“You’re leaving?” Hand to the forehead. Of course she’s leaving, you numbskull. The deal was she looked after Chloe while you worked. You’re home now, and she wants to be too.Heat slithered up the back of my neck. “I mean, you cooked all this food. It doesn’t seem right that you don’t get to eat any of it.”
“Miss Molly, I think I counted wrong.”
Both Molly and I looked to Chloe at the table. She rubbed the end of her braid across her chin and her lips puckered in concentration.
“What do you think you counted wrong?” Molly asked.
“The plates. There are only two. See? One, two. But there are three of us.” Chloe pointed to each of us while she counted. “One, two, three.”
“Great counting, sweetheart.” I turned a little so my back faced Chloe, then lowered my voice to address Molly. “We really would love if you’d join us. But if you have other plans or would like to head home, Chloe and I will understand.”
Molly seemed unsure. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding when you’re invited.”
“Well…”
I reached around her and grabbed another plate from the cabinet. “Here’s the third plate, Chloe. Great work on setting the table.”
Chloe skipped over and took the plate from my hand.
“Oh, all right.” Molly smiled and lifted the bowl of pasta to set it on the table.
“Do you know what the meat looked like that we used to make the balls, Daddy?”
I sat in my usual spot on the left of Chloe at the round table, and Molly took the seat on the other side of her, directly in front of me. I focused my gaze on my daughter. “What did it look like?”
Her eyes rounded. “Brains.”
Superior neural tissue compared to ground chuck. Nice. “Delicious. I’ll have two helpings please.”
Chloe hid her grin behind a giggle.
“Do you want to say grace tonight?” I asked her.
She scooted up in her chair and held out her hands to Molly and me. Her hand looked so tiny in mine, and the reminder of my responsibility as a father hit me once again square in the chest. There never will be a more terrifying nor rewarding job than parenthood.
“Aren’t you going to hold Miss Molly’s hand, Daddy?”
My gaze collided with Molly’s across the table. She blushed prettily and the heat slithered even farther up my neck. If my bumbling experience with her glasses a few moments earlier had been any indication, I shouldnotallow myself to touch Molly Osbourne again. No telling what my out-of-practice self would say or do that would cause her to quit on the spot. Then where would Chloe and I be? I hadn’t groveled and begged only to have this woman quit on her very first day.
But there was no getting around the contact and, even though logic told me to avoid her hand—make up some excuse that would appease my daughter that we needn’t all hold hands for prayer—I longed for the connection. The velvety touch of a woman. The reassuring squeeze of a partner.
I held my fingers out to Molly across the table, and she wordlessly slid her palm across mine. A jolt of remembrance shot through my arm, an awakening of longing and desires that grief and the rigors of life had buried deep inside me.
“God is great, God is good. Now we thank Him for our food.”
My fingers curled around Molly’s hand.
“By His hands, we are fed. We thank you, Lord, for our daily bread. Amen.”
“Amen,” Molly and I echoed. She lightly squeezed my hand, then retracted her arm to pick up her fork.
My head filled with noise. A confusing mix of memories and emotions. I’d always appreciated physical touch and so had Laura. Often in our marriage I’d found an excuse to trail a finger down my wife’s spine or press my hand to the small of her back. Even when we were teenagers and hadn’t officially started dating yet, I’d manage to get a seat next to her and press the side of my thigh to hers or hook my pinky around the smallest of her digits.
Since she’d died, I’d lavished that attention onto Chloe. We’d snuggle together to watch her favorite princess movies, or she’d hold my hand while we took a walk around the neighborhood.
But a four-year-old’s hand felt a lot different than a grown woman’s.
