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“French toast is your favorite, right?”
She nodded once. “Yeah.”
“Is something wrong? Do you want to talk about it?”
For a moment, she simply stared down at her plate, but then she finally turned to look at me. In her eyes, I saw real sadness. I didn’t know the full story behind where her parents were that meant she had to stay here with her uncle, but I silently wondered if maybe that was the issue this morning. This was an entirely new experience for her, and from the way Mr. Allen acted toward her on that first day when I arrived at this house, it had to have been a traumatic one.
Thankfully, he’d been absent from all the areas of the property where Grace and I spent time since that first day. All that anger and negativity wasn’t good for a child.
It wasn’t good for anyone.
“Why doesn’t Uncle Nico like me?” she asked quietly.
In her big blue eyes, now I saw something more than sadness. In them, I saw hurt. What a son of a bitch he was! The child had to be without her mother and father. Wasn’t that bad enough? Did he have to make things worse for Grace by acting like an ogre?
It was up to me to make sure she knew whatever he felt had nothing to do with her. All she needed to worry about was if it would rain today and cancel our plans to go outside and if Michael would make her grilled cheese for the fourth day in a row. She didn’t need to worry herself about the utter rudeness and unkindness of her uncle.
Reaching over, I gently touched her forearm and smiled as I shook my head. “Your uncle likes you, Grace. I’m sure he loves you. You’re his family. He’s just a bit tense because of work. That’s all. I’m sure if he could take a vacation, you’d see he’d be so much fun.”
Every word of that was a lie. I didn’t think Mr. Allen liked her. In fact, I was relatively sure he didn’t like anyone in this house, including himself. As for her being family, I didn’t think he gave a damn about that either. I hated making excuses for his bad behavior. No matter what hassles his work threw at him, he shouldn’t have ever been so callous with her.
Not that I actually thought he was a miserable bastard because of his work. I suspected that was just his personality. He didn’t think about other people’s feelings before he opened his mouth. In truth, I thought he was merely a selfish son of a bitch who chose not to be nice, even to a five year old little girl.
“He never smiles at me like you do. He just frowns and stomps his feet when he walks away,” she said sadly.
“I have a lot to smile about. Maybe he doesn’t. I mean, having a big house might not make him happy. Some people are like that. Me? I’m happy because I get to spend time with you.”
That brought a smile that lit up her round face. “I wish he was like you.”
Me too, honey. Me too.
“Do you think if I made him something he’d be happy? At school, we made macaroni pictures, and it was fun. Can I make him one?” she asked with such hopefulness that I couldn’t say no.
Even though I worried he’d throw the thing back in her face the second she handed it to him. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold my tongue if he did that.
“Sure! Finish your breakfast, and then we’ll have your uncle’s driver take us to the store in town. Let’s see, we’ll need those little elbow macaroni, right? And glue. Are we thinking glitter, or are we going low key?”
As she rushed to stuff the remaining piece of French toast into her mouth, she said, “Defritly glibber. Purple wif silfer amd gof sparfles.”
Laughing, I tried to figure out what she meant. “What? Swallow first and then tell me.”
Grace gulped the rest of her breakfast down and smiled. “Purple glitter with silver and gold sparkles.”
“Okay. Purple, silver, and gold it is. When you’re done, we’ll get busy.”
“Can we make it outside?” Grace asked with big eyes full of hope.
Turning to look out the window, I saw an autumn breeze blowing the leaves around in the yard. I hated to disappoint her, but as much as I loved going outside, I was pretty sure this morning’s project wouldn’t survive the gusts.
“I think inside might be a better idea. We don’t want all that glitter flying off the macaroni. That would ruin the whole look, don’t you think?”
A bright child, she understood completely and nodded while she lifted her glass of milk to her lips. “Yeah. I want the glitter to stick to the macaroni elbows.”
The way she said that made me giggle. The thought of a doctor telling a patient they were afflicted with macaroni elbow settled into my brain, and I shook my head at the silliness.
With pride, Grace pointed down at the empty plate in front of her and beamed a smile. “All done. Time for macaroni art. My teacher said that every mommy and daddy loves macaroni pictures. Do you think uncles do too?”
I stood up and moved her plate full of syrup away from her so her long blond hair didn’t dip into it when she got up from the table. “I’m sure uncles and aunts love them too. All adults do. I mean, who doesn’t love food stuck to paper with glue and covered in glitter? You’d have to be crazy not to love that.”
