Page 61 of Unravel Me

A sneaky smirk. “Sure thing, Ro.” His chuckle chases after me as I scoop up Connor’s diaper bag. “You’d be less grumpy if you got laid.”

“Mmm,” I grunt out, tossing the bag by the door before I join Connor on the living room floor, where he’s playing with his farm animals. “Are you ready to go to the park, baby?”

He picks up the small cow, thrusting it in my face. “Cow!Moooo!” The chicken is next, bouncing along my thigh. “Cluck-cluck, cluck-cluck!”

I tap on the green tractor. “And what’s this?”

“Trac-ta! Brum-brum!”

“Hey, monkey.” Archie leans in the doorway. “We goin’ to the park?”

Connor leaps to his feet, tossing his animals in a basket before running toward Archie on wobbly legs. “Pak!Pak!”

I throw my arms in the air. “Doesn’t care when I suggest it.”

“’Cause I’m cool Uncle Arch.” He scoops Connor up, setting him in the wagon and nudging my shoes toward me. “You’re just Mom.”

Just Momis trying her hardest to be cool, brave Mom, which is why I’m in my bathing suit again today for my son, chasing him around the splash pad at the park a half hour later beneath the warm summer sun.

“I’m proud of you,” Archie tells me when we break for a snack. “You’re making big strides with the water lately.”

“Connor had the best time swimming with Adam yesterday. He kept jumping in, right into Adam’s arms. He was so happy. I went in too. All the way.”

Archie stares at me, brows hiked, lips parted.

“Okay, I clung to Adam, and he promised he wouldn’t drop me. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, once I was in there, but I’d guess that has more to do with him.”

“Did you tell him? About—”

“That I almost drowned? Yeah.”

“And your parents?”

“I told him they passed away.”

“But you didn’t tell him the two were related?” he guesses. “You nearly drowning and your parents passing?”

I shake my head, shame creeping up my throat.

“Hey.” Archie squeezes my knee. “It’s okay. There’s no rush.”

“It’s just…what if I give him too much? Too soon? Then if it doesn’t work out, I’ve lost it all again. That sounds silly, I know, but—”

“It’s not silly, Rosie, but I do wish you weren’t always expecting the worst. I get it, though. Or I try to, at least.”

“Adam was in the foster system too,” I tell him quietly.

“Really? What are the chances? Something for you two to connect over.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too, but then…” I rub my neck, guilt making my throat tight. “I didn’t tell him I was in foster care. Our experiences were different. He was four, and he was adopted in under a year.”

Archie nods. “So you feel like, rather than connecting over a shared experience, they were way too different for Adam to possibly sympathize with you.”

I drop my face, ashamed. “How awful am I? Nobody is in the system for happy reasons. But when he talked about finding his family, I was just…so jealous. And I feel dirty for feeling that way, Arch. I’m an adult now. I should be over this. I’ve got a family of my own now. I have nothing to complain about.”

“Is that how that works? Your parents die, leaving you all alone in a big, scary world, you want nothing more than to find a family who’ll choose to love you, and when you don’t find that, you’re supposed to just grow up and get over it?” Archie shakes his head. “No, your experience definitely doesn’t diminish his, but neither does his diminish yours.”

“I should’ve told him then that I was in the system too,” I argue, “but I was so focused on how different our experiences were, how we couldn’t possibly connect because of those differences, how jealous I was, that I couldn’t share it.”

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