Page 47 of Keepsake

Logan:I know.

Alvaro:Breathe, Jefa. You’re doing fine.

Logan:Will you ever stop calling me that?

Alvaro:No.

He wanted me to be annoyed at him, but a little smile slipped through. No one ever called me a nickname. Sofia called me Lo, just like Willa did, but it wasn’t very exciting.

Never in college, definitely not at work. I was a little standoffish. I knew that. I was a woman in a male-dominated field. I had to keep a certain posture. I couldn’t be fun, nicknamed Logan.

But Jefa…

I knew it wasn’t a compliment, but it felt like something. Like we were more than two strangers forced to be around one another.

Safe.It made me feel like I wasn’t in this alone, even though I knew I was.

Alvaro wasn’t going to live in my house forever. He had his own life, doing his own thing.

He probably had a girlfriend who was somewhere out there unhappy that me and the kids were hogging all his attention.

I groaned to myself and tilted my head up. I was growing attached to co-parenting when I shouldn’t.

Worse than that, soon I’d need to have better communication with Caridad.

It was only Wednesday.

I took a fortifying breath. They had been living with me not even a week, but it felt like a month.

I had a mountain of things to finish up. Get the apartment ready for the children because soon Alvaro was going to leave me.

And that was ok. I wasn’t attached. No one could grow attached in less than a week. I did everything on my own. I could raise them on my own too.

Iwasraising them on my own.

“Logan?” the door cracked from the therapist’s office. “Can you come here?”

Jumping into my feet, I dropped the bag resting on my lap. Feeling silly, I brushed my hair back and sent a smile to the receptionist, marching straight to the therapist.

Lachlan was right in the middle of the room, sitting on the mat and playing a game of Memory. He turned a card, seeing it was the image of a cow. After just a second, his hand went straight to the piece above, turning to find another cow.

“He has a great memory,” Dr. Maya told me. “Here, take a seat.”

By taking a seat, she meant on the floor close to Lachlan. I sat down, not taking my eyes off the boy, who was already going for another pairing, his little hand holding the ones he got right.

“He’s doing well from a development point of view,” she said. “He knows how to count to ten. That is very good. Right, Lachlan?”

He looked at the doctor for just a second, without replying, and went back to his game.

“Motor skills are also perfect for his age. And like I said, he has a really excellent memory. Look at him go.” She nodded to Lachlan and yet another victory.

“That’s good,” I said. “That’s really good.”

“It is. But I think you should keep bringing Lachlan here once a week. And we’ll see how it goes. What do you think, Lachlan?”

He looked at Dr. Maya and nodded. That was more of a reaction than I’d ever gotten. With a sense of accomplishment, I saw myself mimicking him. She must have noticed the tension rolling off me, because she gave me a sincere smile.

“He’s fine.”

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