Page 94 of Perfect Imperfections

“Hi.”

“What, um, what are you doing here?”

He shifted on his feet nervously. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“And give you a present!”

She looked down at the child in her arms and smiled at the excitement on her face.

“A present?” She gave an exaggerated gasp. “I love presents.”

“Me too and you’re really, really gonna like this one, Ellie. I helped pick it out. We had to go all the way to Denver to the mall, and we went to a bunch of stores, but they didn’t have any anim—”

“Charlotte,” Sullivan interrupted, waving his hand in the air. “You don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

Tiny hands covered her mouth as the girl bunched her shoulders sheepishly. “Oh, right.”

“Remember what we talked about, Angel? Do you think you could wait with Naya for a minute while I talk to Ellie?”

“I was just about to do my final walkthrough of the building,” Cam said. “She can come with me if she likes.”

“That’d be great, Cam. Thank you.”

“No problemo. Come on, sweetie. Let’s go say goodnight to all the birds.”

Her friend held a hand out to Charlotte, who wiggled out of her arms and rushed to grab it.

“Yay! Birdies!”

“Thank you, Naya. And thank you, too, Cam,” Sullivan said.

Naya gave a simple nod and smile, but her bestie narrowed her gaze, taking two fingers and pointing first to her eyes, then to Sullivan. Once everyone left, the room fell quiet. Only Sullivan and her, and Bill of course, but for once the noisy bird was being silent.

“I can see I’ve made an enemy.” Sullivan grimaced. “Does she know about—”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” she quickly interrupted. “But Cam is my best friend. She noticed I was being mopey lately and she kind of…guessed.”

“She’s smart.”

Yes, her best friend was very smart and fiercely protective of those she loved. Ellie was glad to count herself in that group.

“I got a letter from Claire.”

Stunned, Ellie didn’t know what to say. Thankfully, she didn’t have to say anything, as Sullivan continued.

“She wrote one for me and another for Charlotte to open when she’s ready. She wrote them in the case of her…well, you know.”

Her death. Something that no one planned on happening, but came for everyone in the end.

“She said a lot in the letter. A lot of things she needed to say. A lot of things I needed to hear. There were apologies and explanations, but none of that is why I came here to talk to you today.” He sucked in a deep breath. Bright green eyes focused on her, shining with glossy tears. “I’m so sorry for hurting you, Ellie. For making you feel like you don’t matter to me, to us. You are so important to Charlotte and me for so many reasons. You saved my daughter’s life, but you also saved mine. Before you I was just going through life so focused, I didn’t realize how lonely I was, how empty parts of my life were. I thought all I needed was Charlotte and work. As long as I concentrated on those two things, everything would be fine. But it wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine.”

A tear slipped from the corner of his eye. He did nothing to hide it, nothing to brush it away.

“I was so intent on taking care of everything and everyone else, I forgot to take care of myself, allow someone else to care for me every once in a while. Then you came into my life and changed all that. You became someone I could lean on. Someone I could call for help with an elephant birthday party on less than a week’s noticed.”

She gave a watery laugh, her own eyes filled with moisture.

“You brought laughter into our house. Fun. Animal puns. So, so many animal puns.”

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