Which I probably am, if I’m being honest.
We’re just finishing up—Emma’s eaten most of her eggs and all her strawberries but only one piece of toast—when Leo appears in the kitchen doorway with a worn leather briefcase in one hand.
“I have to catch the train now to make it to class,” he says, setting the briefcase down on the counter for a second while he checks his watch.
Emma’s face falls. “Already?”
“Already.” He crosses to her, bends, and presses a kiss into her wild crown of hair.
Emma tilts her face up and kisses him back on the cheek. “Have fun talking about brains.”
He laughs, a real laugh that transforms his whole face for a second, making him look younger and more handsome than he already is. “I’ll try. You be good, okay?”
The look he gives her is layered, a compact of hope and warning.
Emma stares right back at him, her blue eyes wide and innocent. “I will!”
He holds out his hand and Emma puts hers in it, and they do this elaborate little handshake—bump fists, snap fingers, wiggle their hands like fish, end with what looks like an explosion motion complete with sound effects. It’s clearly something they made up together, their own private thing, and watching it makes something squeeze in my chest.
Emma giggles, and Leo leans down to kiss her head one more time. “I love you, Emma-bean.”
“Love you too, Daddy.”
Then he straightens and looks at me, his expression shifting back to something more guarded, more professional. “If you need anything, everything’s on the fridge. Emergency numbers, schedule, all of it.”
I offer a playful salute. “Aye aye, Captain.”
He rolls his eyes, but a ghost of that earlier amusement lingers as he heads out.
“Girl party!” Emma shouts, throwing both her hands in the air like she’s celebrating a touchdown.
I burst out laughing, genuinely surprised by that. “Girl party?”
“Yeah! No boys allowed!” She’s grinning at me, bouncing slightly in her chair.
The rest of the morning goes by easier than I expected. I figure out how to load the dishwasher—which takes approximately fifteen minutes, followed by a lot of trial and error and silent prayers that I’m not actually breaking anything. The dishes go in along with the soap, the door closes, I press what I think is the start button, and water starts running, so I’m calling that a success.
Then there’s hair brushing, which I quickly learn Emma hates with a fiery passion. She squirms and complains and tries to run away twice, but eventually we get through it with a negotiated truce and a lopsided headband.
Getting her dressed is surprisingly easy—she picks out her own outfit, which ends up being denim overalls with a white turtleneck underneath and her red polka dot socks. I help her with the overall straps because they’re tricky, and then we tackle tidying her room, which is less tidying and more “shoving toys into bins and calling it good enough,” but Emma seems satisfied with the result.
By the time we’re done, I notice through the living room window that it’s stopped raining. A pale, tentative light struggles through the grey sky.
“Hey,” I say, walking back into Emma’s room where she’s arranging her Barbies on her bed. “I have an idea for a fun adventure.”
Emma looks up immediately, interested. “What kind of adventure?”
“Remember that disposable camera I gave you this morning?”
“Yeah!” She picks it up from her nightstand, holding it carefully.
“Well, I was thinking we could make a list of fun things to find in the city, and you could take pictures of them. Like a scavenger hunt, but with photos.”
Emma’s eyes go wide. “LikeI Spy!”
“Exactly likeI Spy!” I’m grinning now because she gets it immediately. “And we can do it a little bit every day when we go out. Today we can look for some things, tomorrow we can look for more, and by the end of the week you’ll have a whole bunch of pictures.”
“That’s so cool!” She’s bouncing on her toes now. “Can we make the list pretty? With colors?”
