“Well, come get ’em, girliepop!” I said, racing towards my daughter with big, loping steps as her little, chunky legs hurried to me.
It was so nice to see her at a good weight. I’d figured, since our kids were essentially human until puberty, that formula would be enough, butnope.She’d been far too skinny by the time she was back on the nip again, and it had taken her nearly half a year to catch up. If we had more science and labs on our side, I would love for someone to research all the differences between a shifter baby and a human baby, but considering how hard it was to find a shifter doctor, I wouldn’t be holding my breath on that.
“Ew, Dad. Don’t say girliepop!”
“Why not?” I asked as I spun around slowly, bouncing Veronica up and down just the way she liked.
“Because you’reold.”
“I’m thirty-one!”
“Yeah, like I said,old!It’s cringe.”
“I don’t acknowledge cringe,” Natalie said with a deadpan from the doorway. When I first met her, I thought she hated me for her sister’s death along with everything else, but I learned that was simply who she was.
And also that she was Russian.
“Cringe is just allowing how you experience joy to be controlled by others. It is weakness, and I do not allow that idea in my life.”
Benny probably only caught about half that sentiment. “Uh. Okay.”
“All right, all right, you little monsters,” I said, cobbing Veronica’s appropriately round cheek. What was it about baby cheeks and feet that needed to be smooched and tickled? “Clear out of the kitchen so I can finish up dinner. Remember, we have a guest coming.”
“Yeah! Missus Fischbacher! The coolest teacher in the world!”
“She is pretty cool,” I said, feeling a complicated wave of emotions wash over me. Life was so often like that, wasn’t it? It started off so simple, but with every year, more layers of complexity were added to it until it was nearly unrecognizable from what it had been in my youth. “So, Daddy wants to focus and make dinner extra special for her. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, Natalie ‘n’ me are gonna take Victoria and go play frisbee outside, so we’ll be out of your hair.”
I smiled at the idiom he must have heard from Natalie, but unlike with Veronica, I corrected his grammar a little more directly. “It’s Natalie and I.”
“No, you’re the one who’s staying inside to cook dinner!I’mthe one who’s gonna be outside!”
“Cheeky brat,” I said with a grin as I put Veronica down. Squealing, she tottered over to Natalie. “Have fun.”
“Will do!”
“I will make sure that they are sufficiently exerted,” Natalie said with a firm nod. I still had a hard time telling when she was being completely serious, and when she was playing up her stern nature. I think she liked it that way.
“Thank you, Natalie. For everything you do.”
“Yes, you would be lost without me.”
“I definitely would.”
With that, I was left to cook and be with my thoughts. Which, naturally, went right back to Giselle.
When I found out that our attacker was at her school, I almost threw down my phone and shifted right there, intent on getting there as quickly as possible. But I was grateful that I hadn’t, because Giselle explained that she was safe, he apologized, and we didn’t have to worry about him anymore.
I was a bit dubious, and I wanted way more information, but she wasn’t comfortable discussing it over the phone. Before I could even open my mouth to reply to that, she asked if it wouldbe all right to come over on Friday so we could discuss it at length after the children were put to bed.
I had no idea what came over me, or if I was just straight-up delusional, but I asked if she wanted to eat dinner with us as a family, then the kids could go spend the night at Natalie’s so she could tell me everything she learned about not-Charles.
So, that was how I ended up making fresh pesto for the handmade pasta and rosemary-garlic grilled chicken.
I wasn’t the most accomplished cook, but when I was young, I’d wanted to learn to make a few basic dishes so I could be self-reliant. Then, when Millia was pregnant, she didn’t crave strange combinations like some women did, she craved home-cooked food, butgoodhome-cooked food. So, I had a regular rotation of dishes I could cook well—chicken parmesan; venison stew; shepherd’s pie; glazed salmon; Cornish hen stuffed with pineapple rice; seared garlic asparagus; bang-bang broccoli; whole roasted cauliflower steaks and other veggie recipes; and a dozen different ways to use nature’s shapeshifter: the potato. Last but not least, pasta. That was a list unto itself, but half of them were just cutting or twisting the dough her Nonna had taught me to make into different shapes.
Sometimes, cooking made me feel closer to her. Not quite like she was alive and laid out on the couch, her belly so huge she couldn’t even look over it, but there was a part of her with me when I cooked. Perhaps that was why I’d offered. It was the only way for my wife to meet the woman I might be crushing on.
