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Most people who knew more than one lawyer, but still. Just as with the epic smear job on Richard the III, William “Shite-Talker” Shakespeare was mostly to blame for the ‘kill all the lawyers’ chestnut. Most of the latter-day quoters seemed to forget about the fact that the character who spoke the immortal words was an idiotic cut-throat, in the process of brainstorming how best to overthrow the state.
Sleep was again a stranger. My mind was still too busy listening out for signs of trouble. I also wasn’t keen on a visit. Every time I closed my eyes, there she was. True as life, ironic as that phrase had become.
I finally gave up and trod downstairs. Flannel flapped like a flag in a breeze, each step a further progression along the way.
The page fluttered like a butterfly wing. I shouldn’t have expected less from her.
“Morning.”
“Morning, daddy.”
“Did you sleep?” I asked her, lifting an eyebrow.
“Uh-huh.”
“Truly?”
“Some,” she admitted, but her eyes were still locked on the words before her.
Time was a relative concept. One she also had yet to fully master, making it futile to ask for number of hours. Especially when she was reading and the rest of the world melted away from her.
“Are you sleepy?”
“No, daddy.”
Bullshit. I knew her too well. She was tired, but she was lying through her teeth. My insistence that sleep was important was likely the rotten root at the heart of her lie.
“It’s okay if you are. We’ll just have to muddle along, okay?”
“Okay.”
Straps flipped and buckles clipped, getting Lily into her favorite overalls in no time flat. The shirt was more of a challenge, but we one in the end.
Leaves on the wind, we blew down into the kitchen, barely a particle out of place in our wake, and I set to work making pancakes. I’m not sure how we’re going to be working everything out as far as meals go, but I make some extra for Emilie and Gen, just in case.
It turns out to have been a good idea when Emilie pads into the kitchen a few minutes later, a yawning Gen balanced on her hip. She seems surprised to find me here already.
“When did you two get up?”
“About twenty minutes ago. Looks like we’re ahead of you this time.”
Her laugh sounded like a wind-chime in a summer gust, causing my spirit to sing in something like harmony.
And that contented harmony settled like a morning dew. Our composed quartet at each side of the perfectly square table, dark oak surface polished to a mirror glow.
“Pancakes, pancakes,” Gen chanted while stuffing herself, in contravention of at least three laws of physics.
“Any marvelous machinations of the afternoon?” I asked if only to break the silence.
We’d agreed that, as per Ann White’s suggestion, we’d trade off childcare, and I was first up to bat while Emilie worked on her latest case.
“Yes actually, but I can’t -”
“Divulge any more? I understand entirely.”
It was small but significant. Like a penny on the train tracks, if only far more encouraging. Far from the first smile I’d ever seen, context could still count for a lot. I wasn’t delusional enough to count on a fast friendship, let alone what my heart, as well as organs further down, was shouting for, but the pastures were looking greener by the minute.
“I’ll be back,” Emilie said, hugging Gen like she was headed to Australia for a year.
“I know, Mama.”
With all reluctance available to the human soul, Emilie set Gen down to the tiles and went in the general direction of the stairs.
“What would you like to do?” I asked when we were left to our own.
“Building?”
“Sure! Right this way.”
Miniaturized construction materials, constructed mostly of wood, scattered the tasteful plush carpet as Gen constructed civilization in microcosm.
“Wow,” Lily agreed.
“You could go try, too,” I offered.
Silence could speak volumes. The pause permeating the spacious sitting room was stuffed with subtext as to Lily’s true desires, and the arguments there against.
I nudged her gently. “Give it a try, you might like it.”
Approaching the scatter like a minefield, Lily tried on her own to put something of interest together. Like Cora’s first, shaky attempts on the harp, with similarly wonderful results. Sensing a disturbance in the thrum of her universe, Gen went to help her new friend. Within minutes the tykes were getting along like a house on fire.
My primary purpose in the proceedings was essentially to make sure noting was swallowed that shouldn’t be. And tweezers were close at hand in case of splinters.
Infinity marched. A parade of potentiality passing mortal time in a steady flow. It was the most unbroken time I’d spent with Lily in year. Gen was a delightful addition, only making things better. A testament to Emilie as a parent.
“Hungry,” Gen said, garnering my attention.
“Question or request?”
“Re-kest?”
“Right then.”
Each of my hands occupied by a much smaller one, I led my little charges to the spectacle of the kitchen, illuminated like a vision on heaven.
