Page 64 of Love Notes & Lifelines
She more than cares for these little girls—she loves them.
Emmy clings tighter to Stella, and my lungs burn with the need for more oxygen—but every breath hinges on the woman before me.
“Listen, sweet pea. Uncle Beck has my phone number. If you need me for anything, you tell him and he’ll call me, okay?”
“Don’t go.” Emmy’s broken words slice me open.
“Emmy, lovebug. I’ll be here all day, okay?” Even though I’m trying, putting everything I have out there, I’m not as comforting as Stella.
Right on cue, Ruby starts babbling. The sound crackles in the baby monitor on the side table.
Stella kisses the side of Emmy’s head, then walks her to me.
“Listen, Em.” Something’s changed in her tone as she speaks now. Her eyes twinkle and the expression they share shouts,can you keep a secret? “Uncle Beck will need a lot of help today.”
“Hey,” I bark, but she rolls her eyes. How fucking rude. It doesn’t matter that she’s right, she didn’t need to announce it to the one person I’m supposed to make feel safe.
“But I told him…” Stella glares at me, and I scowl right back while my mind shoutstraitor, traitor, pillow fort raider. A flashback of Cally and me as vivid as the scene before me blurs the lines of past and present.
Cally standing outside my pillow fort while I taunted her.Traitor, traitor, pillow fort raider. Traitors can’t come in.My fist lands on my chest. Cally was heading to college, and I was so scared—she was leaving me for long stretches of the day for the first time in my life.
I was ten, but I’d never felt so unsafe. Home was just a house without her to protect me, and that was with her coming home every night. Why the fuck did I think I’d be unsafe?
Emotions burn hot in my eyes, but Emmy’s soft giggle drags me to the present.
“I told him what a good helper you are,” Stella tells her little coconspirator, and it’s hard not to be sucked into her story. “Ruby’s too little, but I told him you were a big girl, and you knew where everything was, and that you would be an excellent helper. Am I right?”
This magical nanny fairy does what I’m not capable of—she makes Emmy believe she’s safe in her home and with me. Emmy’s entire demeanor changes as she casts a shy, mischievous smile in my direction.
Emmy assesses me as if she’s now the teacher and I’m her troublesome pupil. “He needs our help.”
My jaw hits the floor.
“You’ll keep him in line, right, Emmy?” Stella winks at the little girl, and my heart reaches for her. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Emmy’s little fists land on her hips, and I narrow my eyes even as my lips twist with the beginnings of a smile. Her stance mimics Stella’s as they scrutinize me.
“Yup.” She hugs Stella tightly one more time. “Come home.”
Stella’s hand pauses its soothing gesture, but the muscles around her eyes twitch. “I will, Ems. Before you even wake up. Be good for Uncle Beck, okay?”
Emmy nods, pulls away from Stella, then walks to me with slumped shoulders and tight fists.
Stella gets sunshine and rainbows, and I get a cumulonimbus cloud. The competitor in me stirs to life. I don’t want her to be sad skies and dark clouds around me. I want her to be sunshine, and I’ll find a way to be the fucking rainbow too.
We stand together and watch Stella leave the house. Emmy’s body is wound more tightly than any four-year-old should experience. I don’t need Stella to tell me that. Then Ruby cries, and we make our way up the stairs to get the little maniac.
I immediately regret sending Stella on her way the second we enter Ruby’s room.
“No, Ruby,” I cry. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I gots this, Uncle Daddy, and I don’t need monies today.” My eyes are bugging out of my head as Emmy pushes up the sleeves of her jammies and crosses the room wearing a stern expression that makes the craziness break free from my chest. I laugh—hard.
But come on, a stern-looking four-year-old is funny.
“Wuby. Poop is nots paint.” Emmy wags her finger at her little sister who sits in a pile of shit, laughing her head off.
“Maybe there’s something wrong with her. No kid should play in shit as much as she does.”
