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Fifty
“Playing Nova-mommy finished?” Glenna asked quietly when Robin finally made it inside and Nova took off looking for Glenna’s girls and Becky.
“For the time being.”
“No need to call in Rory to interrogate?” Glenna was arranging plates around the big wooden table Phil had recently added another leaf to. “Kid fess up?”
“Just…keep all Heffiepoofs out of your bathrooms, Glen. I think she’ll be ok, though. She has some memories of her mother being angry and there being water involved. She mixed it up with Nick today, I think. And was afraid he’d send her and Noah away. She’s been worrying herself sick all day.”
Glenna patted Robin’s shoulder. “Poor kid. But she’s got Nick now…and you…to help her see she’s loved.”
Robin nodded. “I’m going to head back. Do a deep clean of his floor before the kids go walking around barefooted.”
“Sure, that’s what you’re doing. Philip told me you gave Nick a real wet one today. I don’t think he meant a towel, either.”
“I kissed him, ok? He was holding Becky and singing about the great flood and just…so not Doug…and so perfectly Nick…and I just…”
Glenna laughed. And kept laughing. When she sobered she hugged Robin. “I know exactly what you mean. I first realized I’d fallen for Phil while the man had his shirt off, picking toys up off the floor. Talk about a wake-up moment there.”
“Mine involved toilet water and soaked towels. We are so sophisticated here, Glen.”
“No. That we are not. We’re just falling for men who know how to be fathers. I’ve never seen anything more attractive than that.”
Amen. “I’m going to go. Can you call me if she needs anything else?”
“I’ll do that. Go get your man, Robbie. I’ve already got mine. Who knows? Maybe Rory will be next.”
“She has to get over her Second Greatest Mistake first. I’m not sure how that will ever happen.”
“I think she’ll do just fine. I think…in the end…we all will. It’s the season of life we’re in now.”
Glenna always had been the wisest of their little trio. No denying that.
She stopped off at Patton’s room before she left. It gave her a start to see what he’d done with the room she’d once slept in so long ago.
She’d laid in that room at eighteen and plotted out exactly how to seduce Nicholas Tyler.
Hard to forget that. Now there was a teenager that looked just like Nick—with just enough of Robin thrown in—claiming the space as his own. Sometimes when he smiled, she saw her sister all over again.
Life was funny that way.
But damn, did she love the continuity of it. Of…home.
“Is Novie ok? She did something to the toilet, didn’t she?” Noah asked from where he was sprawled over the bed with an extremely old laptop in front of him. He had an expression almost as panicked as Nova’s in his big light blue eyes. She looked at her nephew and jerked her head toward the hall.
Time for a talk with this kid, too.
Patton was a smart, smart boy. He understood what she meant.
He was one of the most perceptive kids she knew—he really did take after his mother in that. Love for that kid swelled in her heart—just like it did for Nick’s son in front of her.
“A toy fell in. Apparently, it swells in water. When that happens things can get blocked. And flooding can happen. Ask me how I know—and why I’ve banned all Legos from my bathrooms, forever. It happens. In fact, Pip flooded that one across the hall right there with a Beanie Baby years ago. It was a pink pony or unicorn one, I believe. Phil slipped in the toilet water, and his arms did the whole pinwheel thing. Narrowly missed going straight down the stairs and landing at my sister’s feet.”
“Is Nick really mad at her? Sometimes my mom would get really, really mad at Nova when she’d do stuff. Sometimes Nova did a lot of stupid stuff. But it was because she is a little kid. Mom was mad at Nova all the time.”
Robin shook her head. But that explained why Nova was so afraid. “No. Of course not. It was an accident, sweetie. He could just as easily have dropped that toy in there, today, too. You know what he probably wishes had happened today?”
Noah shook his head.
