Page 82 of The Loves We Lost
Viola strokes a piece of hair from my forehead then climbs off my lap. “Can I show you the album before we leave?”
I glance over at Avery’s baby book that ruined me the last time I looked at it. “I’d like that.”
This time when Vi sits next to me and opens it, I’m able to look properly. “You were fucking cute pregnant, Vi.”
She shrugs. “I felt like a beached whale. Could barely roll out of bed. It took twenty-seven hours for Avery to take her sweet time to come out.”
“Was labor tough?”
“In the moment? Yes. My mom says I nearly broke her fingers.” Viola chuckles. “I don’t know, time erases the worst of it, I guess. You forget just how rough it was.”
“I wonder what it would have been like to be there for you. To be the one whose hand you squeezed. The one who got to hold Avery when she was first born. The late night feeds.”
Viola’s eyes glisten with tears. “I’m so sorry I took that from you, Miles.”
I kiss her forehead. “I’m still processing it all. But I’m grateful for the apology.”
She nods. “I understand. I’m here for whatever you need to say to find peace with it and with me.”
“I’m glad you’re coming back with me, buttercup.”
Vi leans into me, placing her head on my shoulder. “Me too. You’ve got four weeks to convince me it’s safer than I think.”
28
VIOLA
When we pull into Miles’s house, the garage door is wide open, there are a number of bikes and cars—or cages as Miles calls them—dotted on the driveway, and there are swaths of cardboard being removed by Saint and Rae.
“Are we here, Daddy?” Avery asks from her booster seat in the back.
“We are, thank the baby Jesus, because this car is a sardine can on wheels,” Miles says.
“Hey,” I say. “She’s been good to me.”
Miles pats my knee as he kills the engine and removes the key. “And she’ll be good to someone else once I’ve bought you a more durable and safer vehicle.”
“I don’t need a new car,” I insist.
“I know.” Miles tugs on the handle to open the car door. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to buy you one though.”
“I want a new car,” Avery shouts from the back. “A red one.”
Miles grins. “A red one it is.”
I shake my head. “How am I going to win when the two of you gang up on me?”
Avery chuckles and then squeals as Miles opens the door and frees her from the confines of the car.
As if knowing we’ve arrived, Niro appears on the steps. “Did I hear my niece arrive?”
“I’m here, Uncle Colton,” she shouts as she flies up the driveway into his arms.
“We don’t need a car,” I say to Colton.
“A red car,” Miles replies.
“Anycar.”
