I nod. “I saw. You were on point. Look at all these treasures!”
She hugs her dragon-taco belly, now lumpy with treats. “Let’s do more parades! Can we do more?”
Clover tugs her cell out of the back pocket of her crime-against-my-self-control jumpsuit. “I think we can make the one a few streets over if we hurry. But then we have to head home. Maybelline said she was making you guys something special for sleepover dinner.”
Ava shivers in my arms. “Oh, man, I’m so excited about a sleepover with Edgar and Maybelline. Look!” She extends a trembling hand. “Look! I’m so happy I’m shaking!”
Clover beams. “Me, too. But I might have just had too much coffee.”
“I want coffee,” Bella announces as we join the crowd surging south, moving toward the next parade.
I snort. “No way. No coffee for you, pineapple. You’re already bouncing off the walls.”
“And coffee is for grown-ups,” Ava says in her bossy big sister voice.
“So is champagne,” Clover says, bobbing a brow my way as she spots a bubbly stand ahead. “Should we, Dad? A grown-up treat for us as a reward for being so good and sharing our piece of king cake?”
“Yes, you should,” Ava answers for me. “You guys have beenverygood today. You’ve hardly said any bad words at all!”
“Well, shit,” I tease. “You’re right!”
Ava and Bella both suck in scandalized breaths, the way I knew they would. “Bad, Daddy,” Bella says, as Ava announces, “Now, only Clover gets a treat. Now she’s the only good one.”
Clover dances away toward the champagne stand, twirling as she teases, “I really amsogood! Sorry, Dean.”
I grin as I watch her, so happy to see her dancing, twirling. Her cane still dangles from one of her jumpsuit belt loops, but she’s barely needed it today. She’s going to make a complete recovery. Soon, she’ll be strong enough to make all her dreams come true—bass playing, clothing design, anything and everything she wants.
She was never going to be a nanny long-term. It’s better that I find a replacement now. And hopefully someday she’ll become something even more important than a nanny to the girls…
I tell myself I shouldn’t let my mind go there.
It isn’t the time for happily-ever-after thoughts.
Not yet.
But as Clover sneaks me sips of her extra-large champagne throughout the second parade, passing the plastic goblet back and forth as we take turns filming the girls catching beads and dancing to the music, I can’t see how else this ends.
It just feels…meant to be.
When the sun sinks low enough to kiss the tops of the trees, we head for home, cutting through the park and taking the greenway path to our neighborhood. We all agreed that walking was the play today. Parking in the French Quarter is insane on a normal day, let alone during Mardi Gras, but the further we get from the excitement, the more the girls’ feet drag.
Soon, Clover swoops Ava up for a piggyback ride, and I gather a very tired Bella into my arms.
She sighs and goes limp on my shoulder, motionless but for one small hand that pats my neck as she murmurs, “Good, horsey. Good job.”
“Thank you,” I say, my heart overflowing again.
“A horsey doesn’t say ‘thank you,’ Daddy.”
“Neigh,” I say dryly, kissing her forehead as we round the corner onto our street.
At the end of the cul-de-sac, Maybelline waits for us on her porch in a long, sparkly purple dress in honor of the occasion. When she spots us coming, she stands, waving as she runs a hand through her long, snow-white hair.
Maybelline could be anywhere between seventy and ninety, I’m not exactly sure, but she’s spry and sharp and seemed truly excited to babysit the girls tonight. When I delivered their overnight bags this morning, she was already up, pulling old toys from her attic from before her daughters went to college.
As we climb her porch steps, Ava tugging beads from her “taco pocket” to show our neighbor, she coos in her thick southern accent, “Boy howdy, looks like you two cleaned up! Did you have so much fun?”
“So much fun,” Ava says, catching her second wind as she bounces into Maybelline’s outstretched arms for a hug. “And we had cakeandcandy and danced and danced until my toes hurt.”
