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Chapter 16
Natalie
“Honey, wake up,” David says softly, shaking my shoulder.
“It’s too early,” I complain. I blink through sleepy eyes at him. I can’t see him properly; he’s so blurry. I try to rub the sleep out of my eyes.
He chuckles and nuzzles my neck. I wrap my arms around him and kiss him. He feels the same as always. He smells the same, too. But I can’t make out his features. I touch his dark hair and try to find his blue eyes. I want to look into them and see the way they smile back at me.
“Why are we getting up again?” I ask. Something important is happening today, but I can’t remember what.
“Kylie has a recital, remember?”
Oh, right. The recital. I groan. I forgot about that. I don’t want to go—I’m warm in bed and David is right here. He hasn’t been here for years and I missed him. A lot.
“Where have you been?” I ask. I can’t remember where he went. It’s on the edge of the memories, something that aches and scrapes. But it’s just beyond my reach and right here, right now, it’s warm and safe.
“I got Kylie up and told her to get dressed. I wasn’t gone long.” He plants kisses all over my face to wake me up and I giggle.
I relish in the warmth that flows between us before he flips the covers off. Icy cold washes over me, and dread settles in my stomach.
“It’s cold,” I say and shiver.
“It’s hot out, honey,” David says. “Are you coming down with something?”
I’m not the one coming down with something; you’re the one in trouble, I think, but I push it away. I don’t know why I’m thinking it.
Kylie bounds into the room. She’s nine, thin and reedy when she was a pudgy toddler, but she’s dressed in the clothes she wore as a child.
“Are we leaving yet?” She’s dressed herself in a pink tutu and messy pigtails that look wrong on her older face.
“Baby, you can’t wear that,” I hear myself saying.
Kylie’s lip starts to tremble and she crosses her arms comically over her chest. “Why not?”
“Let her wear it,” David says before I can give her a realistic reason and scoops her up, taking her from the verge of tears to squealing laughter when he swings her around and blows raspberries on her arm. She’s small in his arms when she stood up to his shoulder a moment ago. “She looks like a princess.”
“A fairy princess, daddy,” Kylie says, lisping her s’s. She hasn’t lisped in years.
“Of course!”
I shake my head but I can’t help but smile. David has always been so good with her. I shake the feeling that everything is out of place.
I get up to shower and dress before we have to leave. When I get out of the shower, I hear David and Kylie in the kitchen. Her chatter is older now, more grown-up. She’s telling him about school and Jenna and her art classes. David’s replies are as if she’s saying something completely different. I can only make out bits of their disjointed conversation.
David appears in the bedroom door a moment later.
“We’re out of milk. I’m running to the store, quick.”
“Just make toast.” I squeeze the excess water from my hair with a towel.
“Kylie wants her cereal.”
I shake my head. “She can’t always get what she wants.”
David comes to me and puts his arms around my waist. I’m trying to brush out my wet hair and stop.
“She’s four, honey,” David says. “And it’s her big day. She has more than enough time to learn she won’t get what she wants.”
