Sadie knew that, and she also knew she’d earned the current razing session.
Kellie: Alfredo learned to lick his junk. I’m trying to decide whether to be proud of him or be horrified.
Sadie choked on her saliva.That was not what she’d expected to read. Alfredo, Kellie’s cat, had become her focus in life since her most recent breakup. Which was ten times better than her occasional infatuation with texting her exes when she was under any kind of stress.
Marlee:…
Becca:…
Kellie: He gives me the most intense stare while he does it. Like, look what I can do!
Becca: I had a client who could pull that same thing off. We had a lot of sessions about it.
Before Sadie could form any kind of response, the garage door hummed open.
Sadie briskly unloaded the rest of Eli’s requested groceries.
“Mom,” Sadie shouted. “They’re here. We have to say hello and go.”
The door to the mudroom separating the garage from the house opened and Marlee slipped through. She glanced around the now, thanks to Sadie’s mom, pristine home. “Oh my gosh, you didn’t have to clean up.”
As if Sadie’s housekeeping skills reached this level of accomplishment. “Mom did. Don’t give her crap. Cleaning up after her kids makes her feel like she’s needed.”
Marlee walked straight to Sadie and wrapped her in a hug. “Hospital food is the worst, and I’m exhausted.”
Sadie returned the squeeze. “Don’t worry. Mom and I are wrapping up and then we’ll head out.”
Marlee didn’t look thrilled at that idea. “Really? We just got here. Luke wants to spend time with his favorite auntie and his grandma.”
Sadie would love that but—“We don’t want to be in the way.”
“Eli’s making tuna; you’re not in the way.” Marlee leaned closer. “He’s going to be busy with dinner and I’m not ready to be alone with Luke. What if I screw him up?”
Sadie gave her friend a quick shoulder pat. “You’re only on day two. You have lots more time to screw him up.”
“Stay for tuna?” Marlee asked, her expression earnest.
How could Sadie tell her no?
“Okay, I’ll stay. But it’s not tuna. It’s tilapia,” Sadie corrected as Eli came through the door carrying little Luke zonked out in his carrier.
“You didn’t get the tuna?” Eli asked. “Marlee wanted tuna.”
And what Marlee wanted, Eli got her. It was super sweet. Sadie may not have generally believed in marriage as an institution, given all she’d seen. But her parents did remain happily in their union and she bet Eli and Marlee would, too, given how they looked at each other like no one else mattered. Except, Luke, obviously.
Sadie couldn’t help it, she gravitated toward the munchkin in the carrier. “They didn’t have tuna, so I got the next best thing.”
“They didn’t have salmon?” Eli asked. “Because that would be the next best thing.”
Sadie made a kissy face and baby-talked to her nephew. “I got the best option when they didn’t have tuna.”
“Which is salmon,” Eli replied.
Sadie glanced up at her brother from under her eyelashes and sweetly said, “They didn’t teach me in law school that salmon is preferable to tilapia when one is purchasing tuna.”
“That’s something you learn from your big brother, not law school,” Eli replied, passing Luke in his carrier to Marlee. She immediately went to removing the sleeping baby, fumbling with the carrier straps along the way. Luke’s eyes drifted open.
Sadie’s ovaries sighed at the way his little face scrunched up.
