Chapter 6
Iwake to the smell of coffee drifting through the warm cabin.
Stretching out in the starchy sheets, I spot a basket of books on the little wooden chair in the corner.
Where The Wild Things Are being one of them.
I peel back the thin sheet and leave Winnie to sleep a little longer and go downstairs.
It’s no wonder Lauren never left this place, I don’t know how I am going to either.
Rhett is reading a newspaper while he leans back up against the counter.
He’s tall and handsome with dark hair and bright green eyes.
He’s serious, quiet and if I had to go and pick someone for my sister, I couldn’t have picked better.
He’s level and steady and so far, has proven to be as such, especially when Lauren isn’t.
“Good morning,” I say to him.
He picks up his head. “Mornin’. Coffee’s almost ready.”
“My hero.”
He directs me toward the mugs and once the pot is full, I pour us each a cup. I sip mine just as Lauren joins us, looking green.
“I am starving. But I don’t want to eat anything,” she announces to us without a good morning. I hand her a cup of coffee and sit with her at the table. “I don’t think I am supposed to have caffeine.”
“You’re supposed to limit it to about two hundred milligrams,” Rhett chirps from behind the newspaper. “But I’m not about to tell you to not have coffee. I know better than that.”
“How do you know I’m only supposed to have two hundred milligrams?”
He shrugs and tosses the newspaper to the side. “I’ve been doing some research. You’re also not supposed to have deli meat which is about all we have in the house at the moment.”
Lauren drops her head onto her folded arms. “How am I going to be able to write like this?”
“You’ll shake it,” Rhett tells her softly, rubbing her back.
Winnie comes teetering in a moment later with her blanket in her hand and squinty eyes.
“There’s my favorite kid.” Rhett smiles as she crawls into my lap. “How do you drink your coffee?”
“Morning bug,” I whisper into the top of her head. Her legs seem to have grown overnight again. Her little bony joints dig into me in a way they haven’t since I was pregnant with her.
Her sleepy smile stretches. “Uncle Rhett, kids can’t have coffee. I can only have kid coffee.”
“Kid coffee?”
“Chocolate milk with a splash of coffee,” I tell him.
“Well.” Rhett waves her over and lifts her onto the counter. “It sounds like it’s your lucky day.”
With the windows open and the smell of warm wood and Earth, it almost feels like those nostalgic early days of summer as a child.
Those first days where your backpack is still sitting next to the door, your clothes from last summer don’t fit the same, and the brand-new clean shoes from September have seen much better days.
But the air is warm, the sun is bright, and suddenly you have no plans for the next three months other than popsicles, bike rides and sleeping in.
“Winnie,” Lauren begins. “We have two questions for you.”
Winnie nods as she kicks her legs on the counter holding the mug that looks comically large in her hands.
“First, you know Uncle Rhett and I are getting married? We were wondering if you would be our flower girl?”
Her eyebrows shoot up and she instantly beams. She can’t even get any words out, just nods enthusiastically with tears brimming her eyes.
“Yes?”
“Yes!” She is all but bouncing on the counter.
“Okay. Then the second thing. How would you feel if I told you that Uncle Rhett and I are expecting a baby?”
Winnie straightens, frozen. She stares at Lauren, then looks over at me and I give her a reassuring nod before she looks back at two of her favorite people.
“Eggs-begging a baby?” she asks. “Is it going to be a girl?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“But listen, it’s a secret,” I tell her. “You can’t tell anybody yet, okay? Not even Grampy and Nan when they call tonight. Okay?”
“Will the baby be at the wedding?” Winnie asks.
“No. The baby won’t be here for a while. Probably Winter.”
“Is winter soon?”
Rhett chuckles. “No. We have a whole summer to get through first.”
The word summer makes Winnie’s ears perk up. “Mommy said I can go to summer camp!”
“Summer camp? Where are you going to go to summer camp?” Rhett asks.
“The ABC.”
“The YMCA. It’s near the high school her recital was at, actually.”
“We have a YMCA here,” Lauren suggests. “It’s not like the biggest one in the world and it’s a little outdated but it’s a Y.”
“Mommy can I go there?” Winnie pleads.
“It’s a little far from home, bug. There’s one close to Grampy and Nan’s house we can go look at when we get home. Okay?”
Her face instantly falls into the pout she has managed to perfect over the years.
“You could stay,” Lauren whispers to me.
I shoot her a warning look. With one word of it, Winnie would never let it go, and I couldn’t break her heart or mine that way by even entertaining it.
This is Lauren’s home, not mine, and I don’t want to deal with the wrath of Ethan’s family if I moved their granddaughter out of state.
Even if they never made efforts to come see her, they have footed the bill for private preschool education and, despite the divorce, she is expected back come September to start kindergarten on their tab.
Rhett leans against the counter, while he and Winnie talk like two adults about the YMCA and all its amenities. Like a pool and a “bally-ball” court.
“You picked a good one.” I nod up at the two of them.
A little tear glistens in Lauren’s eye. “He’s so excited to be a dad.”
The doorbell rings, and Rhett nearly runs over to answer it. He opens the door, picks up a package, then turns back to us.
“What’s that?” Lauren asks.
“Parenting books.” He shrugs. “We got some reading to do.”