Page 61 of Nanny for the Doctor

I can see the emotion welling behind Reed’s eyes, and my heart pinches from the fullness straining it.

“I’m going to get better at that, bud. Okay?”

“Okay, Dad.” Henry steps back and points at the table. “Can we play some more?”

“Of course, Henry. Anything you want.”

As he sits back down next to me, I smile over at Reed. It’s all Henry has ever wanted. All I want. Just more time with him, and for once, he’s actually trying.

Chapter20

Reed

As I join Mae and Henry at the table once more, there’s a war going on that has nothing to do with the card game. I’m struggling so hard between feeling guilty and feeling accomplished.

I feel guilty because I said no to the extra shift when I could be saving people. But I also feel guilty because the look of joy on Henry’s face says it all about how neglected he’s been.

Also sitting behind that guilt is the pride I get from actually choosing my son this time around because I’ve been so bad about doing that.

And here we go again on the guilt train.

Ugh. This is much harder than I thought it would be.

Thankfully, Mae has a way of making rough situations even out. She directs Henry and me to try Uno since we’ve played War at least five times now.

It’s been ages since I’ve played, and the cards from my deck are stiff and glossy. No one’s been using them because Henry knows how to play solitaire by himself, but there isn’t much you can do with Uno alone.

We deal out the deck so each of us has an equal amount of cards, and then Mae refreshes us on the rules again. I’ve completely forgotten about the reverse and take four cards, and weirdly, this deck seems to have blank wild cards that you can write on your own.

“What’s this?”

I hold out the once-blank card that I’ve been dealt and frown.

Henry sits up straighter, smiling, and reaches for the card. “That’s one that we wrote on before we started using the deck. My mom and I did a bunch.”

“Oh, that’s awesome, Henry.” Mae smiles, taking the card and looking closer. “Wait. This says take everyone else’s cards even if you’re about to go out.”

Henry laughs, running a hand through his hair like I do, and the pinch in my chest at thinking about Clara eases.

“Yeah, that was me. I wanted a super win card. But Mom only let me make one.”

Mae joins in with her own chuckle. “I can see why.”

The card ends up going to Henry, and we begin the game with Mae.

After a few turns around our little circle, I have the most cards, being completely hit with Henry’s homemade wild card. Henry still has three cards and Mae only has two cards remaining in her hand.

Yeah, I’m not going to win this.

As I consider which color to make it, Mae winks at me like she has a trick up her sleeve, and I’m quite intrigued.

I choose blue, knowing she doesn’t have that color because I have about ninety-nine percent of them, so at least Henry will stand a better chance of winning.

Mae goes first, laying another wild on top of mine so the whole thing was moot, and declares it to be yellow. I have zero yellows, and we’ve played a bunch of them.

You sneaky devil.

It shifts to Henry, who lays a card down slowly and then shouts over at Mae as he makes his play.

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