What the fuck was I supposed to do?
The soft squeak of the side gate opening cut through the silence.
I sat up, my heart jumping. The quiet slide of the back door whispered through the house, then footsteps on the stairs and down the hall toward my room.
Emily appeared in my doorway, and the sight of her damn near broke me. Her face was wet with tears, mascara smudged under her eyes. She wore an oversized sleep shirt and flannel pajama pants, her hair messy around her shoulders.
She looked young and small and so fucking sad that my heart twisted so painfully I could barely breathe.
“I’m sorry, I…”
Without a word, I lifted the blanket. She crossed the room and climbed in beside me. I wrapped my arms around her immediately and she pressed her face into my chest, trembling as she wept silently in my arms.
I held her tight and kissed her hair, one hand stroking her back while the other cradled her head. “I’ve got you.”
She cried harder, her fingers fisting in my t-shirt.
I just held on, letting her fall apart in my arms. Minutes passed. Maybe longer. Eventually, her breathing evened out and the shaking stopped.
“This is heavy stuff, sweetheart,” I said quietly. “Maybe you should speak to someone about it.”
She pulled back just enough to look at me, her eyes red and swollen. “I know I should.”
“But?”
“I feel like, if I drag it all out in the open, I won’t have a mom anymore. Or a dad either. I don’t... I don’t think I can deal with that.”
I cupped her face, brushing away her tears with my thumbs. “You’re allowed to grieve the mother you deserved. The one you should’ve had.”
“I guess.”
She settled back against my chest, her head tucked under my chin. I pulled the blanket up around us and held her close.
“Tell me something good,” she whispered. “Something that has nothing to do with any of this.”
I thought for a moment, then smiled against her hair. “Alice tried to put glitter on her vegetables the other night. Said it would make them taste better.”
A small, wet laugh escaped her. “Did you let her?”
“Hell no. But I did let her put edible glitter on her ice cream after dinner.”
“How was it?”
“Sparkly. And according to Alice, the best ice cream she’d ever had.”
Another small laugh. She shifted slightly, getting more comfortable. “Tell me another one.”
So I did. I told her how, when Audrey was four, she’d developed an obsession with learning French, which consisted entirely of her yelling “BONJOUR” at everyone she met. I told her about the time I’d accidentally shrunk all of Alice’s favorite shirts in the dryer and she’d declared them “belly shirts” and worn them anyway.
And on it went, until her breathing grew slower, deeper. Her body relaxed fully against mine.
“Cam?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
I kissed her forehead. “Always.”
