Page 4 of Promise Me Sunshine

Ainsley immediately power walks back in my direction, and even from here I can see that her eyes have gone watery and her chin is starting to quiver.

“What kind of movies do you like?” I ask her.

She skids to a stop. “I’m not allowed to watch movies during the day.”

“Well, let’s make an exception.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I like Indiana Jones.”

I’m charmed. “Let’s do it.”

Ainsley happily eats two bowls of stars and moons while Indy punches his way through a crowd of fascists, and I consider that a win.

By the time we’re done with lunch she doesn’t seem so weepy anymore, but I want to keep her as distracted as possible, so we dig through the pantry and unearth a box of cake mix and frosting. We gleefully make a gigantic mess in the kitchen and I let her turn the vanilla frosting acid green with food coloring.

“You wanna know an old family tradition of mine?”

“Sure,” she says, carefully mixing the frosting while her tongue is sticking out. She’s wearing an apron fifty times too big and standing on one of the dining room chairs to reach the counter.

“When we make cupcakes, we always make one lucky one and hide it in with the rest.”

“How do you make a lucky cupcake?”

“Well, first you fill the cups with batter, and then you pick one of them to be the lucky one. This one or this one?” I ask.

“That one.” She points.

“Okay. And then you stick something unexpected into its batter.”

“Like what?”

I open the fridge and consider my options. “Liiiike…ooh! Green olives. Or a little bit of lunch meat, maybe? How about—”

She bursts out laughing. “Gross!”

“Yes,” I agree. “But so much fun. What should we choose?”

She scrambles down from the chair to come look. “How about those onions that Mom puts in fancy drinks?”

“Cocktail onions. PERFECT. I think you have a knack for this.”

I open the jar for her and she pokes the onion so far into the cupcake she’s got batter up to her third knuckle.

Her mom calls to check in while the cupcakes are baking and Ainsley starts to cry after they hang up. It seems like a good time to offer the little bit of videogame time she’s allotted each day, and she jumps at the chance. By the time she’s done zooming around the universe in a bright pink rocket ship, the cupcakes are cool enough to frost.

We each have a cupcake after dinner, and we decide we’re both simultaneously relieved and disappointed to not get the lucky cupcake.

“It’s getting late,” Miles says from out of nowhere, and Ainsley and I both squeak and jump.

“Are you still here?!”

“It’s her bedtime,” he says, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest. I wouldn’t say he’s got a very gentle bedside manner, but I forgive him because he’s wearingthatsweatshirt and I’m in love and he’s going to be my everything one day.

“Oh, you’re right. Yeah. Things kind of got away from me.”

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