoop Ollie up out of the pack-and-play along with the betta fish Squishmallow she refuses to let go of. My still-wet nails leave pink marks on the bottom of her onesie, but it’s fine. The damn thing is likely going to be covered in food, snot, and a blown-out diaper by the time the night is over and will need to be washed–or incinerated.

Besides, I’ll be taking nail polish remover to my manicure before I go to bed tonight, anyway. Not because I have a problem with wearing nail polish or makeup of any kind—in fact, I’m getting really attached to having multicolored fingernails.

But if the last few days of playing nail salon are any indication, Mellie will want a fresh canvas towork with when she breaks out her basket of polish tomorrow. I may have only been playing guardian for a short time, but I already know my girls well.

Just as I thought, when I lightly kick the bottom of the swinging door to the kitchen, I find Lemmie and Mellie sharing a high-top chair at the island. My phone is propped up against the forest-green stand mixer that is still covered in flour from our earlier adventures in dough-making, and the girls are punching their little fists into balls of dough while Camila patiently talks them through the kneading process.

“Cariño, did you hard boil the eggs like I told you?” Camila asks when I step into the frame, right before she starts cooing and making squishy faces at the babbling baby in my arms.

“Sí, pero I think you told me to do too many. I boiled two dozen, but the recipe I saw online only calls for three eggs total.”

“An online recipe? You looked at an online recipe? Quick, chiquitinas, check my back. I think Dean left his knife lodged in it,” Camila says as she turns and pats herself over her shoulder. Her dramatics cause the girls to break out into a fit of giggles, which makes me laugh in turn.

“Online recipe,” Camila mutters when she finally turns back around. “Cariño, I’m teaching you to cookwith love. No more online recipes. Not for Argentinian food, anyway. Or brisket. Or Matzah ball soup. You know what? No online recipes, period. And yes, two dozen eggs is the right amount. You’ll have all the empanadas you can eat tonight, and you’ll freeze the rest. They make great pop-in-the-oven-and-go meals when you and Luke get busy.”

As soon as she mentions frozen empanadas, a memory washes over me. My sister and I are sitting in the kitchen in our childhood home up on McKenna Mountain—because, yeah, my dads bought an entire mountain’s worth of property when IronDad retired—the two of us sharing a chair just like Lemmie and Mellie are right now. Tía Camila gliding through the kitchen, her long, blonde hair in a bun on the top of her head and her lemon-colored apron covered in flour. Pops and IronDad were on a work trip for one of their charities, and Kira and I were helping Camila stuff our freezer with easy-to-heat-up meals, since neither of our dads have ever been great in the kitchen.

Camila is sort of like a third parent to us. She grew up with my Pops in Manhattan and the two of them have been best friends since Hebrew school. When Pops and IronDad were ready to start a family, Camila selflessly volunteered her eggs and her body to the cause. Biologically, she is mine and Kira’smother, but she’s not ‘Mom’. She wanted to be our auntie, and that’s what she is.

But being Tía Camila in name never made her any less important to either of us, and she has never loved me and Kira any less because of our different familial situation.

I wonder if that’s what it’s going to feel like for Luke and the girls as they grow up. Lem and Mel are still so young, with so much growing up to do. Hell, Ollie can’t even talk yet. It’s likely she won’t have any memories of Gigi besides the stories told to her. Luke will be the only parent she’ll ever know.

Will he always be Uncle Luke? Will they call him Dad? Will Luke teach them things Gigi might not have been able to, the way Camila did with Kira and me?

Will I be around to find out?

I promised Luke I wasn’t going anywhere, and I plan on keeping my word. But that doesn’t mean he won’t grow to not need me one day. When the girls are older and can take more responsibility for themselves, or when Lemmie and Mellie are old enough to watch Ollie on their own. Eventually, my presence here will become obsolete.

I look at my girls; the twins holding up dough to the phone screen while Ollie pokes a chubby finger into my cheek and my heart aches.

In such a short amount of time, this house has become my own, and Luke and these kids are my family. I already can’t imagine being anywhere else.

The back door swings open and Luke comes into the kitchen, his shoulders slumped and an envelope hanging from his hand. Usually, Lem and Mel lose their minds when their Uncle Lukey gets home from work. They love to throw themselves at him and drag him through the house to show him all the activities we’ve gotten up to throughout the day and force him to play ballerina until dinner is ready. Today, they’re too busy with rolling out dough under Camila’s watchful eye to even notice Luke’s arrival.

That is probably for the best. Luke looks…

Well, he looks like shit.

“Geez, Luke, what’s wrong? You look like you walked through a Shakespearean tragedy on the way home and someone wished a pox on our house. Don’t tell me you got canned already?” I say with a playful hint to my tone, nodding to the envelope hanging from his fingertips. Luke isn’t in a playful mood, though. A fact made abundantly clear when he looks up at me with red, tear-rimmed eyes.

“What happened?” I ask, my body immediately switching into adrenaline mode, ready to kick the ass of whoever made my Luke cry.

“We need to talk, Dean,” he says quietly. “Let's take the girls next door to your sister’s place.”

“No need, I’ll watch the kids!” Camila calls out, startling Luke.

“No offense, Tía, but you’re a face on the phone. I don’t feel comfortable with you babysitting the kids from Tennessee,” I say, arching a brow in Camila–I mean,my phone’s–direction.

“Díos mio, Dean. It’s a big kitchen. Go sit at the table on the other side of the room and talk. Take the baby. I’ll scream if something happens to my chiquitinas.”

She makes a shooing motion, and I look at Luke. He turns towards the table, so I take that as an approval of Camila’s makeshift babysitting offer. I follow him, setting Ollie in her high chair and giving her a teether to gnaw on before I settle into the chair next to Luke. Once I look over his head and make sure Lemmie and Mellie are still in my line of vision, I ask him again.

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