Page 84 of Promise Me This

She shrugs her shoulders. “’Cause you like each other now.”

The laugh that shakes out of me eases some of the nerves still bubbling in my gut. “We’ve always liked each other, Niamh.”

Her unruly braid flies through the air as she whips her head around to look at me with more sass than should logically fit in her tiny body. “He did not like you in the beginning. At all.”

Leave it to a kid to humble you with their honesty.

“Fair enough.”

She considers me for a moment, studying my face and the space between us. Finally she circumnavigates the coffee table and is standing right in front of me, horses lying abandoned on the couch. She clasps her hands together behind her back and stares at the floral-patterned fabric of the chair rather than my face. “You do like him, right?”

Total honesty feels like the best course of action. “Yes, I do.”

“Do you like me?”

I smile, and the rest of the nerves dissipate. “I do, Niamh. I think you’re great.”

The corner of her mouth twitches toward a smile, but she stops it. “Will you keep us, then?”

It’s such a big question from such a small girl. One she doesn’t understand all the implications of. One that it’s too soon to answer. But still, I look at her and I can’t help it. I catch a glimpse of the family I always wanted. I see the little girl my daughter never got to be, and then I see the almost-eleven-year-old she would be now. I imagine the two of them here, arguing over something senseless, while I wish for some peace and quiet.

Now I long for the chaos.

Suddenly I’m filled with the desire to grab hold of Niamh and squeeze her so tight. To never let her go.

“Would it be okay if I hugged you?” I ask quietly.

She nods and offers her open arms.

The moment she folds into my embrace, I half expect myself to splinter into a thousand pieces. I’m surprised to find those pieces mending instead. Every part of me that ached for eleven years to hold the baby I lost sighs in relief, because at last I have someone to cling to. Someone to cherish. Someone to protect and care for, in the ways I never got to with Poppy.

It reminds me of this type of Japanese pottery I saw once in a museum, where the shattered bits were glued back together with lacquer and then painted gold at the seams. Kintsugi, it was called, in which the places where it had once been broken were the most beautiful of all.

I squeeze her tightly for good measure and then pull back, taking her in. “I’ll keep you if you’ll keep me.”

She smiles, showing off the gap between her front teeth. “Deal.”

“I got everything ordered and was ready to pay when I discovered someone has removed my card from my wallet—oh.” Siobhan pauses in the doorway. Her gaze locks on the place where my hands still brace on either side of Niamh’s shoulders, and her face, flushed with color from the brisk wind, softens. “You two are having fun, I take it?”

I nod in unison with Niamh, who says, “Leona said she’ll keep us!”

“Did she now?” Amusement sparks in Siobhan’s eyes. “And what’d you promise her in exchange?”

Niamh glances at me as if for assurance and then replies, “That we’d keep her.”

Siobhan nods and grins, like that is exactly the answer she was hoping for. “Sounds like a bargain to me. Now, would you happen to know where my card is?”

Niamh grimaces, causing her dimple to pop. “I was playing shop earlier. I’ll go grab it!”

Siobhan steps out of the way to let her granddaughter fly past in a run that’s made clumsy by her tangle of knobby elbows and knees. When I reach Siobhan’s side, she surprises me by wrapping her arms around my shoulders. A young couple that checked in earlier avert their eyes as they pass by, like they’ve stumbled upon something private.

“I told you you’d be grand,” she whispers fiercely into my ear.

I blink back the tears burning my eyes. “You were right.”

“Always am.”

She lets me go just as Niamh rounds the corner, credit card held triumphantly up in the air, and soon a moment that felt so incredibly important gives way to the normalcy of a Friday evening.

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