I made him giggle by nuzzling his neck with my head, then changed his diaper, got him dressed, and headed upstairs.
Ellie told me she usually woke up at six-thirty, whether Henry was up or not, and I wanted the food to be ready for her. So I headed over to the play area with Henry, setting him down with a bottle. I could have put him in the carrier but I knew he was antsy to move around in the morning. “I’ll just be a minute, okay? No funny business.”
Of course, that’s when it all started going downhill.
I’d just gotten the bacon on and was whisking a couple of eggs when I looked up to see Henry crawling into the kitchen with half a houseplant sticking out of his mouth.
“Henry!” I ran over to him, fishing the leaves from his mouth. “How did you get out?” I inspected his mouth, and it looked like it was no harm done, but I ran him over to the washroom just to be sure, rinsing his mouth out with water. What if he’d headed to the stairs?
“You’re ridiculous!” I exclaimed into the mirror once I wasdone. I wasn’t sure which one of us I was talking to. Henry giggled.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror—I looked like shit. I had bags under my eyes, which were a little bloodshot.
“I look like I’ve been up all night with your mom,” I said. I gave myself a shit-eating grin.
Henry bopped me on the cheek with the flat of his hand.
I swear this kid could understand me.
But I was still unnerved by how he’d escaped. How was I supposed to be super-dad when I could mess up so easily? What would Ellie think? Because I’d have to confess this to her.
Fuck.
We were just heading back to the kitchen when the doorbell rang, scaring the shit out of me.
I frowned, but stuck Henry on my hip and jogged downstairs. Conrad, maybe?
It wasn’t Conrad. It was a sixty-something woman with salt and pepper hair and a wide smile. She was holding a bouquet of pink and white flowers.
“Sur—” She cut herself off when she saw me, her expression shifting through about a hundred different things as I stood there. “Oh.”
“Hi,” I said. The woman looked strangely familiar, though I was sure I’d never seen her in my life.
Then she smiled.
“You’re Ellie’s mom,” I said, realization dawning.
“Yes. Grace. And you are my grandson’s doppelgänger. Which I think can only mean one thing. You’re the famous Sam.”
Famous?
Grace held her hands out, and for a moment, I thought she wanted a hug. But when I moved in, she tsked. “Give me the baby, you goof. You can carry my suitcase.”
Heat flushed my cheeks. Shit. After feeling like I killed it last night with Ellie, and earlier this morning with Tommy, this morning had been one fail after the other.
When she took Henry from me, I wondered briefly if I was screwing this up, too. Except, she was definitely who she said she was. The way she made kissy faces at Henry was exactly the same as Ellie. Same with her laugh, when Henry said “Ba!”
I relaxed slightly, seeing the way Henry responded to her, and how delighted she clearly was to see him.
“You’ve learned so many words since I’ve seen you last!” Grace said to Henry as she headed up the stairs.
“I— Sorry, Ellie didn’t mention you were coming,” I said after I’d grabbed the suitcases and started wrestling them up the stairs after her.
“Oh, she doesn’t know. It’s a surprise. I’m here for Tommy’s birthday next week. I’ve never once missed it. Is something burning up here?”
“Oh,fuck.” I sprinted past her into the kitchen, where the bacon was black in the middle, smoke billowing. The smoke alarm was going to go off, it would freak Ellie out. She would see I was incompetent, I’d made a fool of myself in front of Ellie’s mom, and everything was falling apart.
I ran past Grace and Henry, doing a horse leap over the baby gate, which I still didn’t know how Henry had gotten out of, and through the still-open patio door. I stumbled to a stop at the railing, narrowly avoiding the urge to frisbee the whole thing out into the Quince River. Instead, I stood there holding the smoking pan, trying to regain my composure. It was then—only then, after all of that, even after looking at myself in the goddamned mirror—that I realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt. I thought of the scratches I’d been so proud of Ellie scraping down my back last night.
