Page 131 of The Kidnapped

“Right. Please.”

“Sure,” Hollis said. “Can I get your backpack for you, though, so you can eat, and we can go?” Hollis placed the milk on the table and ran her hand through Eden’s hair.

Raleigh smiled at how much Hollis loved her daughter and how much Eden seemed to love Hollis right back.

“I’m allowed to bring two books.”

“Did you pick them out?” Hollis asked.

“Yes, they’re on my bed,” Eden said.

“I’ll get them.” She kissed the top of Eden’s head as Eden dipped her spoon into her cereal. “Be right back.”

She winked at Raleigh, who took Eden’s cereal distraction as an opportunity to squeeze Hollis’s ass as she walked past her.

“Mommy?” Eden asked with cereal in her mouth.

“Eden, close your mouth to chew,” Raleigh told her, laughing at her daughter.

“Is Hollis coming to the show?”

Eden’s kindergarten class was performing a few songs over the weekend.

“Yes, she is. Why?”

“My teacher asked if both my mommies would be there,” Eden explained before she took another bite.

“You mean me and Hollis?” Raleigh checked, wanting to make sure Eden wasn’t talking about the woman who had pretended to be her mother for a year of her young life.

Eden nodded in response.

“Your teacher asked you that?”

“She asked if you would be there. I told her yes and that Hollis would be there, too, because I thought she would. She asked who Hollis was, so I told her.”

“You told her that Hollis is your other mommy?” Raleigh asked.

“Yes,” Eden replied, taking another bite of her cereal as if she’d said nothing important at all. “It’s okay to have two mommies. They said so at school.”

Raleigh laughed a little and said, “Yes, it is. It’s okay to have one mommy or one daddy or two mommies or two daddies or a mommy and a daddy or just a mommy or a daddy. Every family is different, and it’s all okay.”

“I’ve got two books and my backpack, so I’m going to go to school,” Hollis said as she reentered the room.

“Those are my books and my backpack,” Eden said.

“What? I thought they were mine. I have to go to school.”

“I go to school,” Eden said. “You go to work.”

Raleigh laughed at the teasing between them, looked over at Hollis, and mouthed, ‘I love you,’ to her. Then, she cleared the milk and the cereal box while Eden finished eating and Hollis sat down and talked to her about what she was going to learn in school today.

“Can we go to the library after school?” Eden asked as she slid the backpack over her tiny shoulders.

Eden listened as Hollis told her that they could go another time because Hollis was working, and then she’d come home to help Raleigh with dinner.

“I can sit and read,” Eden told her. “I’ll be good.”

“I know you will,” Hollis replied. “Another time. Maybe this weekend.”

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