Page 43 of Give & Take

“Are you okay?” Aurora asks, startling me.

I lower my forearm from my eyes.

My agonizing stops like a record scratch as I look up at the precious little girl standing over me.

This is what I’m here for. These kids. I need to chill. Do my job.

Have fun, like I’m good at.

I sit up. “Am I okay now? Right now?”

“Yeah!”

“No, because I haven’t seen your castle!”

She grins, her adorable little dimples popping. “Come on!”

Aurora and Nova give me a tour of Castle de Cool. “There’s even a drawing bridge!” Aurora exclaims whileNova, very serious, demonstrates it. It’s actually incredible—strips of kelp woven around sticks. There’s a rudimentary pulley system.

I look at Nova. “You made this? All by yourself?”

She shrugs, but I can see the pride glowing from her.

“We need to get you a fast track into an engineering degree! This is wild!” I take a bunch of pictures, sending them over to Lana with the caption “your child is a genius” before remembering we’re not exactly casually texting this week.

I toss my phone back in our beach bag before I can start worrying about a response. “Alright you child geniuses,” I say. I feel better. Focusing on them is bringing me back to myself. “Now that that’s done, it’s time to play TKITW!”

“What’s ‘tee kay…’ Aurora frowns, then gives up. “What’s that?”

“Throwing Kids In The Water, of course!”

I throw a squealing Aurora over my shoulder and sprint down the beach, chasing Nova. A moment later I’ve gently tossed Aurora in the shallows and fully frisbeed Nova nearby.

The next hour passes by without me thinking of Lana even once. Okay, maybe once, when I swear I see her in the door of the patio entry. But she’s gone by the time I look back again. She probably wasn’t even there.

“You guys hungry?” I ask when we finally collapse on the beach.

“For what?” Nova asks, eyes closed.

“What do you mean for what? It’s a binary question.”

Nova opens her eyes just a slit. “What does binary mean?”

“Black and white. Yes or no.”Your mom likes me, your mom hates me.

Shit. My mood is coming back. I try my best to shake it off. “How about some mini-donuts?”

This idea seems to renew the girls. A few minutes later we’re over at the concession stand, and a few minutes after that I’ve got a giant bag of two dozen cinnamon-sugar dusted mini donuts in my hand, the kids plucking hot donuts out of it like little seagulls.

Towards the end they start making a game out of eating the last few. Nova does this surprisingly skillful pirouette thing, spinning toward a donut in Aurora’s hand before chomping down on it.

“Do you think they’ll have donuts in dance class?” Nova asks. I almost forgot the girls start a dance class next week.

“If they don’t, I’ll bring them,” I promise.

They do a few of these spins, alternating between spinner and donut-holder. Until Aurora accidentally chomps her sister’s finger along with the donut. This warrants some napkins for tears and an extra emergency donut for Aurora. Then another for Nova, and before I know it, the bag is empty.

“More! More! More!” they chant.

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