Page 144 of Test the Ice
My phone buzzes, and Charleigh reaches for it.
“This is Mommy’s,” I say.
“Da?” she asks questionably.
I stare at her, phone in my hand.
Surely she isn’t asking if it’s Malaki.
Right?
Malaki
But do you love it?
Charleigh scurries off toward the living room, and I follow after her. With my eye on the time, I turn on the channel the game will be on so I don’t miss a thing. I reread Malaki’s text, my fingers hovering over the keyboard.
A house is a material object, and material things don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. I’ve lived in a house, a trailer, a dorm room, a shitty apartment, and now here.
Not many of those felt like a home to me, and I most definitely didn’t love them.
What I did love, though, was all the nonmaterialistic things.
The feeling of independence.
The idea that I was the only one who had a key to the door.
Zoe being next to me.
And now…Malaki.
We could live in the middle of the forest somewhere, in a dilapidated cabin without electricity, and I think I’d be happy. It’s not the walls that surround us or how sturdy each brick is that make me love this place.
It’s who I share it with.
Whether or not it was unplanned, or started off as a ruse, somewhere along the way, Malaki became my home, and that’s terrifying.
“Da!” Charleigh shouts excitedly.
She stands with her hands on the coffee table—the same one that Malaki taped pool noodles to so she wouldn’t bump her chin on the edge. She’s gawking at the TV, watching the Coyotes skate across the ice as they wait for the Blue Devils.
“Da!” she shouts.
I laugh. “That’s not Malaki,” I say. “But close.”
Her pretty brown eyes turn to me with a quiet question, but then she turns toward the TV again.
“Da…da.”
I pause.
My heart takes a tumble.
“What?” I whisper.
“Dada!” she shouts.
I blink though watery eyes.
