“I gave them paper, Han.” He nodded vaguely toward a single, crumpled sheet lying on the floor and bearing a single, forlorn purple squiggle. “I turned my back for a few seconds.”
“That’s all she ever needs,” Solo said, looking over Tia’s artwork. It was impressive, really, what she’d managed toachieve in the tiny snippet of time she’d been unsupervised. Abstract squiggles joined vaguely humanoid shapes together, all under the sun, or maybe it was an emotional lemon. Tia had been interrupted, and it was too soon to tell definitively.
A bubble of laughter started in Solo’s chest, fighting against her exhaustion and the persistent thrum of sorrow, and then it jumped out of her mouth. Tears pricked her eyes, not from sadness, but from the sheer unadulterated absurdity of it all. This was what kids did. And wasn’t that beautiful and something to be celebrated? “Oh, Dad, what did you let them do to our innocent walls?”
He released his grip on Chloe and gently placed Luna on their playmat. “I tried, honey. I really did.” He ran his hand through his hair, but that did little to un-muss it. “But Tia’s a painting ninja, and…” he gestured wildly, “there are three of them!”
Solo couldn’t stop more laughter, which Tia clearly interpreted as encouragement, because she let out another triumphant squeal and slammed her orange crayon onto the wall to begin drawing another multi-limbed creature from her own little universe.
“Tia, no, baby. Stop.” Solo tried for the stern tone she’d heard Janie use and failed miserably, unable to stop her own wide smile. She knelt down to gently take the crayons from Tia’s vice-like grip, wishing for all the world that Janie was there to play bad cop while Solo took photos of Tia’s wall art for the Trouble Town Triplets Insta.
Tia’s bottom lip began to wobble. “Mine!” she said and tried to pull her crayons away.
Solo remembered from one of the many parenting books stacked on her bedside drawers that this was the age her girls would begin to experience new emotions, like possessiveness and anger. She and her dad were in for a rough ride over the coming months. “We draw on paper, Tia. Right?”
Tia stuck out her bottom lip as she relinquished the tools of her new trade, and then she dropped to her butt. “Eat?”
Solo smiled and gently touched her finger to the end of Tia’s nose. “You hungry?” she asked and rubbed her stomach. Tia nodded and looked settled for now, so Solo turned to see how her dad was doing. He sat on the playmat with Chloe and Luna on either side of him. Solo picked up Luna, and she wrapped her crayon-streaked arms around Solo’s neck. “Did Tia draw on you too, Luna?”
“Luna pretty,” she murmured and burrowed her little face into Solo’s neck.
Another laugh escaped her. This glorious, messy, ridiculous life was so beautiful. And tragic… Janie’s absence stabbed at her heart, and Solo took a deep breath, trying to push down and control the desperate grief clawing at her throat to get out.
“Are you okay, honey?” Her dad looked at her the way he always had when he knew something was bothering her.
She pressed her lips together tightly, stopping herself from answering him for now. Maybe later, when the girls were in bed, and when they could watch a replay of Sunday’s Bears’ game and have a couple of beers… Maybe then she could allow the words to come out of her mouth.
But not now. Not in this precious moment. She had to keep it together and make everything as normal as possible for the triplets.
Luna raised her head and pointed at the wall. “Pretty.”
“It is pretty.” Solo kissed Luna’s forehead then popped her back down beside her dad. “But maybe next time, we could make a pretty picture on some paper, so we can keep it, huh?”
Her dad gestured to Tia’s abstract art. “Your mom would’ve had a fit.”
Solo nodded. Her mom had always been a neat freak. “No doubt. And then she would’ve found a way to turn it into a teachable moment about what special mom trick could remove crayon from the wall without damaging the paint.”
There was a giggle behind her, and Solo turned around to see Tia grab a discarded crayon and dart over to a blank piece ofwall near the doorframe. Once there, she continued the swirling pattern that formed the background of her masterpiece.
“Tia!” Solo cried, but it was too late. And what did it matter, really, when the whole wall would have to be repainted anyway?
Her dad chuckled. “She’s got spirit, that one,” he said then jiggled Chloe in his arms. “They all do. Creative too, just like their momma. The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”
A warmth spread through Solo’s chest at the thought that at least one of her girls might be artistic like her, and it pushed against the cold ache of her loneliness. She lifted Tia into her arms, and Tia immediately tried to decorate Solo’s face. She disarmed the toddler and strapped her into the orange highchair by the table, then she scooped up Luna and Chloe in turn, and deposited them alongside their sister in their color-coded seats.
“That’s an ingenious idea,” her dad said, “but it makes me glad that me and your mom had you and your brother a couple years apart.”
Solo nodded. “Whenever you had new friends over, they could never tell who was who in the baby pictures.” She motioned to herself. “People still might have trouble telling the difference.”
Her dad chuckled. “I guess. Your mom never did insist you wore a dress.”
Solo didn’t miss the sadness that flicked across his eyes, but it quickly disappeared. She wanted to say how much she missed her mom, but now wasn’t the time for that either; they’d have to fit a lot of talking around the three-hour football game. “Watch the spider monkeys while I get dinner,” she said and headed to the kitchen.
She didn’t dawdle and quickly reheated the pasta, sauce, and meatballs before bringing them to the table, along with sippy cups full of juice for the girls and soda for her and her dad. She used a couple of wipes to clean the triplets’ hands and then served the food for them all.
He curled his lip and raised the glass of Pepsi. “I think I deserve a glass of something alcoholic.”
“Sorry.” Solo gestured to the empty liquor cabinet. “I donated it all to Gabe’s house on Monday.” She shrugged, recalling the alluring array of colorful bottles as she stared at them from the hallway floor a few nights ago. “It was a bit too much temptation for me.”
