Dammit. So much for snuggling her and telling her how much I love her before putting her down for a nap.
My heart in my throat, I lean down to brush a kiss over her hair. “Sleep tight, my little imp. Mommy loves you, so very much. We’ll talk more when you wake.”
Part of me wants to stay, to watch over her while she sleeps. But I need space to think, to get my head on straight before we have the talk we so clearly need to have.
So even though it feels like leaving my very heart behind, I force myself to exit her nursery. Gavin is there, waiting in the hall, and I try to pull that icy cloak around me once more.
“Look, if you’re going to give me shit about spanking her, then it’s going to have to wait. It’s been a long fucking day and—oof.”
The rest of my rant is cut short by Gavin’s arms wrapping around me, squeezing me tightly to his broad chest.
“You’re a good Mommy, Cat. I know you don’t always believe that, so I’m telling you now. You're a good Mommy, and I know you had to have had your reasons for being so harsh with her.”
Closing my eyes against the welling tears, I give myself a moment, just a moment to soak in his comfort. “Thank you, Gavin. That means a lot.”
“You’re welcome.” Pulling away, he offers up that mischievous grin I’ve grown so accustomed to over the years. “Go on down to your office, put on that broody music you like so much, and I’ll bring you a cup of coffee and a brownie.”
“That… sounds lovely, actually. But let’s wait on the brownie until after Alexis wakes up from her nap.”
Gavin’s brows shoot up to his hairline and I roll my eyes at him. “Don’t give me that look. I may be strict, but I’m not enough of a monster to deprive my Little girl of her favorite treat.”
“Noted. Coffee now, brownies when Alexis gets up.”
“Thank you, Gavin.”
As he makes his way downstairs to make my coffee, I turn to stare at the closed nursery door. Something about today still isn’t sitting right in my gut, but I can’t quite figure out what it is.
Soon. Once Alexis wakes from her nap, we can sit down with our brownies and talk about today, and hopefully I can get to the bottom of what happened with my sweet babygirl.
Lexie
The first thing I notice when I wake from my nap is how much my butt still hurts. The second thing I notice is that I’m completely, utterly alone in my nursery.
My stomach twists at both realizations as I push myself up, wincing at the lingering pain in my bottom. It wasn’t theworstspanking ever, definitely not as bad as the whipping I got for my first-day-of-school tantrum, but it was way harder than Mommy usually spanks.
Because you hurt her precious Tori, and she loves Tori more than you.
Fresh tears well in my eyes as the truth settles heavy in my chest. I’ve always known it was true. Known that Catharina would realize someday I’m not the Little girl she wants, and who shereallywants is Victoria.
It doesn’t matter how hard I’ve tried to be good. How perfect I’ve been. Snuggling Tori the way she can’t snuggle me, giving Tori her milk, spanking me the whole way home, passing me off to Gavin like I was some kind of burden she couldn’t be bothered with any longer. All of it has made one thing crystal clear: I no longer have a place as Catharina Montgomery’s Little girl.
Swiping at my streaming eyes, I force myself to breathe past the ache in my chest. For weeks now, I’ve been watching my Mommy and Gavin unlock the crib, set the alarms, all the things I need to know to get the fuck out out of here and off this island.
And, as luck would have it, I overheard Mommy and Uncle Max talking about the lumberjacks and how they’re leaving again today. Apparently they’ve been making back-to-back trips for almost three years while the island was under construction, but now that it’s mostly finished, they’re headed home for a while.
It’s almost like the Universe is telling me this is the right move.
Once my breathing is more under control, I reach for the latches on the underside of the crib railing, gently lowering them just in case Mommy is listening in through the monitor.
No. Not Mommy. Catharina. Once I leave the island, she won’t be my Mommy anymore, so it’s better if I stop thinking about her that way sooner rather than later. Ripping the bandaid off, as they say.
Speaking of ripping things off… I lower myself to the ground and then hesitate, looking down at my diaper. Better, probably, to just get rid of it. I can move better without all that bulky cotton wrapped around me, and I won’t be using them anymore once I’m on the ship.
To my surprise, tears once again fill my eyes as a sense of loss hollows out my chest. Not loss at the diaper, necessarily, but the loss of those moments with Mom—Catharinachanging me, telling me what a good girl I was for wetting my diaper for her. If I’ll miss anything about the island, it’s that sense of belonging I’d had for the first time in my life. It doesn’t seem to matter to my heart that none of it was real. Itfeltreal, and losing that feeling is ripping a hole inside me I don’t think will ever be filled.
So like the metaphorical bandaid, I rip my diaper off, tossing it and my bikini top to the side as I hurry into my closet. Thank god for our trips to the farm, because I don’t think I’d be very comfortable wearing one of Solene’s dresses on the ship, especially without a diaper underneath.
I pause in front of the one-of-a-kind dress Solene made just for me, running my hands over the rainbow tulle. That ache in my chest threatens to crack me clean in two, so I force myself to turn away from the beautiful creation to go hunting through my dresser drawers.
