Chapter 11 #2
“Anything else?” I asked.
“She said she hoped you were having a good morning.”
The smile disappeared beneath something quieter.
“That all?”
“That was all she said.”
Melissa studied me for another second before turning away. “Family dinner’s at six-thirty.”
“I know.”
“Apparently everyone knows except you.”
“I said I know.”
Her laughter followed her into the hallway.
I stared at the chart in my hand without seeing it, the simple message settling into the same place Sunshine’s kiss had occupied since the night before.
She hoped I was having a good morning. There was no hidden meaning, no invitation to discuss what had happened, and no indication that she expected anything from me. That should have made it easier.
Instead, it made me want to see her.
I picked up my phone before I could talk myself out of it and opened our message thread.
Most of our previous conversations were practical.
Charlie left her jacket. The pharmacy delivery arrived.
Nathan took his medicine. Daisy needs extra flour.
Somewhere among those ordinary exchanges, Sunshine had become one of the people I contacted without thinking whenever something happened, no matter how insignificant.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
Pancake can come. No fire near the table.
I read it twice before sending it.
Her reply appeared less than a minute later.
He promises to behave. Charlie says Mr. Pickles will supervise.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Another message followed.
I hope you ate breakfast.
I looked toward the untouched paper bag beside my coffee.
Of course she would ask.
Working on it.
Three dots appeared.
That usually means no.
I opened the bag, broke off a piece of cinnamon muffin, and took a bite before replying.
Eating now.
This time her answer came immediately.
Good.
One word should not have felt intimate.
It did.
I set the phone facedown before Mrs. Henderson could arrive and find me smiling at it like a teenager.
The kiss still waited beneath every thought, but something about the exchange eased the restless pressure that had followed me since waking.
Sunshine was not avoiding me. She was not pretending the moment had never happened.
She was simply allowing it to exist without demanding we understand it before we were ready.
Perhaps I could do the same.
The day gathered momentum after that. Mrs. Henderson spent twenty minutes explaining why her walker was an organized conspiracy against elderly independence before agreeing to use it for another week.
Mr. Dawson appeared without an appointment because his blood pressure cuff was “lying again,” then became deeply offended when both machines produced the same result.
Nathan needed his throat checked, Ethan asked Bishop to sit with him through a difficult phone call, and one of the new residents arrived at the clinic after cutting her palm while opening a donation box.
For several hours, I succeeded in thinking about everything except Sunshine.
Then Charlie arrived.
She burst into the medical office shortly after four with Mr. Pickles beneath one arm, a folded sheet of construction paper in the other, and Daisy following behind with the resigned expression of a woman who had abandoned all hope of containing her.
“Daddy!”
I barely had time to set down my pen before she climbed into my lap.
“There you are.”
“I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“I’ve been here all day.”
“I know.”
She placed both little hands on my cheeks and studied my face with unsettling concentration.
“What?”
“You look tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“That means tired.”
Daisy laughed from the doorway. “She’s learning.”
“From traitors.”
“From experience.”
Charlie leaned forward until our foreheads touched. “Did you eat?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Most of it.”
She frowned.
“Enough of it.”
Her expression remained suspicious, but apparently she decided to allow the answer.
“I made dinner seats.”
“You made what?”
She thrust the folded construction paper at me.
I opened it carefully.
Inside, she had drawn a long brown rectangle surrounded by crooked chairs. Each chair had a name written above it in a mixture of backward letters, uneven capitals, and symbols only Charlie understood.
“Toxic,” she explained, pointing toward one end. “Lark goes here. Steel goes by Daisy because she makes him eat vegetables. Uncle Mace goes by Lilith so he doesn’t teach Nathan bad words. Bishop goes here because everybody listens to him even when they pretend they don’t.”
Daisy covered a laugh with one hand.
Charlie pointed toward three chairs grouped together on one side of the table.
“That’s me.”
“I see.”
“That’s you.”
My chest tightened before she touched the third.
“And that’s Sunshine.”
Naturally.
I should have expected it.
Still, seeing the three names side by side affected me differently after the kiss.
Before last night, Charlie’s determination to fit Sunshine into our lives had seemed innocent, perhaps even temporary.
Now the picture felt like a question I was not ready to answer and a hope I was afraid to mishandle.
Charlie studied my face. “You like it?”
“I love it.”
“Sunshine has to sit by us.”
“She does?”
“Mhm. She doesn’t know everybody’s dinner rules.”
“What dinner rules?”
Charlie sighed, clearly burdened by my ignorance. “Uncle Steel steals rolls. Mace says bad jokes. Toxic makes everybody eat before club stuff. Aunt Lark makes him stop talking about club stuff anyway. Mr. Dawson says the potatoes need more salt even when they don’t.”
“That’s accurate.”
“And Sunshine needs somebody to tell her.”
“Couldn’t you tell her?”
“I am.”
She patted the chair between our names.
“From here.”
Daisy met my gaze over Charlie’s head. There was no teasing in her expression, only the same quiet caution I felt pressing beneath my ribs.
“Bug,” I said, keeping my voice gentle, “Sunshine might want to sit somewhere else.”
Charlie looked genuinely confused. “Why?”
“She might want to sit with Daisy or Lark.”
“But she sits with us.”
The certainty in her voice made the room feel smaller.
I searched for the right response, something honest enough not to mislead her and gentle enough not to make her believe she had done anything wrong. Before I found it, Daisy stepped into the office and crouched beside us.
“Sunshine can decide when she gets there,” she said.
Charlie considered the compromise.
“Okay.”
Then she looked at me again.
“But I already know.”
“Know what?”
“What she’ll pick.”
With that, she climbed from my lap and hurried into the hallway, calling for Nathan before either of us could ask what she meant.
Daisy remained beside the chair.
“She’s attached,” I said.
“I know.”
“More than I realized.”
“I know that too.”
I looked toward the doorway through which Charlie had disappeared. “What if we get this wrong?”
Daisy did not pretend to misunderstand me.
“Then you handle it honestly.”
“That doesn’t protect Charlie.”
“No,” she said quietly. “But neither does teaching her that loving people is something she should fear.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
Daisy rose and rested one hand against my shoulder. “Sunshine isn’t Brooke.”
My jaw tightened before I could stop it.
“I didn’t say she was.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She squeezed gently before stepping away. “Dinner at six-thirty. Try not to hide in here until seven.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Bishop said you’d say that.”
“Everybody needs to stop talking about me.”
“Then stop being so interesting.”
She disappeared into the hallway before I could answer.
I sat alone in the office with Charlie’s seating chart still open across my knees.
Three crooked names occupied one side of the table, joined by a line she had drawn beneath them in purple crayon.
I could not tell whether it was supposed to be the edge of the table, a spilled drink, or one of the mysterious artistic choices children expected adults to understand without explanation.
Whatever it was, it connected us.
I traced one finger lightly beneath Sunshine’s name before folding the paper again.
By six-fifteen, the clubhouse smelled of roasted chicken, fresh bread, and whatever casserole Daisy had threatened Steel with if he refused to eat vegetables again.
Motorcycles lined the gravel lot beside family vehicles while warm light spilled through the windows into the cooling evening.
Voices carried from inside, familiar and layered together until individual conversations disappeared beneath the unmistakable sound of family gathering around a meal.
Charlie ran ahead the moment I opened the truck door, her seating chart clutched in one hand and Mr. Pickles secured beneath the opposite arm.
“Don’t run!”
“I’m walking fast!”
“That’s running.”
“It’s dinner walking!”
I followed her toward the porch, shaking my head despite the smile tugging at my mouth.
Through the open doorway, I could already hear Steel accusing Mace of stealing a piece of chicken, Lilith informing both of them that she had counted the servings, and Toxic attempting to restore order without any real expectation of success.
For the first time all day, the restless pressure inside my chest began to ease.
Then I stepped into the clubhouse and saw Sunshine standing beside Lark near the long dining table.
Her blonde hair fell loose around her shoulders, and she wore a soft blue sweater that made her honey-colored eyes look warmer beneath the overhead lights. She turned at the sound of the door, and for one suspended moment the rest of the room faded beneath the memory of her mouth against mine.
Sunshine did not look away.
Neither did I.
Then Charlie raced between us, caught Sunshine’s hand, and began pulling her toward the three seats waiting together on one side of the table.
“I saved your place.”
Sunshine glanced from the chair to me.
The faintest blush warmed her cheeks.
“So you did,” she said.
And before I had time to decide whether I was ready for everything that seat represented, she smiled and sat down beside my daughter.