“Daddy drinks waaaaay too much coffee,” Elle says, climbing into her chair at the table.
“Careful,” I warn her mildly while gesturing for Penny to sit. “You still rely on me for food.”
Penny laughs, and it does that thing again, settling somewhere low inside me and loosening something she wasn’t responsible for coiling tight.
Before she sits, Penny pours a juice carefully and slides the glass toward Elle, then grabs a paper towel and wipes up a small spill before I even register it’s happened.
I watch as she finally takes the seat across from me, tucking one leg slightly under the chair, and smiles at Elle like this is the best company she’s ever had.
The table fills with Elle’s excited voice almost instantly. She talks with her hands, describing a dream she had about Gus learning how to skateboard, then pivots to how she’s almost as tall as the second shelf in the pantry.
“Almost,” I mutter.
“I am if I stretch on my tippy toes.”
Penny hides a smile behind her mug.
“What else is new?” she asks Elle, as though she’s genuinely catching up with an old friend.
“I’m gonna be learning multiplication soon,” Elle says proudly. “It’s easy.”
“It’s not,” I mutter.
“It is,” Elle insists. “Three twos is six.”
“That’s addition,” I tell her.
“Two times three is six, Daddy.”
Penny nods thoughtfully. “She’s got you there.”
I shake my head and cut into my pancakes, aware that I’ve just been outsmarted by my five-year-old and a Spice Girls enthusiast. I’m clearly losing my edge.
Gus settles beside Penny’s chair and rests his head on her knee, and she strokes his fur absently, still listening to Elle explain how she’s going to build a birdhouse in the back garden this spring.
“You’re ambitious,” Penny tells her.
“She gets that from me,” I say.
Penny glances up at me over the rim of her mug. “The ambition or the bird love?”
“I’m multi-talented.”
She grins and gently places her mug down to pick up her fork. There’s an ease here that wasn’t there in the bar last night, andshe looks different in the light of the morning. Softer and less guarded. And probably less stressed now that she’s not watching Chip lose his mind while trying to impress Gwen.
“How was the walk over?” I ask.
“Cold,” she says. “But good. I forget how quiet mornings are outside the city.”
“You’re used to noise, huh?”
“Constant,” she agrees. “Sirens, traffic. Someone’s always yelling about something.”
“You don’t miss it?”
She hums and smiles down at Elle, watching her pour way too much syrup onto her plate.
“I haven’t really been gone long enough,” she says honestly. “But I don’t miss feeling like I was on display or feeling rushed to do a million things or keep up with appearances.”
