“Morning,” I say, sliding her a mug.
She wraps both hands around it. “It feels like the longest day of my life, and it’s only six-thirty.”
I reach out, rub a hand over her back. “We’ve got this, Katie.”
She lifts her eyes to mine, tired but steady. “You sound so sure.”
“I am sure.” I tip her chin up. “You’re the best mom I’ve ever known. That’s what the judge will see too.”
That earns me a faint smile. She sets her mug down and leans into me just enough that I feel her steadying herself.
Then tiny footsteps slap the hallway floor.
Evie appears in her pajamas, hair a tangle, holding Matilda by the tail. “Is Grandma coming soon?”
“Soon,” I say, crouching down. “Are you excited for pancakes?”
“Are they the whipped cream ones?”
“Of course.”
She grins, wide and gap-toothed. “Then I’m very excited.”
Kate smooths Evie’s hair. “Why don’t you go get dressed, sweetheart?”
“Okay!” She dashes off toward her room. A second later, her voice carries down the hall. “Cam! I need help with my hair!”
Kate smirks into her coffee. “Guess you’re on duty.”
I chuckle and follow the call. “On my way.”
In her room, she’s sitting on the bed with a hairbrush in one hand and Matilda tucked under her arm. “I tried, but it keeps going crazy.”
I take the brush from her. “Crazy hair just means you’re smart. All the smart ones have wild hair. Look at Albert Einstein.”
“Is that why your hair sticks up in the morning? Because you’re smart?”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s exactly the reason.”
She giggles as I part her hair and start braiding. I’m working off memory from the tutorials I’ve watched on YouTube over the past week. I twist, overlap, pieces stick out. It’s not perfect, but she beams when she looks in the mirror. “It’s pretty!”
I smile because her view of the world is still so innocent and good. Even mistakes made with the proper effort can be pretty. “Thanks. I might need more practice, though with all of these pieces sticking out.”
Her expression turns serious as she touches my arm. “Don’t worry about mistakes, they’re just part of learning something new.”
Well shit.
I know those words because I said them to her T-ball team during their first practice. I say those words to every T-ball team I coach. And she remembered them.
I’m not a man that cries often but damn it, my eyes sting a little bit.
“That’s right, Evie. That’s very right.”
Her eyes regain their sparkle. “Let’s go have pancakes!”
“You got it.” I lift her and place her on her feet and she bolts back to the kitchen.
When I walk down the hall in her wake, Kate’s mom is standing at the open front door, shaking her umbrella dry on the front porch. “There’s my girl!”
