“I didn’t punch her, so there’s that,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. Madden grins back at me.
“A valiant effort, since I know you’re such a scrapper,” he says with a sarcastic nod of his head.
I laugh a bit, but then my gaze follows Jesse’s down the hall.
“I’m gonna go talk to her,” I say with a tip of my head toward Emma’s room.
“She went in there soon after we got home and didn’t say much.”
I nod, then squeeze Jesse’s hand, signaling for him to let it go. He stares at me for a long moment before nodding. I thinkhe’s going to turn away, to do as I ask, but instead he pulls me closer to him, puts a hand on my waist, pulls me into him, and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“Take care of our girl, okay?”
I know it’s not a slip of the tongue.
I nod, then he nods, pressing his lips to my forehead before stepping away, grabbing his phone and his jacket, and heading out the door. I wonder what his plan is, if he’s going to talk to his family, who I’m sure have a million questions we’ll have to face later, but right now, all that matters is the lost little girl sniffing in the room.
“Emma, babe?” I call out with a soft knock at the door. “It’s me, Hallie.”
“You can come in,” she calls, and I try to dissect the words to get an idea of what to expect when I open the door, but I can’t, so I turn the knob and open the door.
When I walk in, she has a notebook before her, sitting criss-cross applesauce in her bed with headphones on, and she smiles at me as I gently close the door behind me.
For a moment, I’m utterly confused.
I expected to see a completely different person, or at least, an entirely different version of Emma. But she’s content. Smiling. Her eyes aren’t puffy and red, and there isn’t a pile of tissues beside her. There’s no anger or hurt on her face as she closes her notebook and sets it on her bedside table before removing her headphones and doing the same with them.
“Hey,” I say, stepping to her bed and sitting on the edge of it, a few feet between us. “How are you?”
“I’m good. Just doing some journaling.” She started a month ago after reading an article about how Willa Stone journals every single day, and I catch her jotting things down in one of her dozen notebooks often now.
“That’s good. Um, about today,” I say, biting my lip. I look down at my nails and pick at a cuticle. Nat would yell at me if she were here, I’m sure. “I’m sorry I got a little heated.”
“Heated?” she asks, and when I look at her again, her face is confused. Right now, she looks so much like Jesse, it aches.
“Well, I kind of…” Somehow, talking to Emma feels more embarrassing than talking to Jesse about it. “I kind of flipped on your mom.”
“I don’t think youflippedon her.” She pauses, her head tipping, and her hair falls to the side, sliding over her shoulder as she reaches out to grab my hand before smiling at me. “You stood up for me.”
Warmth settles in my chest as I squeeze her hand back.
“I always will, Em.” The words come through a tight throat, and she nods as if she knows that.
“I told you, you get it. You’re just like me.”
“I wish I weren’t, Emma. Trust me. I wish you had your mom and your dad and that everything was peachy keen.”
She shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“I get it. I guess I also wish my mom wasn’t the way she was, but she is, and there’s nothing I can do about that.” She’s twelve and so much wiser than half of the adults I know. “I didn’t get the picture-perfect family like Dad, Uncle Madden, and Aunt Wren got, but that’s okay. Today, I realized I got something better.” My brow furrows, and her grin goes beaming. “I get proof that you’ll stand up for me even if you’re not sure if you should because you care about me. And that’s better than a mom who won’t even come to my birthday.”
My chest aches, and I wonder if this is how Jesse feels all the time: so, so proud that he’s raised such a clever, self-confident, and empathetic daughter, but absolutely crushed that she had to learn those skills so young.
“You really mean that, don’t you?”
She sighs and rolls her eyes like I’m a brick wall she is tired of talking to, then shifts closer to me on the bed so she can hold both of my hands. It’s like she’s suddenly the adult, trying to gentle-parent me.
“Hallie, you’ve been here for me more in the past six months than I remember her ever being. And that’s not even counting all of the times you and Aunt Wren hung out with me or the millions of things that I don’t even realize were things you guys did to protect me from being disappointed. You do it because you love me, and I love you too.” My pulse pounds with her words, and I swallow, trying to fight back tears. “She hasn’t made time to see me in at least nine months, but she finds out I might have some kind of connections, and suddenly she can make a surprise trip to me. Meanwhile, you, Dad, and everyone drop everything at the drop of a hat whenever I need something. I’m young, but I’m getting older. I see what you guys have been doing, and I appreciate it. You protecting me once again today is not something I’m going to hold against you.”
