Page 47 of But For You

I made a noise. “Fine, yeah, she was bad.”

“How come you don’t hit me when I’m bad?”

“I don’t think hitting accomplishes anything.”

“Me neither.” She nodded, patting my arm.

I started laughing, and when Kola waggled his eyebrows at me, I lost it.

Sam just shook his head.

The day was a whirlwind. There were so many activities and sign-ups, and Sam’s father wanted both his sons with him. I left to take the kids to the playground, let them run around like crazy people for two hours, and then took them for a walk around the lagoon. Hannah started getting whiny and grouchy, and when I picked her up and carried her, she fell asleep in seconds. We went back to the room, and I had Kola do the homework his teacher had given us and put Hannah down on the couch so she would be out with us instead of in the bedroom alone.

I got a call around two that reminded us we had horseback rides scheduled for three. Apparently, we were already signed up to do lots of things.

We didn’t see Sam again until after five. We had already showered and changed when he came through the front door.

“Hello!”

“In here!”

He found all three of us under the covers, watching a movie on my bed with the remainders of room service around us.

“We have to go to dinner, guys. Are you ready?”

Kola moaned and burrowed into my side, his arm on my stomach as he hid his face.

“What happened?” Sam looked at me.

“Kola got horse sick,” I said with as much of a straight face as I could manage.

Hannah pretended to puke for Sam, just in case he was confused. “He threw up all over the saddle, Daddy.”

Kola said something no one could understand into my T-shirt.

“Tell me.” Sam smiled.

“Well, it was all fine until⁠—”

“He has it on video,” Hannah informed her father.

“Which I think might have been the problem,” I explained. “You know when you’re looking through that viewfinder too long … I think he got motion sickness.”

“Poor guy.” Sam empathized, moving over to Kola’s side.

His son rolled over and, when Sam bent, wrapped his arms around his father’s neck.

“Maybe I should order room service, too, huh, and stay here with you guys?”

Kola nodded.

“No, you gotta be with your family, Sam. You⁠—”

“I am with my family,” he assured me, reaching out to take my hand. “And my boy needs me.”

“You wanna see the video, Daddy?” Hannah was trying to be helpful.

“Don’t look at the barf,” Kola cautioned.