Page 109 of The Fall
She skitters to a stop and studies me, then pumps her arm in a victory punch, the same arm that’s wrapped up in a cast. It’s not slowing her down even one little bit.
“Five minutes till dinner,” Hayes calls.
Lily flops down beside me and leans against my side, still clutching her Nerf gun. I hold out my cast and we bump forearms. It’s our new handshake. “We match,” she whispers, like it’s our secret.
“We sure do, kiddo.”
Between the hospital and being Lily’s moving target, the day has taken its toll, and my muscles protest as I rise from the floor. “I’ll help set the table.” The kitchen is familiar, even though it shouldn’t be. Drawer pulls slide out like I’ve known the place for years. “Plates?” I ask, already knowing where they are. Bottom cabinet, left side.
“Yep,” Hayes says over his shoulder, focusing on the pasta.
“Glasses?” I reach for the top shelf.
“Right on.” He doesn’t even turn around, but there’s a smirk in his voice. “You’ve got it handled.”
It feels like we’ve done this dance a hundred times before.
My stomach growls embarrassingly loud, and Hayes laughs. “Sounds like someone’s ready to eat.”
Dinner is exactly what I imagined between Hayes and Lily. Neither of them have a slow mode. Lily refuses to leave my side, keeping her plate close to mine. We eat, and laugh, and milk nearly comes shooting out of Lily’s nose. It’s apparently one of her chief goals in life, and Hayes is helping her practice. Erin gives me a long-suffering sigh and smiles at her family.
When the table’s finally a mess of empty plates and dirty napkins, I stand, stack the dishes in my arms, and head for the sink before anyone can stop me. Hayes catches up and dumps the last of the silverware into the basin. “You don’t have to.”
“I gotta show off how this cast doesn’t slow me down. You’ll thank me in a few days.”
“The pink was an excellent choice,” he says. “Really shows off the fortitude and grit.”
I laugh. It’s so easy to be here. Behind me, Lily is busy at the kitchen table, hunched over a drawing and adding stickers with her mom. Erin runs her hand down Lily’s hair, watching over her.
When I finish with the dishes, I drop back into the chair beside Lily. She holds out a pink dinosaur sticker and smooths it onto my cast. “Now you look cool.”
I nod. “This cast is going to rock with my jersey.” I hand her a sticker of a smiling stegosaurus. “Think they like the taste of sunflowers?”
“Definitely.” The stegosaur goes next to a line of sunflowers circling her wrist. She passes me a one-eyed monkey sticker. “You need more monkeys.”
I take the sticker, the glossy surface catching the kitchen light. The monkey grins up at me with its single eye. Lily’s eyes follow my hand as I place it carefully on my cast, right below the pink dinosaur.
“And this one goes here.” She slaps a purple octopus onto my cast on the palm.
“What are you drawing now?” I lean closer to see her paper better.
“That’s you.” She points to a stick figure with what appears to be a pink club for an arm. “And that’s me.” Another stick figure, also with a pink club-arm. We’re holding hands in the drawing, or at least our good hands are connected by a wobbly line. Above us, she’s drawn what might be rain or might be confetti.
Hayes moves behind us, setting down two cups of coffee on the table. One slides in front of Erin, the other near my elbow.
“She’s drawing superheroes,” I tell him.
“Obviously.” He peers over Lily’s shoulder. “Are those our capes or are we on fire?”
“Capes, Daddy!” Lily doesn’t look up from her coloring. “Fire would be red and orange.”
“My mistake.” He drops a kiss on top of her head before moving back to clean the last of the dinner mess.
Lily adds a sun in the corner, then dinosaurs in the sky. Her tongue pokes out the corner of her mouth as she concentrates. She’s not big on detail, but the heart is all there. Tornado swirls erupt from Nerf guns and stick figures grin.
“It’s us,” she says, pointing to her masterpiece. She’s drawn a big flower on top of my head.
A knot forms in my chest; it’s hard to speak. “I love it. I’m going to put it up in my locker.”
