Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 685(@200wpm)___ 548(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Thank you. Let me feed him and then we’ll play,” I tell her, sitting back down on the couch. Emmett is rooting around, snuffling and smacking as he tries to swallow as much milk as possible in each gulp. Apparently, he’s starving, even though it’s only been a couple of hours since his last meal. I smile, knowing Janey’s gonna get teary again when she realizes her sweet boy is hitting another growth spurt.
“He looks like Janey, right?” Grace says, her finger running over his little baby feet. He kicked his socks off inside his blanket sleeper, and his long toes curl up against the slight tickle. “Like his hair.”
I nod, my gaze on his hair, which is indeed bright red like his mother’s.
“She’s a good mom.” Grace says it oh-so-casually, but she’s got nearly as much mother trauma as I do, so I hear the warning bells loudly sounding out an alarm.
This is one of the moments when she sees not only what she’s missing, but what she had… what she lost… because, by all reports, Michelle was a fantastic mother to Grace.
“She is,” I agree. “Janey takes great care of him, the physical stuff like making sure he’s fed and clean. But also, she’s really good at the mental and emotional stuff too, like playing with him and making sure he feels loved. He’s a lucky boy, and she’s a fortunate mom.”
“Do you think you’ll have kids? Like Emmett, except one that looks like you.”
“With pink hair?” I joke lightly, and she cracks a tiny smile. More seriously, I say, “I don’t know if I’ll ever have kids. I’ve been so busy helping other families raise their children that I don’t think I’ve ever thought about having one of my own.”
That’s a lie. It wouldn’t have been not too long ago, but today, right now… I feel like I already have a family. Cameron and Grace. But, as much as I’d like it to be, it’s not my place to have that conversation with her. Not yet, anyway.
“Yeah, you’d have to date first?” she teases, reminding me that I told her I don’t date at all.
“I guess,” I say hesitantly. I feel like I’m getting baby-stepped to something and I’m treading carefully, trying to see where Grace is going with this.
Does she already suspect something with me and Cameron? Or is she trying to set me up with Miller again?
“And probably get married too.”
“Probably,” I agree.
“And then you could have kids.” She nods like that’s the obvious path my life could take. “You’d be a great mom.”
My heart leaps into my throat, and tears spring to my eyes at the deeply impactful compliment. “Thank you,” I whisper.
Grace drops her eyes, her gaze locked on Emmett’s toes as she whispers, “I wish I had a mom like you.”
“Oh, Grace, come here.” I gather her into my one free arm, needing to hug her. Emmett’s not too happy that his milk guzzling is being disturbed, grumbling and wiggling as he gets a little smooshed into our embrace and he loses the bottle’s nipple, but that’s okay. This moment is important. “That means more to me than you could possibly know.”
I don’t let go until she does, and when she pulls back, her smile looks a little frayed around the edges. “Don’t tell Dad I said that, okay? I think he’d get mad because of my mom.”
Okay, having been where Grace is in a lot of ways, pieces start to click together for me.
“Are you missing your mom?” I guess. Her eyes drop. “It’s okay. We can talk about her if you want. I hear she was an amazing woman.” Her gaze flies back up to mine in shock, and I give her a small nod of encouragement. “Cameron talks about her. You can too.”
She shrugs, her tiny shoulder lifting up to her ear. “He doesn’t talk about her with me.”
“Grief isn’t the same for everyone,” I tell her with a sigh. “Who your mom was to Cameron is very different from who she was to you, so the hurt from her death is different too. He loved her very much. Still loves her,” I correct.
Grace’s eyes go glassy. “Do you think he’s happy? Or is he still sad about Mom?”
“Wow,” I whisper, thinking. “That’s a big question and you’d have to ask him, but I think both?” The idea of every emotion coexisting in a single moment, much less in a single person, is a complex one, but Grace is a smart girl and I think she can understand it. Or at least begin to. “He can be sad and miss her on some deep level and still be happy too. I know without a doubt that you make him happy.”
She goes quiet for a moment, looking pensive, and I push a bit. “What about you? Are you sad about your mom?”