“What are you making?” a sleepy Elizabeth yawns as she lopes in.
“Hot chocolate,” Chris replies, stirring the cocoa and sugar together over medium heat while Charlotte slowly pours milk into the pot.
He and Charlotte glance warily at Elizabeth, something she picks up on immediately. She engulfs Charlotte in a hug first. “I’m okay, baby. I promise. I’m sorry I made you worry.” She turns and takes Christopher in her arms. “I love you both so much.”
“I love you, too,” he hushes against her shoulder.
Elizabeth hobbles over and wraps herself around my middle, snuggling in deep. Taken by the sweetness of her cuddling, I fold her in my arms and kiss the button of her nose when she peers up at me. And that’s when I see it. Her light. The one that shines brighter than any sun or star in the expansive universe. The one fueled by her heart that never dies out and shows just how fucking strong she is.
Chris tosses a jumbo marshmallow up in the air. It bounces off his forehead and falls to the floor. “Five-second rule,” he says, picking it up.
“Don’t you dare eat that, Christopher Randall Cutton!” Elizabeth snatches it from his hand just as he’s about to consume the entire thing. She chucks it into the garbage can and takes a fresh one from the bag, biting it in half. “I’m starving. Any leftovers from dinner?”
She looks at us weirdly when we start laughing.
“I would advise against opening the fridge.”
She doesn’t heed Chris’s warning.
“Oh, good god.” She takes out one of the containers. “What is this?”
“I think it’s tuna casserole,” Charlotte says. “Peyton brought it.”
Elizabeth immediately puts it back and takes out something else.
“Deviled eggs,” Charlotte remarks and turns the heat off the hot chocolate.
Elizabeth grabs a jar of dill pickle slices from the top shelf. “Hand me the bread.”
I reach behind me and pull the loaf out of the breadbox, then watch with amusement as she makes the most disgusting sandwich I’ve ever seen—and I once ate haggis and blood pudding on a dare, so that’s saying something. Elizabeth crushes the deviled eggs in a bowl with a fork, scoops up the carnage, and slathers it onto one piece of bread, squeezes out a mountain of mustard, then lays pickle slices on top.
“You are not kissing me after you eat that.”
She smiles as she takes a huge bite. “Wanna bet, Nutter Butter?” she says with her mouth full, and I cringe at the ridiculous nickname she once gave me.
Charlotte dissolves into raucous snickers. “Nutter Butter?”
“Thanks for that,” I tell Elizabeth and haul her to me, kissing her soundly despite my revulsion toward deviled eggs.
“Good grief, get a room,” Chris complains, takes his hot chocolate, and leaves. “I’m going to bed.”
Not being subtle at all, Charlotte does the same. “Me, too. Night, Mama.” She kisses Elizabeth on the cheek, then motions for me to bend down before offering me the same. “Night, Uncle Fallon. And thanks.”
“Good night, Squirt.”
“Thanks for what?” Elizabeth asks when Charlotte practically skips out of the kitchen.
“She just needed someone to talk to.”
Elizabeth’s smile vanishes, and she puts her half-eaten sandwich back on the plate. “I messed up.Again.”
“Why do you think that?”
She turns and hops up onto the counter island, hooking her feet around my waist and reeling me in. Her hands go to my chest, her fingers playing with the buttons of my shirt. “Because I put my kids through the same shit again. Because I fell apart and left you to pick up the pieces.”
Taking her chin, I tip her face. “Baby, it’s okay to fall apart. You just went through something horrific, and you’re grieving.”
She places a tender kiss on my shirt, right over my heart. “It’s not only that. I’m so fucking mad. At him. At Fate. At God. At myself.”
