Page 18 of Chosen Road

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had hot chocolate. I think I’m overdue,” I said.

I’d always loved hot chocolate. This wasn’t the gourmet kind I normally treated myself to. Maybe I was a bit of a hot chocolate snob.

“You sure you can handle it? That one has marshmallows.”

I laughed out loud, shocked by her banter. “I’ll do my best.”

I filled the kettle and flipped the switch while she made her selection.

She side-eyed me as she chose her usual. I turned away letting her know I wasn’t going to call her on making the same choice she always did.

We weren’t at a place yet where she trusted that my teasing came from a place of kindness and enjoyment, not mockery or condescension.

By the time the kettle boiled, and we doctored our drinks, we had burned through almost a quarter of our time together. Usually at this point we simply sat together quietly in my office.

I’d worked hard to make my office a welcoming place for my kids. One shelf on my bookshelf, I reserved for children’s books that I picked up. Any child who wanted a book could take one. They were usually hesitant, suspicious, wondering what they would have to give in exchange.

I loved taking out my permanent marker to mark their name on the inside cover, proving to them it was theirs to keep. It usually took a little longer to convince them they didn’t owe me anything.

I looked at the next shelf up. There I stocked coloring books for all ages and markers, a few journals for any older kids who might want one, and pens sat in a jar beside them. I even kept a couple of sketchbooks and sketching pens in case I ran into any burgeoning artists.

One more shelf housed a small collection of stuffed toys. A lot of my kids didn’t own very much. If I saw them eyeing the stuffies, I encouraged them to choose one. I kept embroidery floss in my desk drawer, and I always offered to sew their name onto their new toy. I was fast and they rarely turned me down.

On my desk was a large glass bowl filled with chocolates and treats. Those I had to refresh every week.

Mallory had never chosen anything from any of my shelves. I’d come to accept that if all I could do was offer her a safe place to sit for an hour a week, that I would at least continue to do that. But this day, she surprised me.

“So why is your life so not boring?” She rolled her eyes to cover the fact that she was interested, maybe even concerned.

I tipped my head to the side, wondering what she would do if I revealed a piece of myself to her. “My husband had a heart attack.”

Her eyes widened as they met mine. “True?”

“Yes. True.”

“Were you scared?”

“Very. Still am.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Losing him.”

She scoffed. “You’ve obviously never lost anyone before. Believe me, you get over it.”

“Why do you say I have never lost anyone?” I asked, curious.

“It’s obvious,” she waved a hand in my direction, then pointed at the picture of me with Gus and Alex on my desk. “You’ve got it all together.”

I nodded. “My dad died when I was eleven.”

Her head turned sharply, and she met my eyes, a question in hers. I nodded.

“My mom left a year later.”

Her jaw dropped. “Were you a foster kid, too?”

“No.” I shook my head. “My grandparents raised my sister and me. And then, when I was twenty-two, I lost my grandfather, too.”

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