Page 115 of Reckless
Summer:*photo of Rhett standing beside the print grinning and giving a thumbs up*
* * *
“Okay, Vivi. SayDada.”
Sitting in her highchair, Vivi picks up tiny pieces of banana and stuffs them in her mouth. Watching me. But not babbling. Lately, when Theo is out, I’ve started trying to get her to pick up the word. Theo missed milestones during the time he didn’t know about us, and I know that makes him sad. Melancholy. He won’t allow himself to feel that though. He’s perpetually happy, and that shit is going to catch up with him one day.
It’s not normal.
“Da. Da,” I try again.
She smiles and points at me. “Mama.”
My responding grin is automatic.Mama. Sometimes I feel like I need to pinch myself. I wanted this so badly for so long that it hardly feels real.
“Where is Dada?” I turn slowly, taking in the whole room, which has Vivi responding in kind. Her little fingers grip the sides of her tray as her tiny body rotates in place.
She says a bunch of words, but they don’t mean shit. I’ve strung more coherent sentences together after way too much tequila.
But I go along with it anyway.
“Oh, you think so?”
Happy babbling is her response.
“He’s at work right now, just across the back lane at Aunty Summer’s gym.”
A tiny hooting sound.
“You miss him? Honestly, same. It’s weird. And confusing.”
A hum.
“Well, because he’s so handsome, my brain stops working when he’s around. And he’s so sweet my heart forgets it’s been broken so badly in the past.”
She tosses a piece of banana on the floor and the wet slapping noise it makes has Peter skidding out from wherever he was sleeping to hoover it up.
Deaf my ass.
“Da!”
My head whips back to Vivi, but she’s pointing at Peter.
I decide I willnevertell Theo that I’m fairly certain she saiddogbefore Dad.
“Dada? We should go visit him? Vivi, that’s such a marvelous idea.”
So, that’s what I do. I grab my gym bag and our baby, taking along my broken brain and mended heart, and head out the back door to see Theo.
* * *
“Why right now?”
“Because I need to work out.” I tighten the straps of the carrier on Summer’s shoulders.
“But...right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
