Chapter Twenty-Five
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I didn’t want to write this chapter title. So I didn’t have to. Everyone say, “Hi, proofreader!”
Wolfe
Warm rays of sun filter through the living room window, dusting my face with soft morning light.
The windows aren’t as big as the ones in Fox’s apartment, because his living room faces the street, its windows cover nearly the entire wall.
In contrast, my apartment runs along the back of the building, so I get only small, easily secured windows, outside of which resides a fire escape.
When we moved in, Sterne insisted that the twin with the child got the safer apartment. Nobody fought him.
On my chest, a weight shifts, prompting me to open my eyes.
That is not the weight of Amia, and soft cotton beneath my hands is not the worn flannel of Amia’s sleep dress.
Last night forms in my mind, a hazy dream as I wake.
The pressure against my chest tells me it isn’t a dream. Leora is here, in my apartment, asleep in my arms, and she fell asleep there beside my daughter, who is…
I turn my head.
There. In front of the TV.
Metal clinks against porcelain, and I ascertain that my daughter has found herself breakfast in the form of delicious, nutritious cereal. TV light flickers in front of her, and a rerun of a cartoon from when I was a kid plays quietly on the screen.
“Did you get any fruit with that?” I ask, voice a low, rough grumble from sleep.
Amia twists, grins, whisper-yells, “No!” and then pops a spoonful of Lucky Charms into her mouth.
I frown. “You need something with vitamins in it, too. Where did you even get that?” I don’t stock sugary cereals. I don’t think it’s at all the correct way for a little girl to start her day.
“Uncle Fox!” Amia replies happily. “Also, Lucky Charms has iron. I read it on the box. That’s why I let Uncle Fox give it to me. If it was unhealthy, I wouldn’t have taken it.”
“Iron isn’t a vitamin,” I inform her. “It’s a mineral, and it’s good for you, but you need vitamins, too.”
Her little head tilts, considering. She shrugs. “Do we have any shaped like Bbokari?” she asks, referring to the animal mascot of her favorite K-pop idol.
“We do,” I rumble softly. “On the second shelf in the fridge. Right next to the milk, which I notice you had no trouble locating.”
She smiles, unrepentant. “Awesome.”
I sigh as she stands and sets her cereal bowl on the coffee table. Absentmindedly, my hand threads through Leora’s short purple hair, and I twist a strand around my forefinger.
Amia pauses to study us. “Does this mean Miss Leora is ours now?”
My entire being freezes. I should probably have thought it through a little more when I begged Leora to stay last night. In the wee hours of the night, it felt so simple. I wanted her here. Amia wanted her here. She wanted to be here.
So she stayed. Here.
The dawn always has a way of making simple things more complicated. It’s hard to hide the speed bumps in the light.
“I really want her to be ours,” Amia whispers. “I want her to stay, and to never go away. You want that, too. Right, Daddy? And Miss Leora must want it, too, if she stayed with us. She doesn’t want to leave us, right? She wants to be ours?”
Oh, my sweet, sweet girl.
“You’re someone worth staying for,” I answer cautiously. “But Miss Leora has her own home, sweetheart. She’ll have to go back to it. She can visit us here as much as she likes, though, and I bet that will be a lot.”
Leora shifts. She tips her head back to gaze groggily up at me.
Amia and I herald her into the new day together.
“Good morning,” my starling croaks. “Who am I visiting?”
“Us!” Amia answers. “All the time, right? And more sleepovers?”
Leora blinks sleepily.
“Right?” Amia asks, sharp desperation tickling the edge of her tone.
Leora catches the sharpness at the same time I do, and she holds her arm for my girl to come over. Amia does, fitting her little body snuggly next to Leora’s on top of me. I circle both of them with my arms as Leora fits hers around Amia.
“I’m right here,” Leora says. “And I’ll be here as often as you’ll have me.”
“Always,” Amia says immediately. “You can move in, and you can stay here all the time, and you can be my new mom. You smell good and you’re pretty and you’re nice and you make my dad smile and you make me smile and you always write me back when I send you something. So I always want you here.”
Leora’s eyes well with unshed tears. “I’ll never leave you,” she says. “Even if we’re not together, I’m only a single phone call away, okay? Forever. I promise, honey. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right where I want to be.”
The words settle in the air and in my heart, healing up hurts that I thought would never see mending. We’re never going to understand why Amia’s mother left. We’re never going to get closure. It’s a stinging wound that just won’t get better.
Maybe it doesn’t need a Band-Aid, though. Maybe we just need to let it air out, and scar, and mark our skin as the pain fades, becoming nothing more than a memory we don’t much like.
Maybe all we needed was for Leora to come, take off our hastily applied bandages, and replace them with a soothing ointment to encourage healthy healing.
“I love you, Amia,” Leora whispers, so sweet, so gentle with my baby girl. “I will be here. However you want me, and however you need me. I swear it on the stars. I will be here.”
Amia squeezes in closer, shoving her head under Leora’s and clinging tightly to her dress. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she says. “You’re already the best mom I’ve ever had.”
My chest twinges, and I open my mouth to correct my sweet girl, but stop when Leora speaks before I can.
“You deserve everything,” she murmurs, running a hand over Amia’s thick, dark hair. “So I will give you everything I’m capable of giving.”
I stop breathing.
That was not a no. That wasn’t even a little bit a no, and Leora isn’t the sort to give hope where there is none. If she didn’t want to be Amia’s mom, she would have said so outright. Kindly, but firmly.
She didn’t, though. My daughter asked for a mother, and my starling told her she’d give her anything she could.
That’s not a deflection. That’s a what if.
And one I’m going to make come true.