Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Neil handed Olivia off to me, and I carried her upstairs. The bottoms of my feet tingled with every step as I imagined the worst falling scenarios possible. Sure, I’d gotten way more comfortable caring for Olivia, but I always had this constant loop of horrible things that could happen running through my mind. Like an old movie newsreel, but in a theatre built of my worst nightmares.
Parenting fucked you up.
Though the master bedroom on the third floor was a bridge-style loft open on both sides—which would be a problem when Olivia was old enough to be traumatized hearing her grandfather and I having sex, for sure—you could walk right up to the two-story windows in the living room. The house gave me vertigo like nothing else I’d ever experienced, but it had an amazing view of the bay and the mountains.
“Look, Olivia,” I murmured to her, pointing to the crystalline blue sky outside. “This is your home, too.”
Though Neil had been born in England, he’d spent a lot of his childhood here in Iceland, where his father had been born and raised. Neil had brought Emma here as often as he could. She’d been able to speak the language and had thought of the country as her third home. The Elwoods were pretty lucky to be able to consider the entire world their backyard.
The fact that we could give that to Olivia choked me up a little. We couldn’t bring Emma and Michael back, no matter how much we wanted to. What we could do was raise their daughter to be just as amazing and her mother had been. Neil had been a wonderful father; he could do it again, now that he was getting better. As it so happened, I wasn’t too bad at the mom-ish thing, either.
Neil brought our stuff in, and he actually whistled as he did it. The simple, normal domesticity put some kind of life into him.
At least, I hoped that was what it was. I wasn’t stupid enough that I wouldn’t check for drugs stashed around the place later.
That was an upsetting thought. A rush of anger filled my stomach with hot acid. I was probably getting an ulcer from the whiplash emotions I’d been subjected to for weeks.
When he came up to the living room, I took a deep breath to banish my anger. Put it in a bubble and blow it away, Scaife. We were here to heal and become a family, again. There was no sense exploding, now.
I stood behind Olivia as she navigated up and down the length of the burnt orange couch, her tiny feet lost in the thick, wooly area rug.
“Look at her!” Neil exclaimed, covering his mouth with both hands. His eyes went all watery with pride.
“Yup, she’s cruising, now. And look.” I reached for one of her chubby little hands and lifted it from the safety of the cushion. Then, I let go, and she peered up at me, her little red nose wrinkling as she snorted with delight at balancing one-handed.
She sat down, hard.
“We need to keep her confined to this general area,” I lamented, gesturing to all the concrete. “I’m afraid she’s going to split her melon on this.”
“Mmm.” He frowned. “Perhaps, it would have been better to stay in London.”
“Right, the town house with the hundred bajillion staircases,” I vetoed him.
“Langhurst Court, then?” He sounded like he was already making plans to pack us up again, but like hell I’d be going to that mausoleum-slash-Downton-Abbey monstrosity any time soon. Neil loved the place, but it gave me the severe creeps.
“How about no? I don’t think Skeletonham Palace is an appropriate place for a baby.” I paused. “Or anything that isn’t a murder-mystery weekend where someone actually dies.”
“You can’t avoid it forever,” he warned, adding an overblown evil laugh.
Olivia squealed and held her hands out.
“Oh, is Afi funny?” he asked, reaching down to scoop her into his arms. He lifted her above his head and looked up to kiss her, and I tried to picture him doing the same thing with Emma as a much younger man.
I wanted Emma to be here for this. I wanted to see Michael lifting Olivia up the same way.
“I love you.”
The words had come out without even thinking. I didn’t have to. Being there with Neil and seeing how much he cherished Olivia—who had, over the course of a few months, become the most important human being in my life—gave me hope that he really could be the man I married again. Or, a version of that man, who was a little dinged up but still functional.
“I love you, too,” he said, his throat moving as he swallowed. “I can’t believe I almost missed this.”
“Missed what?”
“Having another day with the two of you.” He pressed his face to the top of Olivia’s head, closing his eyes. She snuggled her face into his neck and yawned. God, I loved baby yawns.