Page 78 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
“I think that sounds completely normal.”
I’m basing this sudden parenting expertise on one work friend who had a baby last year. Former-work friend, I guess, since Eleanor decided not to come back after maternity leave ended.
I brought a meal to her once and found her with one breast hanging out of a nursing top, a cabbage leaf poking out of the other side, and what looked like a smear of chocolate across one cheek. She put her infant daughter in my arms, wept, and told me to ignore her tears because it was just hormones. Ten minutes later, she had showered and was nursing her daughter like everything was normal. Eleanor described it in a similar way, like being thrown into a deep end with no arms or legs and only baby books, the advice of the internet, and your own internal compass to keep you afloat.
And yet you just thought about having babies with this man, a voice from the depths of my brain scoffs.
Yeah. I did. And the idea still doesn’t sound horrifying. I’ll have to spend some time considering whether this is a Hunter-specific shift or if I’m rethinking my thoughts on the subject altogether.
We’re both quiet for a beat before I say his daughter’s name slowly, with a little more purpose this time. “Isabelle.”
My middle name. OUR name—the one Hunter and I talked about using back when we were planning out and hoping for a future together. Banjo yawns from a sunny spot on the porch and waddles over, nosing Hunter before climbing in his lap, reaching up his tiny paws to touch Hunter’s beard. Hunter redirects, picking up a dog toy shaped like a lizard and handing it to Banjo.
“I didn’t choose her name to hurt you,” Hunter says softly, his eyes on the door, ready to switch gears back to low whenever Isabelle returns. He strokes Banjo’s back.
Even if I wanted to resist the man, the sweetness of how he is with Isabelle and the way he looks with a raccoon in his lap would make my resistance utterly futile.
“I know.”
He shoots me a quick glance. “Do you? Because I know how it might seem.”
I shake my head. “That’s not you. You don’t do spite or play games or get passive-aggressive. I may have missed some years in there, but I know this much about who you are, Hunter.”
His smile is quick, then his face turns serious. “Isabelle is also Cassidy’s grandmother’s name. When Cass suggested it right before Izzy was born, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that you and I had talked about—” He shakes his head. “I was trying so hard to make the marriage work. To be a good husband, even though I was barely out of high school. A stupid kid.” He lifts his eyes to mine, fire sparking in the depths of his irises. “Mer, I’d be lying if I told you a part of me didn’t want to use the namebecauseof you. Because I knew that every time I looked at Isabelle, I’d think of you.”
Heat courses through me, sharp and heady. It’s a soul-deep fire. I want more of this. More of him.
A sharp yearning presses against my heart. Beyond my growing feelings for Hunter, being on Oakley is showing me something about myself, too. I want to be the person Iwas—the person Iam—when I’m with Hunter on Oakley. This island—or this man—seems to bring out the best version of myself.
When I left that fateful summer, I told myself it was best to make a clean break. But the break wasn’t just between me and the geographical location. It was a break between me and the people here I’d come to love. Hunter, but Gran too.
I also created a cavernous rift between who I was and who I decided to become. Because when Mom and Dad divorced and we stopped coming to Oakley and then moved across the country, I let my new circumstances dictate the new me. I became who I needed to be to get through it, to get my sisters through it. My personality was always the orderly, take-charge kind.
But I also used to cultivate space for a girl who ran around the island with no shoes and no watch. A girl who felt most like herself with a brush in her hand, letting brilliant colored strokes fill a white canvas. Who laughed while my hair whipped around my face from a strong wind, who dove off the end of docks, and maybe even sometimes snuck out after curfew to watch a meteor shower with Hunter.
I wasboth. And I cut one half of me off without fully realizing what this would mean for the person I became. I couldn’t know how it would impact me to lose the part of me that was free and creative.
I think of the gorgeous tables inside Hunter’s shop, artwork in functional form. He didn’t cut off that part of him. But he is hiding it away.
Which is maybe not so different from what I’ve done, just in his own way.
“I picked Bananagrams!” Isabelle darts back out the front door, startling Banjo. The raccoon makes a chittering sound and climbs right on top of Lilith, sniffing the big dog’s paws and then her ears.
Isabelle plops onto Hunter’s lap like it was made for her. She is easy, comfortable in her dad’s presence, which says a lot about the kind of father he is. Hunter wraps his strong arms around Isabelle, and she nestles against his chest, holding out a little yellow pouch shaped like a banana.
“Have you ever played this?” Hunter asks, and I shake my head.
“You’ll catch on,” Isabelle says. “It’s like Scrabble, but no board. Just letter tiles. You’ll see.”
As Izzy explains the game, a hundred different worries flit through my brain, distracting me. Am I supposed to let Isabelle win? Is that something parents do? Or do I just play like I would play a game with any adult? I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work.
Or, in a bigger sense, howparentingis supposed to work. My anxiety rears its head again as I start to overthink. As though completely in tune with my feelings, Hunter nudges my foot with his and nods encouragingly.Breathe, he mouths. I shouldn’t need the reminder. But I do.
“Split!” Izzy says, and we’re off, flipping over our individual tiles and racing to make words.
I catch on pretty quickly, but I’m not as quick as Hunter or Isabelle. My competitive nature flares up, and I shove away my worries to line my letters up into a scrabble-like grid. We can only get new letters or exchange letters we don’t want by saying banana-themed words, which I’m mostly tracking, but I’m still slow. Hunter finishes first, winning the first round by calling out, “Bananas!”
He lifts an eyebrow at Isabelle. “Who did you say was the best at this game?”
