“Yes, yes, I’m aware I’m my own worst enemy. But it’s my job to protect our family, and I take my job very seriously.”
“You do, and we all appreciate you for it. If you end?—”
“Auntie Cat!” Victoria’s happy squeal interrupts me mid-sentence as she comes rushing over to grab me by the hand and haul me toward the display of princess dresses. “You have to comesee!”
“All right, all right.” I can’t help but laugh as I let her drag me along behind her. “I’m coming, I’m coming. What’s all the fuss?”
“Just the most perfectest dressever.”
As if I haven’t heardthata thousand times over the year that Victoria has lived on the island. She knows I’m a soft touch when it comes to spoiling my nieces, and especially when it comes to buying them pretty clothes.
“There!” Victoria points to a dress with a deep-purple bodice and green skirt. The “bra” of the dress is shaped like seashells, and I instantly recognize it from Millie’s favorite mermaid movie. “Isn’t it perfect for Lexie? She even has the hair for it!”
My babygirl would look absolutely darling in that dress. But one look at Alexis’s face tells me she’s not quite as sold on the idea. “What do you think, little imp? Do you want to be a mermaid?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is there someone else you’d rather be, then?”
A jerk of her shoulders is the only answer I get. Clearly there’s something going on with my Little one, something she doesn’t want to talk about with an audience, so I give Victoria a reassuring smile and gesture to where Maxwell waits at the front of the store. “Why don’t you go see if you can talk your Daddy into a new pair of those sparkly shoes you like so much while I talk to Alexis.”
Her gaze, more worried now than excited, flicks between me and Alexis a few times before she gives a slow nod. “Okay, Auntie Cat.”
With one last concerned look for my babygirl, Victoria hurries off to drag her Daddy over to the display of shoes. Crouching down beside Alexis, I run a comforting hand over her hair. “Talk to Mommy, baby. What’s wrong? Do you not like the mermaid dress?”
“No, I do. I likeallof them.” There’s such longing in her voice, my own chest aches with it.
“Well, that’s not a problem. If you like them all, then Mommy will buy them all for you.”
“But you can’t, cuz they’re too small.”
Ah. There we go. “Baby. What did I tell you before we left this morning?”
Another jerk of her shoulder and I have to fight not to sigh. “Anything in this store can be made in whatever size we want. That’s the beauty of having a designer on the island who does nothing but make dresses for our sweet babygirls.”
“I know, it’s just…”
She turns her head, but not before I catch the glimmer of tears in her eyes. Gripping her chin, I gently turn her head back toward me. “Just what, baby? Tell Mommy what’s wrong.”
Bottom lip wobbling, she drags in air through her nose as tears slip down her cheeks. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“What wouldn’t I understand, baby?”
“You wouldn’t understand what it’s like to bedifferent.” The words seem to rush out of her on a single breath. “To wish you were like everyone else. You’re so beautiful and perfect and you’ve never walked into a store where everyone looked at you like you were lower than the dirt on the bottom of their shoe because there’s no way any of the clothes in that store would even fit on one leg.”
My heart cracks clean in two as I pull her into my arms, her shoulders shaking with sobs. “You’re right. I don’t know what it feels like to walk in a store and not be able to wear any of the clothes. But you’re wrong about the rest. I do know what it’s like to feel different and on the outside.”
Pulling away, she wipes at her streaming eyes. “You do?”
“I do, baby.” I should tell her more, but this is neither the time nor the place. Soon, I’ll show her the things I’ve so far only kept for myself, and then maybe she’ll believe me when I tell her I know exactly how it feels to be on the outside looking in.
For now, I smile for her, tucking her hair behind her ears and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry the world made youfeel like you were so much less just because you weren’t their version of perfect. But you know what?”
“Wh-what?”
Leaning down, I tap the end of her adorable button nose. “Fuck them.”
A giggle bursts out of my Little one. “You said a naughty word!”
