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God, all those dates and the wishing I did aloud. No wonder Olivia felt this way.
“We’re going to be okay. I promise.”
Olivia sniffled and stared at the wall. “What about my dream?”
“Honey, it’s okay to dream still…It’s okay to want more. We just don’t need it. Do you understand the difference?”
“I don’t want it to be just us anymore, Mama. I’m sick of it.”
“Sweetheart…”
“I want Nate!” She glared back at me. “That’s my dream. You just said I could have it!” She jerked her arm, pulling out of my grasp, and cried into her pillow.
I closed my eyes through a breath. Then I looked down into my lap at Olivia’s notebook. Some of the pages were still turned in and bent. I opened the book to fix the paper for her, unfolding one of the corners and moving on to the next. After I fixed it, I stared at the page and at the list I had never seen before.
In Olivia’s large, careful handwriting, she’d written:
Reasons Why Nate Makes the Best Dad Ever
by Olivia Savage1. He’s 30. That’s older than my mom. She likes that.
2. HE WEARS GLASSES!! His hair is dark like ours. He’s tall. I think I’m tall for 8.
3. Knows how to make smores. I can’t wait to try them.
4. Likes games like us.
5. Holds my hand.
6. Talks to me a lot.
7. Called me and Marley his girls!! BOTH OF US!!
8. So funny.
9. Makes the best pancake shapes.Olivia drew a giant arrow indicating a page turn, and on the back of the paper, she’d continued.
10. We already look like a family.Below number ten she had taped the Fourth of July picture of us. I wiped tears from my eyes and skimmed the rest of the list.
11. Wanted me on his Putt-Putt team.
12. Plays with me.
13. GLASSES! I’m writing glasses twice. I think it’s so cool how we match.Olivia’s explanations were random and each one just as important to her as the previous—I knew that in my heart. She wrote down things I didn’t know about, like Nathan telling her she looked pretty in a dress she wore one day and a confession Oliver revealed—My brother said he wished our last name was Bell. ME TOO! Her list ended with reasons seventeen and eighteen.
17. Smiles at me & Ollie.
18. Smiles at my mom.Tears fell onto my cheeks and rolled down my neck.
I kept my agony silent while Olivia revealed hers to me, to Oliver in the next room, and to anyone living in the apartments above and below us. She was loud in her heartbreak. Her cries couldn’t be absorbed into the pillow.
I left the room feeling responsible for the pain she was feeling. For Oliver’s, which I saw when I pushed his door open and found him on the floor, plucking at the string of his coiled sleeping bag.
He was already packed and ready for the camping trip on Friday.
I almost told him it could still happen. I wanted to tell him it would. I’d give anything to promise that, because I couldn’t stand to see the little tremble in his bottom lip he thought he hid from me when he turned away and glared at the wall the second I peeked into his room.
“Can you ask Olivia to stop crying like that? She’s bothering me.” With a quick hand, Oliver wiped underneath his glasses. His small shoulders trembled in little jerks.
He could cry in silence if he tried hard enough. I’d seen him do it before.
“I don’t want to talk right now, okay?” Oliver said, keeping his focus on the wall.
“Okay, sweetheart.”
I left him, pulling the door closed, and walked back to my room. I didn’t tell Olivia anything. I knew Oliver wasn’t really bothered by her. He sympathized. He felt what she felt, and that had absolutely nothing to do with the two of them being twins.
That was it. I was sick of waiting. I palmed my phone and carried it to the farthest corner of my apartment. I didn’t want the kids to hear me.
I steadied my breaths as the phone rang and rang, and when Nathan’s voice mail picked up, I shook my head and cursed. I hated leaving this in a message. I wouldn’t get the answers I needed.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I wanted to know if you were still planning to take Oliver on the campout or if I needed to ask Brian…If I don’t hear from you, I’m going to assume you aren’t going.” I looked in the direction of the hallway. I pictured my son’s face. “I wasn’t going to tell you how disappointed Oliver will be if you bail on him, but I think you should know. And Olivia too…” Tears spilled onto my cheeks. I quickly wiped them away. “Um, anyway, that’s why I’m calling. And I wanted to make sure you were okay. I hope you are.” I almost hung up, adding my last words on a whisper. “Please call me, Nathan.”
