Page 86 of Head Over Heels

The clockwork of the world grinds to a halt, and in the silence and stillness, I see it, what I’ve been missing.

At the very beginning, I told her,I can tell already this isn’t going to work.

Because I was terrified.

Before she left, she told me,I can tell already this isn’t going to work.

Because she was terrified.

Because every time she’d ever wanted to stay, she’d had to leave.

Katie is scattering something on the ground.

“What’s that, Katie girl?” Liv’s nickname for her spills from my lips, without my intending it.

“Bread crumbs,” Katie says.

“Why bread crumbs?”

“So we can find our way home. Sometimes if you’re in the woods and it’s dark and you’re scared, you need bread crumbs.”

“Yes,” I say, although my chest feels like there is a stone on it. “Sometimes you do.”

“Daddy, you okay?”

“Yes, Katie girl, I am okay.”

It’s true. I am sad. I miss Liv more than I can deal with. But I also knowexactlywhat I need to do.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. I pull up the photo of Katie, with her little pink lips pursed, kissing all the frogs you have to kiss before you find the frog you love best. I click to attach the photo, and then I add text:

Have been doing a lot of thinking. And the thing is: Katie and I? We’re your friends, and we’re your home. No matter what else happens, we’re here. That’s a promise. And I don’t make promises I can’t keep.

Chapter 49

Chase

I tuck Katie in, read her the tattered copy ofHi, All You Rabbitshanded down from my mother, and turn out the light.

“Where’s Liv now?” she asks.

That’s better than what she asked last night, which was, “Is Liv going to come in and say good night?”

I think she’d just forgotten Liv was gone, but for a moment I thought she hadn’t understood any of what we’d told her about Liv’s leaving, and my chest fissured.

“Liv’s probably in…” I consult the vague map in my head. “Somewhere in Utah or Wyoming, I’d guess. She’ll get to Denver tomorrow.”

“I miss her.”

“I miss her too.”

“Gillian’s, nice, though!” Katie says. “She’s not thesameas Liv, but she’s nice.”

I’ve been feeling pretty awful about putting Katie through this. If I’d really thought it through, I would have hired another nanny straight after Celia. One fewer transition for a little girl who needs her life to be stable.

Or would I have?

Did I really hire Liv for Katie’s benefit? Or was there a part of me that had gotten tired of the walls between us and wanted more?

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