Page 43 of Shortcake
“Or Gus might eat her,” I laughed and gave Gus a few pats on his butt.
“No way!” Addy bent and pressed a kiss between his ears.Lucky dog. “He’s the goodest boy. I think he and Eleanor will be best friends… eventually.”
More likely that Gus was a lazy bastard and didn’t have the energy to chase, let alone catch, a rodent like Eleanor.
“Hey, I was thinking,” Addy lowered her voice and stepped closer to me. “If you were okay with it, I thought I could take Harper to the bookstore tomorrow while you’re at work.”
“The bookstore? You don’t have to do that for her.”
“It’s not a big deal. I usually go every Monday, anyway. And look, I know she’s grounded, but come on. It’s abookstore.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s not going to feel like punishment if you keep making her time being groundedfun.”
Addy swallowed and looked at me for a long breath before answering. “I get it. You’re a strict dad. And a cop. And your kid… well, yeah, she fucked up. Big time. But trust me, in the couple hours she and I spent together today, I can tell you, sheknowsshe fucked up. And she’s a good kid. She just seems, I don’t know…lonely. Sad. I’m not a parent, but I just think by isolating her in this house when you just moved here might have the opposite effect you want it to.”
I wasn’t someone who appreciated unsolicited advice, but I had to admit that in the short time Addy had already spent with my daughter, there had been a major shift. Maybe, just maybe, she was onto something. “What do you mean?”
Addy shrugged. “Take it from the girl who wasalwaysgetting in trouble in high school. Sometimes the punishments can lead to more resentment and even worse behavior. My mom triedallthe threats for years with me. And it wasn’t until she started taking me out for weekly manicures with her that I chilled out. I didn’t even realize why I was so rebellious. Not until way later. But having her spend quality time withjust mehad a profound and positive affect on my behavior.”
“She didn’t spend time with you before those manicures?”
“She did, but the manicures were different. It wasn’t me being dragged along with her to do her errands. And I didn’t have to split this time with my brothers. She wasn’t yelling at me. In fact, she made a rule that anything I told her during the manicure was a free pass. I could tell her anything I had done or anything I was feeling, and I wouldn’t get in trouble. She kept to that rule, too, even when I knew it killed her.”
“Wow,” I said. “I don’t know that I could do that. If Harper ever confessed to me that she had gotten high or something… I’d have to ground her.”
Addy had spun around to face me, leaning her back against the counter and crossing her tanned legs casually. “Doyou have to ground her, though? I mean, I confessed to my mom when I had sex for the first time at one of those manicure dates.”
A sharp breath pinched my lungs at the thought. Harper having sex. Holy fuck. I’d lose my shit. “And your mom was… fine with that?”
“Fine isn’t the word I’d use,” Addy chuckled. “But it opened us up to have candid conversations about what responsible sex looked like. And after talking with her, she took me to get birth control. Without that conversation, I don’t even know how long I would have gone on without birth control.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Just the thought of having those kinds of conversations with Harper made my heart pound, anxiety spiking through my veins.
“Look,” Addy paused, placing a palm to my arm. “All I can tell you is that my mom and I became so much closer after those manicure dates started. And my behavior got better, too.”
“It did?”
“Rebelling isn’t as fun or successful if your parent doesn’t engage.”
I guess that made sense. In its own weird way. But it also felt like it could backfire… majorly. Then again, my heavy-handed parenting style wasn’t exactly working lately, either. “The bookstore,” I repeated.
“She needs summer reading, doesn’t she? 10th grade? I’m pretty sure it’s The Great Gatsby.”
Dammit. Summer reading. Keeping track of Harper’s school things had never been my forte. Harper had always been on top of her schoolwork. It was the one area that she didn’t need me… until recently. Until she stopped caring about her grades a few months ago. “I forgot to get the list from the school.”
Addy waved her hand as though forgetting this was a trivial matter. And she was right… it was. But it wasn’t just forgetting the reading list. It was the reading list added onto a million other tiny, trivial things I’d forgotten in the past few months. Those trivial lapses eventually added up to a big, gaping hole in my parenting.
“Oh, Elijah used to be a teacher before he opened his bookstore, so he always keeps the summer reading lists at the shop. He’ll be able to tell her what she needs. So… what do you say?”
“I say… yes.” WhatcouldI say? No, my daughter can’t go to the store to pick books? Hell, if she spent her time readinganythingwhile grounded, let alone reading her assignments, I should be proud, not inhibiting it.
“And,” Addy continued. “You should tell her it wasyouridea. Be the hero who’s letting her go have a fun day out instead of ordering the books on Amazon.”
Amazon! Dammit, why didn’t I think of that?
“Why are you doing all this? You could just hole up downstairs for the next few weeks while I fix your apartment. Why go grocery shopping, and take my daughter out to a bookstore, and make lunch for her—”
“And you,” she added, while handing me a sandwich on a paper plate. Then, scrunching her shoulders to her ears, she gave me a quick shrug. “I like helping out. I appreciate having the basement. Otherwise, I’d be couch surfing for the next month or so and I’mwaytoo old to be waking up with a creaky neck every morning.”
