Page 70 of Something Like Sunflowers

Then there was the movie night I wandered in on yesterday when the sun went down. I was greeted with handmade paper tickets and a bowl of popcorn at the door, and it didn’t stop there. They even made little macaroons and had a blanket pallet ready to go on the living room floor.

And each night, they spend time in our old shed, underneath a setting sun, making magic with nothing but a pair of smiles and a room of sunflowers.

This girl.

My girls.

My eyes gather up a shine that I tell them must be the onions I’m chopping for the pot roast, but I know good and well it’s not.

I think it’s pride. Maybe relief. That such different parts of my life could come together so seamlessly.

“Hey, Dev!” Ellie shouts, running up the stairs two at a time with a tub of Halloween decorations. I smile at her use of the nickname and walk to the pantry for the potatoes.

Ellie’s voice travels my way, telling Devyn about the various Nightmare Before Christmas figurines we’ve collected over the years, so I wash up and join them upstairs while the meat thaws in the microwave, not willing to miss out on this time with…family.

“This one is my favorite.” Ellie shows off her Zero, the ghost-dog ornament meant to hang from the Halloween tree.

“I’ve never heard of a Halloween tree.” Devyn shoots a smile my way.

“We started it when Ellie was two. The first time she met her mother.” It’s sad, but I smile, unable to do anything but that when I look at the growing nine-year-old before me and still see the roundness in her cheeks that was there in the baby I swore to protect when my brother failed her all those years ago. She’s growing up so damn fast. “Ellie wasn’t even old enough to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas that year, but she saw that dog at the pharmacy after a very long day, and trying to pry it from her tiny little hands was never an option. So, Zero came home with us.”

Ellie runs to my side and squeezes me in a big hug, turning to Devyn and handing her another spooky ornament to hang on the tree. “Want to add one?”

“I’d love to.” Dev wipes her eyes. I nod to the tree when she looks my way.

“Go ahead, babygirl,” I say before it can register. Up until now, we told Ellie the marriage was a silly, fake game for our work, like an acting gig, and that we’re just old friends. She’s been staying in the guest room. I mean, it’s not a lie. But I haven’t told Ellie how I feel about Devyn. Or about our past.

“Babygirl?” Ellie whispers, one eyebrow raised.

She giggles when my eyes go wide, and I sputter to respond.

So much for the innocence of youth.

“Don’t try to hide it, Papa. I think she likes you, too.”

She throws me one of my own damn winks, dropping bombs and skipping off to Devyn.

Kid is way too smart for her own good.

“What’s this?” Devyn’s voice is a marvel of questions. Ones she already knows the answer to.

I don’t even have to ask what she’s found.

I know.

“Oh.” Ellie’s brows pinch, shooting me a suspicious glare. “That one always goes up front and center.” Papa’s…friend made it for him when they were kids.” She pauses, eyes widening as she puts the pieces of my stories together in her nosy little brain, and then she cocks her head at me and the corner of her mouth curves up.

This little shit.

“He doesn’t get to see that friend anymore, and it makes him, like, really-really-really sad, so he puts this up every year. You know why?” She throws a sly look at me over her shoulder.

“Why?” Devyn grins.

“So maybe his friend will know it’s there somehow and know he hasn’t forgotten. Right, Papa?”

She pins me with her stare, hope shimmering over smiling eyes as she re-examines Devyn and me.

Unable to control my own eyes any more than I can the beat of my heart, they meet Dev’s, the green portals to her soul shining like emeralds, curious and beautiful.

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