Page 126 of Wife Number One

My heart soared at the eye contact I’d been so desperately seeking for weeks. “Anything at all,” I promised her. “Candy? Ice cream?”

Queenie chuckled. “You gonna send her right on into a sugar high, girlie. What you playing at?”

But she was laughing when I got up to go to the freezer and pulled out the tub of chocolate ice cream someone, probably Hawk, had stocked the cabin with.

Hayley Jade’s eyes lit up.

Okay. She liked chocolate as well as rainbow. At this point, I was willing to give her ice cream for every meal if it just meant she gave me a chance.

I spooned swirls of the creamy chocolate into a bowl, heaping it up as much as I could before setting it down for her.

“You gonna say thank you to your mama, sugar?” Queenie asked gently.

Hayley Jade put her spoon down and dropped her gaze to her lap.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I know you’re thinking it, right? You don’t have to say it out loud if you don’t want to.”

She gave me the tiniest of nods, and my heart squeezed.

I pushed the spoon back into her hand. “Enjoy it.”

“Ice cream isn’t going to win her over, sugar,” Queenie said quietly, watching Hayley Jade scarf down her treat.

I knew, and I hated that I didn’t know what else to do. I had no experience being a mother. That opportunity had been taken away from me. I envied the easy confidence that seemed to come to Queenie naturally. Even Hawk, of all people, seemed better with her than I was.

Hayley Jade finished her lunch and put her bowl into the kitchen sink, like the good little girl she was. Shari had taught her that. Shari was the one who was her mother. Not me.

I was just the monster who kept taking things away from her and trying to make up for it by feeding her sugar.

Hayley Jade picked up her doll again. But instead of playing with it, she just held it.

“Have you had enough of that game?” I asked her. “You could play something different…”

My words trailed off as my daughter held the doll out to me.

I just sat there for a second, not knowing what to do.

“Take the doll, Kara,” Queenie whispered.

That startled me into action. “Oh, of course!” I reached for it, my fingers brushing Hayley Jade’s sweet skin as she handed the doll to me.

I hugged it to my chest, wishing it were my daughter.

Then she chose another doll and went back to dressing it up in a beach outfit.

I quietly slid to the floor, settling in the spot next to her, and did the same with the one she’d given me.

We weren’t playing together as such.

But playing side by side felt almost as good.

Even though I knew she wouldn’t respond, I spoke out loud as I slipped a skirt over the doll’s hips. “I think my doll is going to work today. She’s putting on a very pink suit, and I think maybe she’s going to her job as an architect. I definitely think she looks like a doll who likes to draw houses. What about you, Hayley Jade? Your doll looks like she might be ready for a day of fun at the beach. Did you know there’s a beach here in Saint View? It’s been a long time since I saw it, but I know it’s there.”

Hayley Jade glanced up at me in interest, and I continued on.

“I bet you’ve never even seen the beach in real life, have you? I hadn’t either until I came here. Maybe we could take your dolls down there one day?’

Queenie watched on like a proud mother hen.

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