Page 82 of High Frequency

“Now, there’s something I never thought I’d see,” I tease him.

He smirks and shakes his head. “My sister got them for me Christmas of last year. They’re comfortable.”

I raise my hands. “I’m not knocking them. I own a pair myself.”

He plucks the tote off my shoulder, looping it over his. Then he wraps his left arm around my waist to support me, and walks me two doors down.

“What time tomorrow morning?” he asks when we stop outside my door.

“Nine thirty? I need to make a quick stop in at Rosauers, Aspen is running out of diapers.”

Rosauers is Libby’s major grocery and drug store, and not that far from the office.

“How about nine forty and I’ll pick up diapers on my way home. Just shoot me a text with what you need.”

I loop my arms around his neck and smile up at him.

“Be careful. Before you know it, I’m used to this kind of treatment.”

He brushes my mouth with his.

“Mission accomplished.”

Twenty-Four

Sloane

“Come here, sleepy girl.”

I pick Aspen up out of her bouncy seat and hobble toward the bedroom.

“I can put her down,” Mom offers.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it.”

I have to grab what I can, when I can. Time is something you can’t get back, and I’m more aware of it now than I was a few weeks ago. I bet you if I asked Nita’s mother, she regrets every second of her daughter’s too-short life she missed. It’s the kind of regret that could destroy a person.

Aspen’s eyes are getting heavy already when I put her on the big bed to quickly change her diaper. The moment I put her down in her crib, she rolls on her side, jams her little fist in her mouth, and closes her eyes. I watch her for a beat before I close the bedroom door and join my mother in the kitchen.

“Want another coffee?”

I grab my mug off the counter and hold it out for her to top up.

“When is Dan picking you up?”

“He said nine forty.”

I sit down at the kitchen table and Mom sits down across from me.

“You’re a natural,” she says, smiling over the rim of her coffee cup at me. “Which, if I can be brutally honest, I wouldn’t have guessed. Probably because I was expecting you to be as flustered and overwhelmed and clueless as I can remember being when I had you.”

“I’m probably just a better actor than you are, believe me, I’m plenty clueless and overwhelmed,” I confess, even though it makes me feel really good she thinks that. “It’s funny how priorities change though. Ambitions change.”

“What do you mean; ambitions change?”

“Well, before, I was dead set on having a career in law enforcement, and now all I think about is being home with Aspen because I’m afraid of all I’m missing. You stayed home after I was born, right?”

Mom smiles as her eyes drift off over my shoulder.

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