Page 26 of Keepsake

“No.” I cut him off. “That’s unacceptable.”

“Tantrums?” His lip curved. “That’s what children do.”

My mouth closed in a line, and I stepped closer to him looking over his side to make sure there wasn’t any sign of the kids. When it was obvious they were already in bed, I talked, lowering my voice anyway.

“It wasn’t just the tantrum. We froze. Dashiell can’t be the one doing the heavy lifting.”

“He just knows how to calm them better. You’re overthinking this.”

I stepped even closer. “He’s too grown up. Too hands on. He’s a teenage boy, Alvaro. Tell me how you were at that age.”

He hated that I said it. Hated. I could tell when his jaw ticked and an angry vein pulsed in his neck. Alvaro looked over his shoulders before turning back to me. “He’s just good.”

But when he stepped away to leave the office, I followed.

“Yeah, he might be good and kind. But…” I searched for the words. “I want him to relax, I want him to know I got this.”

“So prove it to him that you do.”

“I will.” I looked away from him. “But so do you.”

He just raised an eyebrow, but it was enough to make me talk again. “You’re here now. You’re involved in this. And you’re going to find a way to do better by them.” To avoid bumping into him, I circled to the right and left the office, but not before I said, “I’ll send you literature.”

I didn’t wait for him to complain. Making my way upstairs, I took care going on my tiptoes, holding my breath as I reached the second floor. To my right was Alvaro’s new bedroom, and in front the two bedrooms belonging to the children.

The penthouse originally had six bedrooms, but years ago I changed one of the bedrooms to a gym, and another to a living room upstairs. The biggest room was mine, and I thought keeping three empty rooms was enough.

My eyes traced the firmly closed door. Was it safe for them to sleep with the doors closed?

On an impulse, I reached for the knob and twisted before I could think better of it. Vienna was fast asleep, star fishing in the middle of the bed.

I didn’t check if she brushed her teeth or ask if she wanted a story. I didn’t even tuck her in.

Feeling like shit, I opened the other bedroom just a crack. I could tell Dashiell chose the right side of the bed, his bigger form taking that space. Lachlan was sleeping by his side, sucking on his pacifier. I frowned, looking at the mattress. Pillows were trapped between the mattress and bed frame, creating a slope on Lachlan’s side, preventing him from falling.

Smart.

That was another something I didn’t do.

I closed the door again, and Vienna’s too with something heavy lodged in my throat. With no signs of Alvaro coming up, I let myself inside my room. Pushing the zipper of my black dress down, it pooled over my toes and I stepped out of it, grabbing it and stuffing it into the laundry basket.

Next went my underwear as I grabbed a soft T-shirt and pulled it over my head, jumping into the bed with the sea of parenting books I left from the night before.

They were here now. I wanted them here. I felt like I needed them here, and yet I didn’t know what to do.

The books could only help with so much. I read about development. I understood what happened in each phase of their lives and I knew what to feed them.

But this was much more. There were so many moving parts to raising children and the parts I lacked the most, no one wrote a book about.

My list was forgotten downstairs, but I made a new one and added a few points. We needed a bedtime routine. We need a routine for everything.

I grabbed my phone and texted Alvaro link after link of things I wanted him to read. Then I ordered more books, some on how children dealt with grief. That seemed like an important piece of the puzzle I was forgetting.

They weren’t just children. They were sad.

I was highlighting passages of a book on emotional development when my phone chimed with a message.

Alvaro:??

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