Page 111 of Rook

“What is this?” she asked, eyes wide.

“Your personal pan pizza birthday party,” I told her, moving close to put the pin I’d ordered online—that she’d claimed she’d always wanted—on her shirt.

“Oh my God. You didn’t,” she said, shooting me a wonder-filled smile.

“According to my records,” I said, going back to grab the record sheet printout I’d found online, then spent months diligently filling out anytime I saw her reading a book. “You have read fifteen books. Which qualifies you for five personal pan pizzas,” I said, waving toward the selections.

Tessa’s eyes went watery for a second. They always did when I—or anyone else—did or bought her something that she’d mentioned she liked. She did it on our first Christmas morning when she had wrapped boxes under the tree with her name on them. She did it on her last birthday, when everyone had gifts for her, despite only knowing her for a few months at that point. Even on Valentine’s Day when I got her her favorite flowers and candy.

As much as I loved her wonder, I hoped for one day when she wasn’t still so surprised by love and kindness.

She walked toward me, pressing her forehead to my chest, then wrapping her arms around me.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And I did. More than I even knew was possible.

“But I hope you’re not hungry. Because I am going to eat every bit of those pizzas.”

Tessa - 3.5 years

“I never realized how much Shady Valley needed this,” Nyx said as she grabbed another notebook off a shelf. “But when your kid tells you last-minute that they doodled all over their entire notebook that they need for a class trip, it’s really convenient to just be able to walk down the street and grab it instead of heading out of town.”

I’d opened a small office supply store in town, just a few doors down from Nyx’s studio.

I’d been nervous that it was too niche of an idea. Especially for such a small town. But foot traffic had been surprisingly steady.

I imagined it helped that it wasn’t just pens and notebooks that we sold, but headphones, charging cords, keyboards, and even tablets. Because, well, office supplies had evolved. As it turned out, nowhere in town carried even a basic phone charger. And most people weren’t willing to wait two days for one to be delivered, and were too busy to drive half an hour out of town to buy one.

We’d filled a little hole that, in a very small way, helped the community.

The store had only been open for a few months. And those damn developers had been breathing down our necks since, apparently, they’d been planning to buy the building.

But that was just too damn bad.

I never knew that my dream job was owning an office supply store—despite my love of cubicle decorating videos—but now that I had it, I was never going to let it go.

“Hey, you have a little Picasso on your hands. You can’t be too mad,” I said, shrugging as I rang up Nyx’s order. Which included one notebook for the school trip and another one for doodling. Because she was a smart mom.

“How’re you feeling?” she asked, nodding toward my belly. That was starting to look like I’d stuck a basketball under my shirt.

“Peeing every seven minutes. But it beats the months of throwing up.”

“Getting close to the finish line now. Can’t wait to meet the little dude.”

“Me too,” I said, handing her the bag. “Go get that kid a notebook before you come home to the walls drawn on.”

“Oh, God,” Nyx said, wincing. “Thanks.”

With that, she walked out, leaving me alone in my little store that smelled like paper and ink.

My hand went to my belly as I watched Nyx catch sight of Everleigh as she was climbing out of her car to go to the grocery store, a couple little kids in tow.

Watching the women in the club be mothers had healed me in ways I never knew I could experience. To watch them cook, hug, love, and nurture their kids showed me what real motherhood looked like, taught me all the ways I wanted to parent my own child.

There’d been times in the days and weeks following finding out we were going to have a baby that I cried in Rook’s arms, terrified that I had some sort of ‘bad mom gene’ or that I was too damaged from my shitty childhood to provide a good one for my own child.

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