Chapter 7
Solo was hoping that the scent of garlic in Janie’s signature tomato pasta sauce would bring her a sliver of peace, a familiar anchor in the swirling tempest of her new reality.
It didn’t. Instead, it reinforced the devastating loss of her wife’s presence, of their old and beautiful reality.
And the fragrance was powerless against the lingering aroma of whatever scientific experiment each of the triplets had somehow conducted in unison in their diapers earlier.
The persistent tang hung in Solo’s nostrils like, well, like a bad smell.
Usually, this was easy. She cooked as Janie watched their babies.
But preparing dinner this evening was like climbing Everest, while her three tiny human tornadoes had been unleashed on her dad in the living room.
He’d had the best of intentions when he’d offered to come live with her and help look after the triplets.
He’d arrived with his impeccably neat life packed into two suitcases, leaving behind sunny Florida for the relentless demands of his three granddaughters.
Three days of grandparent boot camp later, and she was sure he’d rather have stayed put, waiting for the early death he’d predicted for himself.
Still, it was unusually quiet down the hall, and silence, where her girls were concerned, was rarely golden.
This week in particular, it had been an ominous prelude to some disaster or another.
Monday saw glitter glue all around Griff’s neck and head as they’d tried to secure bright orange pom poms to give him a lion’s mane.
She’d known that’s what they were attempting when she’d seen the How Do Lions Say I Love You?
picture book on the floor alongside their long-suffering dog.
Tuesday evening ended with wet coffee grounds distributed in an impressively even pattern all across the pristine white carpet in Janie’s office.
Neither she nor her dad had figured out how they’d gotten to the coffee or how they’d secured access to the office.
“They’re being super quiet, Dad,” Solo called down the hallway, hope and suspicion battling for supremacy. “You haven’t slipped some whiskey in their milk, have you?”
“Of course not. I’m just…admiring their artwork, honey.” His voice, usually a booming baritone that filled any room with ease, was an octave higher and laced with a small hint of panic.
Solo identified his strained reply as “granddad attempting to herd feral cats with a limp pool noodle” but decided to let it go.
Ignorance could be bliss, at least for a little while longer.
She drained the pasta into the sink, and she could almost hear Janie’s voice warning her not to burn herself on the steam.
It rose around her like a suffocating blanket, reminding her she was alone.
The void Janie had left in the house pulsed with unanswered questions, and her gut twisted with phantom pain she couldn’t find the source of.
The beautiful sound of Tia’s giggle penetrated the bubble of self-pity Solo had slipped into.
That laughter and the chaotic beauty of the past few evenings were both her salvation and a painful reminder of what she’d lost. But she was determined to win Janie back and convince her their little family was worth fighting for, just like Gabe kept saying it was.
“Dad, just make sure they’re not eating the crayons this time,” Solo called out.
One panicked phone call to 911 after Chloe had snacked on a purple crayon had assured Solo they were non-toxic, and that her little girl would likely only have a mild case of diarrhea.
Chloe’s digestive system had been surprisingly creative and what she’d produced could’ve easily been mistaken for a missing Jackson Pollack masterpiece.
“Nope, not eating them. They’re being—”
A grunt stopped his response, and she heard a series of soft thumps.
No doubt that would be Tia playing Tarzan on her pop pop’s chest. “Everything’s fine,” she told herself out loud.
She put the pasta in a serving dish and poured the tomato sauce on top.
Just as she lifted the pot to carry it to the table, a high-pitched, triumphant squeal soared down the corridor into the kitchen.
Tia. Always Tia, the girls’ ringleader and the tiny anarchist who seemed to view Solo’s rules as suggestions and parental authority as a challenge to be overcome. That’d been fine when it was directed at Janie, but now that it was Solo’s turn, it wasn’t quite as amusing.
She placed the pot on the trivet, took a deep breath, and headed into the living room, trying to prepare herself for whatever chaos lay in her future.
But she couldn’t have imagined the scene in front of her when she crossed the threshold.
Her dad stood in the center of the room, with Chloe under one arm and his other hand grasping Luna’s diaper, since she’d apparently shed the rest of her clothes.
A quick scan of the room indicated that the triplets had had a little success trying to dress Griff in Luna’s bright green tutu.
Her dad’s normally immaculate silver hair was disheveled, and his cheeks were smeared with red and blue crayon. But he wasn’t the masterpiece…
The living room wall, once a calming shade of pale pistachio, was now a vibrant swirling mural of color.
Tia clutched a crayon in each fist like she was warring with her canvas, and she was currently adding a bright yellow sun to her creation, though it could just as easily have been an angry lemon character from some animated movie.
Her tongue was poking out in super-focused concentration, and her eyes gleamed like a mad scientist’s.
She met Solo’s gaze and offered a giant smile. Solo couldn’t decipher whether or not Tia was conscious of the havoc she’d caused. Or maybe she was just proud of it.
“I gave them paper, Han.” He nodded vaguely toward a single, crumpled sheet lying on the floor and bearing a single, forlorn purple squiggle. “I turned my back for a few seconds.”
“That’s all she ever needs,” Solo said, looking over Tia’s artwork.
It was impressive, really, what she’d managed to achieve in the tiny snippet of time she’d been unsupervised.
Abstract squiggles joined vaguely humanoid shapes together, all under the sun, or maybe it was an emotional lemon.
Tia had been interrupted, and it was too soon to tell definitively.
A bubble of laughter started in Solo’s chest, fighting against her exhaustion and the persistent thrum of sorrow, and then it jumped out of her mouth.
Tears pricked her eyes, not from sadness, but from the sheer unadulterated absurdity of it all.
This was what kids did. And wasn’t that beautiful and something to be celebrated?
“Oh, Dad, what did you let them do to our innocent walls?”
He released his grip on Chloe and gently placed Luna on their playmat. “I tried, honey. I really did.” He ran his hand through his hair, but that did little to un-muss it. “But Tia’s a painting ninja, and…” he gestured wildly, “there are three of them!”
Solo couldn’t stop more laughter, which Tia clearly interpreted as encouragement, because she let out another triumphant squeal and slammed her orange crayon onto the wall to begin drawing another multi-limbed creature from her own little universe.
“Tia, no, baby. Stop.” Solo tried for the stern tone she’d heard Janie use and failed miserably, unable to stop her own wide smile.
She knelt down to gently take the crayons from Tia’s vice-like grip, wishing for all the world that Janie was there to play bad cop while Solo took photos of Tia’s wall art for the Trouble Town Triplets Insta.
Tia’s bottom lip began to wobble. “Mine!” she said and tried to pull her crayons away.
Solo remembered from one of the many parenting books stacked on her bedside drawers that this was the age her girls would begin to experience new emotions, like possessiveness and anger. She and her dad were in for a rough ride over the coming months. “We draw on paper, Tia. Right?”
Tia stuck out her bottom lip as she relinquished the tools of her new trade, and then she dropped to her butt. “Eat?”
Solo smiled and gently touched her finger to the end of Tia’s nose.
“You hungry?” she asked and rubbed her stomach.
Tia nodded and looked settled for now, so Solo turned to see how her dad was doing.
He sat on the playmat with Chloe and Luna on either side of him.
Solo picked up Luna, and she wrapped her crayon-streaked arms around Solo’s neck. “Did Tia draw on you too, Luna?”
“Luna pretty,” she murmured and burrowed her little face into Solo’s neck.
Another laugh escaped her. This glorious, messy, ridiculous life was so beautiful. And tragic… Janie’s absence stabbed at her heart, and Solo took a deep breath, trying to push down and control the desperate grief clawing at her throat to get out.
“Are you okay, honey?” Her dad looked at her the way he always had when he knew something was bothering her.
She pressed her lips together tightly, stopping herself from answering him for now. Maybe later, when the girls were in bed, and when they could watch a replay of Sunday’s Bears’ game and have a couple of beers… Maybe then she could allow the words to come out of her mouth.
But not now. Not in this precious moment. She had to keep it together and make everything as normal as possible for the triplets.
Luna raised her head and pointed at the wall. “Pretty.”
“It is pretty.” Solo kissed Luna’s forehead then popped her back down beside her dad. “But maybe next time, we could make a pretty picture on some paper, so we can keep it, huh?”
Her dad gestured to Tia’s abstract art. “Your mom would’ve had a fit.”