Page 91 of Doughn't Let Me Go

My eyes flit to Dory.

It’s on the tip of my tongue to lie to her, to tell her I just sat at home and did nothing, but that’s not how it works with us. I’m already hiding one huge secret from her. I’d rather the lies—no matter how small they may be—not start stacking up.

“I took Dory to dinner for her birthday. We went to Slice.”

Kyrie’s head whips toward Dory. “It was your birthday yesterday?” she questions incredulously.

“Yes, it was.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Dory looks remorseful. “I didn’t tell anybody.”

“But my dad knew!”

“That’s because he’s a know-it-all.”

I laugh, pushing off the counter and walking around the other side to take a seat on a stool.

Kyrie doesn’t argue Dory’s claim, and I’m slightly offended.

I also notice she doesn’t seem to be upset about the idea of me and Dory going out to dinner together alone, just that she didn’t know about her birthday.

“Did you kiss?”

Kyrie’s question sends Dory into a coughing fit, and I’m so happy I just swallowed my drink of coffee. If I hadn’t, it would be all over the counter right about now.

“What the…” Dory mutters.

“What?” Kyrie says, attention focused solely on the task at hand, as if asking us if we kissed didn’t just throw us for a loop. “Nellie’s mom and dad kiss.”

“You mean your uncle Foster and aunt Wren?”

She nods. “Yep. And so do Riker’s parents.”

Winston and Drew.

“Kyrie…you know Dory isn’t here to be your mom, right? She’s just here to be your…your nanny.”

My daughter’s mouth pulls down into a frown. “I know, but sometimes I think it would be nice to have another mom since mine isn’t coming back. And Dory loves me, so I just figured…”

Her words trail off, her tongue darting out the side of her mouth as she works to pick out the eggshells she just dropped into the bowl.

I gulp and feel like vomiting for the second time this morning.

She said it so nonchalantly and moved on so quickly.

Anger stirs inside me at her mother. How the fuck can a human just leave behind another human like that? Especially one they grew inside them?

But…she did warn me when she was pregnant. She warned me she couldn’t do this, and I told her she could.

She was right.

“I think it would be nice if you had someone to kiss again. You used to be so happy when you got kisses from Mommy.”

Because of my honesty policy, Kyrie knows her mother isn’t coming back. She doesn’t have any notions of her mother suddenly swooping back into her life and making us that happy little family again.

I guess I just never factored in that Kyrie might believe someone else is going to swoop in and save us both.

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