Page 34 of Stat: Love In Scrubs
Esa cheered from the back. This woman was corrupting my sweet, innocent child. All I could do was shake my head.
We went back and forth for a few minutes before I finally let her know I was outside. The moment she stepped outside, all the time she talked about made all the sense in the world. She was in a pair of strappy heels, light blue jeans with rips in them, anda button-down shirt tied in the front. Her hair was in loose curls around her shoulders.
I got out of the car and walked around the opposite side of the truck to open her door.
“Thank you, kindly sir,” she said, imitating an English accent.
I laughed and walked around the truck. The moment I stepped inside, Esa and Yara were in a whole conversation about their outfits. At this point, it was a girl’s club, and I was just their chauffeur. The entire ride to Sweet Scoops, Yara and Esa tried to sing every song in Encanto. All I could do was smile and admire the relationship between them.
By the time we made it, I helped both of them out of the car. Yara got a full view of Esa’s outfit.
“My girl! I didn’t know you wore your heels today. I love them, Esa,” Yara said.
Esa’s deep mahogany skin reddened as much as it could as she twirled around.
Walking into Sweet Scoops felt like stepping into a sugar rush. Vanilla and chocolate hit me first, with that sharp hint of strawberry syrup trailing behind. The walls were splashed in pastel colors, murals of cones and sprinkles dancing overhead like they were raining right from the ceiling. Esa gasped so loud that the older couple by the door chuckled as she ran straight to the glass case of flavors.
Yara laughed, leaning closer to me. “She’s about to judge them like she’s onMasterChef.”
She wasn’t wrong. Esa pressed her hands to the glass, eyes darting between tubs of birthday cake swirl, mango sorbet, and the triple fudge she swore she could smell. I just stood there, watching the two of them side by side—my daughter animated and bold, Yara indulging her with patience and joy.
For a moment, it wasn’t about the noise of kids giggling in booths or the jukebox humming old R&B in the corner. It wasabout this—seeing Esa glow under Yara’s praise and realizing how naturally Yara fit into a space I didn’t think anyone could.
“So what are you thinking of getting, baby girl?” I asked, leaning down to her height.
Esa placed her finger into her cheek, dipping into her dimple as she hummed. Then pressed her finger against the glass to point in the direction of the pink and blue cotton candy flavor.
“The pink and blue one!”
I stood back up and turned to face Yara, who was looking just as hard as Esa had been at the case of different flavors.
“What about you, Boss Lady?” I asked.
She peered over her shoulder with a lift of her brow and a smirk.
“Boss lady? You’ve been calling me that for a minute now. I’ve been meaning to ask why.”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and shrugged with a smirk. “You don’t think it fits?”
“I guess you can say that. I do be running shit,” she responded with a flick of her hair from her shoulder.
We burst into laughter before she finally went with a Brownie Sundae. I ended up getting the same thing. Yara and Esa went to find a booth in the back for us to sit at, while I waited for our order to be called.
I finally got our ice cream, then made my way to the booth in the corner of the shop. I handed Esa her ice cream cone first. She was already going to war with her two-scoop cone, sprinkles falling everywhere like she was leaving breadcrumbs.
Yara shook her head, laughing as she reached over with a napkin. “Girl, you’re supposed to eat the ice cream, not decorate the table with it.”
Esa giggled, mouth full. “It’s prettier this way.”
I leaned back, watching the two of them bicker like they’d known each other forever. My chest tugged in a way I wasn’t ready for.
When Esa went quiet, focused on licking her cone before it melted, Yara turned to me. “So… we’ve never really talked about her in detail.” Her voice softened. “Your wife.”
For a second, the noise of the shop faded. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Her name was Veronica. She hated chocolate but loved chocolate chip ice cream. Made no sense to me, but she’d swear it wasn’t the same thing.” I laughed under my breath, the sound coming out rough.
“Every Friday, no matter how long the week was, we’d sit with a pint between us. It was her way of making the world slow down.”
Yara’s eyes stayed on me, steady. She didn’t push, didn’t fill the silence with pity. Just let me sit in it. That did something to me I couldn’t name.
