Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
“I can leave it with Mommy,” I replied. “Better safe than sorry.”
She never used the second aid; she had roughly twenty percent hearing on her left side, and as long as she used the aid on her right, where she had zero hearing remaining, she managed just fine. Even so, if the important one broke, I didn’t want her to have to rely solely on those around her to assist. Lily loved her independence.
“Do you need help?” I asked. She was trying to cram another stuffie into her backpack.
“No, I got it,” she grunted.
Case in point.
I leaned against the doorway and enjoyed the show. And soaked up the sight of her. I was going to miss her terribly.
It wouldn’t have been fair in any way for me to protest the trip, though. Thanksgiving at Samantha’s sister’s house in Vermont was a tradition. Just because Samantha and I were in the middle of our divorce didn’t mean our daughter should suffer. I was just… It was going to be a lonely holiday. My first holiday since I’d separated from Samantha.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much family of my own. Aside from a couple uncles and distant cousins I rarely saw—they lived on the other side of the country, regardless—it was just me. And Lily, of course. My tiny adult.
She was turning eight right after Christmas, but she had the firmly set opinions of someone my age.
Samantha insisted Lily had inherited pretty much everything from me, from her soft brown eyes and dark hair to her stubbornness and…quirks. I was fairly certain my father had been autistic as well, though no diagnosis had existed. Not for me either, but I’d heard enough. My mother had always called me finicky. Samantha had preferred to call me impossible, which I didn’t understand to this day. I’d lost everything in the divorce because my life hadn’t really been mine.
Aside from my company and my financial means, my career, I’d danced to the beat of someone else’s drum, like most men in our social circle still did. Happy wife, happy life. Except, the happiness was fake. By “lost everything in the divorce,” I meant I was currently starting over on my own, without the friends who were truly the husbands of my ex-wife’s friends, without the country club, without the banquets. It wasn’t a loss in that sense, given I’d hated everything about it, but I had a miserable void to fill.
I was working on it, though. For the first time in my life, I had gained a handful of friends I genuinely loved spending time with.
“Are you gonna be sad when I’m with Auntie Claire, Daddy?” Lily asked.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll miss you very much, but I won’t be sad.” I didn’t want her to feel guilty. She was weirdly protective of her old man. “I might order in pizza every night.”
She grinned crookedly. “Maybe you can ask Mister Tate to cook for you. Or Mister Kingsley! He made the yummy pizza rolls last time!”
Oh boy.
I chuckled.
Checking my watch, I figured it was best to shift the direction of that topic. “Speaking of food, our breakfast is almost ready. Let’s eat before we sort out the bird’s nest on your head, darling.”
She gigglesnorted and finally managed to close her backpack. “Triumph!”
Triumph, indeed.
I did hope we could get together with Kingsley and Tate soon. Lily had only met them—as a couple—twice, and it’d been very lovely. It’d helped, of course, that Lily already knew Tate. She saw him in school every day. He was her favorite teacher in the whole world. And now she liked Tate’s fiancé too.
I, personally, loved the discreet encounters where I was Kingsley and Tate’s humiliation whore, but that was another story.
After Lily had left her backpack next to her luggage in the living room, we went to the kitchen together, and I inspected the food on the stove. Given my daughter’s obsession with toast—Texas toast, specifically—my options were limited, and I didn’t have a lot of practice with dishes that didn’t revolve around a loaf of bread and a skillet.
“I’m a little sad I don’t get to see Jack.” Lily climbed up onto her stool at the kitchen island.
I’d rather not think about Jack, to be honest.
“Perhaps he can visit when you’re at Mommy’s sometime around Christmas.” I sincerely doubted it, but miracles did happen.
Disasters also occurred. Tonight, for instance, when I was the one who’d have to see Jack.
“Okay, brace yourself. Today’s the day we try something new.” It was a reminder. We had to struggle to make sure she ate more than bread and cheese.
She made a face, but at least she didn’t get upset. We’d been talking about this slight change for two weeks now. We had a countdown on the fridge and everything. So today, her grilled cheese sandwich had tomato in it too, and it was served with a side of cucumber sticks.