Page 80 of What I Should've Said

I chuckle. “I know, baby. She planned tonight, so I felt like I had to invite her.”

Summer scoffs at my joke. “Come on, come on. Hurry up, Dad.”

I push a little faster, and she starts to squeal as the cooler night air hits her in the face. Norah helps me lock the chair into place when we get to her and then grabs the tank when I scoop Summer into my arms and lay her flat on the blanket. She groans—in a way that I know all this shuffling must be hurting her—but she never stops smiling.

Norah grabs another blanket from the edge of the ones spread on the ground and gently covers Summer’s body up to her neck. She’s only in her nightgown, so with the unpredictability of how long it’ll take to see a shooting star or two, she’s bound to get chilly.

Once Summer’s settled, Norah lies down next to her, her curly hair splaying out on the blanket and her hands resting on her stomach. I jog back to the house to turn off all the lights I left on to make it easier to get out here, and I walk my way back to them as my eyes adjust to the newfound darkness.

The sky is black, save the bright spots of stars and swooping softness of the Milky Way, but the sound is vibrant. Norah and Summer together, gabbing and laughing nearly as loudly as the pounding in my chest.

“What’s so funny?” I ask as I return, lying down on the other side of Summer and pointing my eyes to the sky.

“Norah was just telling me about Casso…” She pauses and glances at Norah. “What’s her name again?”

“Cassiopeia,” Norah answers with a smile.

“Right. Her. She said she was a queen who was, like, a total diva, so Pose…” She pauses again, looking at Norah for another confirmation.

“Poseidon.”

“Yeah. That guy,” Summer continues, and I chuckle a little in my head. “He punished her by putting her in the heavens on her throne upside down and with her skirt around her head,” she finishes the story, nearly snorting more than once, she’s so tickled.

“You know a lot about astronomy, Norah?” I ask.

“Only what John Cusack told me.”

Now, that makes me laugh. “John Cusack? As in, the actor?”

Norah chortles. “Yep.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“Then you obviously haven’t seen the movie Serendipity,” she replies. I can hear her smile.

“No, can’t say that I have.”

She hums. “Oh man, it’s a good one. You’re missing out.”

“I want to watch it,” Summer interjects, her voice growing a little sleepy. If we’re going to have a chance of her staying awake to see a shooting star, we’re going to have to keep her talking.

“I’ll find out where we can rent it or stream it,” Norah offers.

“Are you watching the sky, Sum?” I ask. “You’ve got to stare at it, okay? Or you might miss the stars. They go fast.”

“I’m looking, Daddy.” There’s a short pause, and then she continues. “Do you think that’s really what heaven is like? Up there, with the stars? Like, if someone goes to heaven, what do you think it’s like for them?”

A sheen of tears coats my eyes, and my throat threatens to close. I have to blink several times to keep the emotion at bay. I reach out to grab her hand, but end up grabbing Norah’s instead, and the three of us stay there, our hands in a stack of sorts. “I think heaven is whatever you want it to be, Summble,” I whisper. “Whatever your happiest place is, that’s what it’s like.”

“That’s like what Norah said too,” she says, and I can feel Norah’s eyes dart to my face.

I meet her gaze, and her lips turn down in a frown. She feels guilty, but she has no damn reason to. I shake my head at her, silently saying, It’s okay.

Because it is okay. It’s more than okay. Norah has been nothing but good to my daughter. Nothing but kind and caring and maternal to a little girl who has never had a mother figure in her life.

I can’t be anything but grateful for her.

“Maybe heaven will be just like here,” Summer whispers. “With you and Norah and the stars up in the sky. Except, I think maybe I won’t hurt like this. Right, Dad?”

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