Chapter Thirty-Four
Maggie
Iwasn’t very in touch with my inner child. I didn’t like being a little girl even when I was one, so it made it a bit hard to get into character when I tried to play with Lily.
I sat criss-cross in the center of her bedroom, watching as she dragged a bucket of toys into the middle of the room before plopping down across from me.
In one swift motion, she turned the bucket upside down, dumping the entirety of its contents onto the rug between us.
“You have a lot of toys, Lil.” I remarked. “Your dad just buys you whatever you want, huh?”
“Yup,” she said, popping the “p.” “’Cause he loves me.”
I laughed, watching her pudgy hands shift through the Barbies on the floor.
“Here,” she held one up to me. “You can be this one ’cause your hair is brown.”
“Okay,” I took the doll between my fingers, pushing her plastic arm this way and that.
I’d never been much of a doll kid. Growing up as Liam’s shadow, I sort of just went along with whatever he was doing. My girlhood was spent trying, and usually failing, to perfect the hobbies that seemed to garner him so much attention and praise from the adults in our lives.
As a result, I was far more comfortable with a basketball or a skateboard than I was with Barbie’s Dream House or stuffed-animal tea parties.
But for Lily’s sake, I tried.
It was confusing to follow the chain of events she’d set up for us as we rapidly switched between playing family, then mermaids, then under-the-sea explorers. But stiff as I felt, I forced myself to follow the script she laid out for us.
“What are you girls doing?” Brody stuck his head in about fifteen minutes into our playdate.
My traitorous stomach did a somersault at the sight of him—his hair tousled from sleep and brown eyes feigning innocence.
“Playing dolls.” Lily answered. “Wanna play?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he was already gliding into the room with a smile on his face.
“Sure do!” he chirped, forming the third point of our triangle as he lowered himself to a sitting position.
“You can be him,” she said, handing him a Ken doll. “’Cause he’s the only boy I got. And you can pretend you have an ice cream store.”
“Got it,” he nodded, instantly getting into character.
I’d always been jealous of how he was able to interact so naturally with Lily in a way that I never could manage. He just understood her better—understood the illogical rules of children in a way I never would.
“How can I help you today, Miss?” Brody said, forcing his Ken doll to talk to Lily’s Barbie.
“Uhhhhhh,” she drawled, smiling up at his attentive expression. “I want some chocolate ice cream.”
“Chocolate ice cream?” He floated his doll over a few feet, as if pretending to fetch it. “You got it. That’ll be a zillion dollars.”
Lily erupted into a fit of giggles. I rolled my eyes.
“Your turn, Auntie Maggie.” Lily turned to me.
I didn’t feel particularly thrilled about interacting with Brody through the means of dolls, especially after I was still feeling the pang of rejection—not to mention the humiliation of the events the night before.
But before I opened my mouth to even try, Brody beat me to it.
“Oh, I know what Aunt Maggie wants.” Brown eyes taunted teasingly.
I huffed a scoff.
How dare he sit here playing dolls with me when less than twenty-four hours ago he was kissing another girl!
I knew I had no leg to stand on, considering I was the one who made a mess of our relationship, but still. It hurt. He knew it would hurt. And sitting here with him just exacerbated the guilt I had over the entire thing being my fault.
“Oh, I don’t think you do.” I said, trying to preserve whatever dignity I had left.
“You get the same thing every time.”
“Sometimes our preferences change.” I shook the doll in my hand, as if it were the one talking. “Like ice cream flavors. Or girls we want to kiss.”
“Ew.” Lily scrunched her nose.
“Well, my preferences don’t change.” He countered, still wiggling the doll in conversation. “I still like Rocky Road, like I always have. And I still like all the other things I always have.”
He shot me a look that felt too intimate for eight in the morning while we played with toys.
“You know what?” I said through the doll. “I think I’m going to go to a different establishment. Is there a pizza shop around here?”
“No, you gotta order the ice cream.” Lily groaned. “You didn’t pick out the toppings.”
“Just take your pistachio ice cream, Mags.” Brody made the doll push a minuscule plastic toy bowl across the rug. “Because I know you like the same things you’ve always liked, too. Even if you won’t admit it.”
“Yeah,” Lily chirped, “get the ’stacio.”
“If Uncle Brody wanted me to buy ice cream from him, he shouldn’t have been giving out free samples to other Barbies.” I sniffed.
“Uncle Brody,” Lily said, “can I—”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have let your ice cream melt while I was waiting for you to eat it.” He sat back, irritation growing in his voice.
Good. Arguing. I knew how to do that. It was safer than feeling hurt. Safer than feeling rejected or sad or alone.
“How was I supposed to know it was melting if you never told me?”
“Ice cream doesn’t last forever! It melts! It’s a delicacy!”
“Auntie Maggie,” I was vaguely aware of Lily tugging on my sleeve.
“Just a second, Lily.” I told her, never breaking eye contact with Brody.
“Why don’t you just admit that you don’t like Rocky Road anymore?” I asked. “That you want to venture out to new flavors?”
“Oh, come on!” he said. “You’re being stubborn and you know it. I have spent the last five years only eating Rocky Road and literally proposed to never eat any other ice cream flavor again.”
“Uncle Brod—”
“And if Rocky Road had agreed, would you have still been taking a bite out of lemon sherbet after the hockey game the other night?”
“Why are you guys—”
“If Rocky Road had agreed, then I doubt my sister would’ve ever tried to bring any other flavor here.” He said, irritated.
I was vaguely aware of Lily huffing and running out of her bedroom, but I was too impassioned to take any real notice.
“Well, your sister wouldn’t have brought her here if she didn’t think you wanted her!”
“I didn’t!” Brody countered.
“You did—” I argued.
And then the door opened, and there stood Cassie with a look of utter disappointment on her face while Lily hid behind her legs.
Brody and I dropped the dolls guiltily.
“Brody and Maggie, you need to let Lily play with you.” Cassie spoke in a voice that had been perfected over years of disciplining unruly children in a classroom. “If you can’t share with your niece, then the dolls will be all done.”
Then Brody looked to me, whispering conspiratorially as he said, “If she’s the teacher, I really hope Liam’s not the principal, because I have a feeling we’re getting sent to his office next.”