“This is you,” she says, pointing to a triangle with a pin head and stringy hair. “And this is Uncle Matty.”
“I can tell.” Because his triangle body is upside down, narrow at the bottom and wide at the shoulders. Story checks out, but for his pin head.
“And this is me next to you, and see, you’re holding your baby.”
“I do see. Is it a boy or a girl?”
“I think it might be a guinea pig.”
“Cool. I’ve never had one of those.”
“Ryan, if you weren’t already family, I would choose for you to be.”
“Oh, Clodagh. That’s so nice of you to say.” My heart does the Grinch thing. I’m not gonna correct her. This is her family and my babe’s family too. But I’m not part of them. I don’t belong here.
“I’m thirsty.”
“Then let’s get you a water.”
Next, Clodagh is hot chocolate thirsty, so I make her one of those with cream and sprinkles and marshmallows, because apparently, she’s allowed all that before dinner.
Then she’s hungry for grilled cheese. Given that it’s almost 4:30 in the afternoon, I don’t see the issue and think I might even be doing her mom a favor. Until I consider allergies. Clodagh settles for a piece of fruit instead.
Then her legs begin to ache, and apparently, the antidote is a run around the garden. Because “growing legs need things to do.” So a run around the garden she gets. Which then necessitates a change of clothes after she skids in the wet grass and mud.
“Don’t worry,” she says as I stare in horror at her once-pink leggings. “I have clothes upstairs in my old bedroom.”
So that’s where we go, and as she pulls on some clean leggings, I take my eyes off her for two seconds. And poof! She disappears. Gone. Like aliens beamed her up out of nowhere. As in, no sight or sound of her is available to me.
I look in the closet and under the bed, the same in the next room, and the next. And so it goes, my voice echoing from the walls as panic begins to spout and grow, twining around my ribs like ivy strangling a tree.
“Clodagh!” Each time I call her name, I sound more than a little desperate, even to my own ears. “Clodagh, sweets, where are you?”
The doors are all locked—where the hell could she have gone? Unless ... she’s tall enough to open them from the inside. And has gone looking for her mom.
She wouldn’t, would she?
I thunder down the grand staircase and check the doors. The kitchen, the pantry, the garden, my rooms, as my heart continues to beat like runaway hooves.
At my wits’ end, I grab my phone and decide there’s nothing for it—I’ll have to call her mom.
So hey, Letty. I don’t quite know how to tell you, but the house ate your daughter. Yep, that’s what I said. She’s gone.
“What’s up, buttercup?”
“Oh!” I turn and practically fall into Matt’s arms. “Oh, thank God!”
“What is it?” he demands, his arms tightening around me.
“Letty left Clodagh with me while she went to her parent-teacher conference.” The words fall so quick, I’m surprised he can follow. “And everything was fine until we went upstairs to get her changed out of her muddy leggings, and now she’s gone!”
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
“It’s not funny, Matt!” I thump his chest with the side of my fist. Because the man is amused. Amused!
“She hasn’t gone,” he says, gathering me close. He folds me under his arm as he turns his attention to the staircase. “Oh, what a pity,” he calls upward. Loudly and with a theatrical exaggeration. “How will I ever survive without my Clodagh!”
“You think she’s hiding from me?” I almost whisper.
