“Did you get your teeth brushed?” I ask Eloise as I finish wrapping the end of the braid.
“Mm-hmm.” She drops my phone and jumps into bed.
I narrow my eyes. “El, did you really? Let’s see ’em.”
She opens her mouth, and I’m hit with the smell of ketchup.Gross.
I toss the covers off her. “Young lady, get your booty to that bathroom and brush your teeth.”
She sulks away, and I slide into the middle of the bed so the girls can sit on either side of me. They had matching twin beds when we moved their furniture in, but they never wanted to sleep in them and would always end up in mine. So I switched out their twin beds for a bigger one where they could sleep together.
After a few minutes, Eloise bounces back in with minty breath, chattering about Despereaux and Princess Pea from our bedtime story. The girls cuddle in close, their heads on my shoulders while I read the last few chapters, Avery’s tiny hand gripping my arm the whole time. Soft, deep breaths echo from each side of me as I finish the book.
Bedtime is the hardest part of the day. Ave and El are tired, and they miss their mama the most in the evenings. I haven’t skipped bedtime once since they started living with me, but that’s as much for me as it is for them.
My heart aches every night as I’m tucking the covers around them, brushing kisses across their cheeks and telling them I love them.
The first night they stayed here, Clara’s cancer had taken a turn for the worse, and she had just been admitted to the hospital. Ave and El slept in my bed, purring like little kittens with their warm bodies curled into my sides. I lay awake all night, tears dripping out of my eyes, thinking about everything my big sister might miss.
There was a mourning period for months before she was gone. She and I had time to talk about what she wanted for the girls so that I could be the best possible parent to them. But the adjustment from fun Uncle Finn to full-time Uncle Finn has been harder than I expected.
With my grandparents gone and no support from my parents, it’s just me trying to dig out of this hole of grief, while also trying to help Avery and Eloise out of theirs.
Sometimes it feels like my heart has been shattered into a million little pieces. They’re lying on the floor, the sharp, jagged edges cutting anyone who attempts to help me pick them up. And I try as hard as I can to put them back together, but every time I think I’ve got a piece settled into the place it belongs, everything crumbles again when I reach for another fragment.
Therapy for all three of us has been helping, and Dr. Kline reminds me constantly that everything we’re feeling is normal. But I get to see their smiles and hear their laughter, and it destroys me that Clara is missing it. I’m living her life, trying to do the best I can. Trying to make her proud. Trying to make Ave’s and El’s lives everything she wanted.
She deserved this more than anyone I know. I would have given up anything to trade places with her.
Holding my breath, I slide out from between the girls, trying to scoot as carefully as possible. Once I’m free of their clutches, they roll toward each other, Eloise’s head landing right beside Avery’s. I pull my phone out of my pocket and take a picture of them.
When I make it downstairs, I’m greeted by a mess of chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and green beans on the counter. The green beans weren’t a hit tonight. Apparently, I cooked them too long, and in Eloise’s words, “They tasted like the sandbox at the playground.”
I made a mental note to keep an eye on her the next time we’re at the park because I had no idea she was tasting the sand.
Before the girls came to live with me, I was getting takeout almost every night. So teaching myself to cook has been a big adjustment. I’d love to be able to cook with more variety, but I’mstill trying to get the hang of some simple things. Last week I managed to burn every single grilled cheese, so my track record isn’t the best.
Gabriella, the girls’ nanny, knows it’s not my forte, so she helps during the day as much as she can. She leaves homemade lasagna and chicken Parmesan in the fridge sometimes, and I could kiss her for it.
Once I get the dishwasher going and the food put away, I grab a beer and step out the back door. The chilly evening breeze brings goose bumps to my arms, prompting me to start the gas fire. The flames dance into the dark, and I drop onto the outdoor couch.
As I tilt my head back, letting my eyes search out the few stars I can see, a lone howl resounds through the night from a neighborhood dog.
The heartbroken cry for a friend rings through my ears, and something about it echoes into my soul. My heart seems to perk up and call back,Me too, buddy.
And for the first time, I realize that buried under the feelings of grief and loss might be a staggering loneliness that I’ve spent way too long ignoring.
Chapter 8
Millie
I’ve been haunted for the last twenty-four hours by my conversation with Finn yesterday. He told me something devastating about losing his sister, and Avery and Eloise losing their mother, and I couldn’t wrap my head around the right thing to say in response.
Then my anxiety went into overdrive, making my hands clammy and my heart pound in my chest, so I changed the subject to something silly, as though I was trying to distract a kitten with a shiny object.
And while the sound of his deep, rumbly laugh has been replaying in my mind ever since, I have an overwhelming fear that I said the wrong thing, and I want to fix it.
The camp kids are spending their day with prehistoric life and engineering, giving us a chance to reset before they come back to entomology tomorrow. So I cross the museum to a department I rarely visit: astronomy.
