AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My eyes will hopefully make a full recovery someday.
“Yes!” Legs chirps happily.
I start the car, but before I can pull out of the driveway, my phone dings. I almost leave it, almost let it rest in the console, taunting me…
I can’t take it.
I stop the car and open the text.
Annie:Screw knitting. I’ll be front row at tonight’s show.
A smile tugs at my lips, and I start typing:“It’s a date.”
No. Don’t send that, you idiot.
Definitely not that.
I try again.“What did you decide to do tonight in the end?”
No! Not that either.
Texting is stressful.
I stare at my screen for another moment, unable to formulate a single coherent thought.
“Can you please turn on my song?” Legs asks, kicking my seat lightly as she does so.
“Don’t kick, Legs,” I say with as much authority as I can muster. It’s crazy—at work, I have people tripping over themselves to do exactly what I say, when I say it. But at home, I’m at the constant beck and call and mercy of a precocious eight-year-old. “We have a volume agreement in the car, remember?”
“Sorry,” she says with a sweet smile. “But I can’t hear the song.”
The child clearly does not care about honoring our carefully-negotiated pact regarding how loud we play her music while I’m playing taxi driver.
She blinks her big, dark eyes in the rearview mirror. “Pleaseeeeeeeeee Uncle Liam?”
My kryptonite. Seriously, how can you say no to a child who looks so forlorn, so eager for something you’re depriving her?
I don’t know how parents do it. I feel like I’d be constantly spoiling my kids, doing anything to see them smile.
But as Lana Mae always points out, there’s a difference between making your child happy and doing what’s right. So I leave the volume as it is and click my phone screen off, deciding that the text will have to wait. We have a Junior ballet class to get to.
As I pull onto the highway, I glance at Legs in the rearview mirror. She’s pouting, big-time, her little arms crossed over her glittery-leotard-clad body.
Gah. She knows how to get me.
And so, because I’m in a very good mood—and absolutely not because I’m being manipulated by a pint-sized person—I give in and crank up the volume. It’s synced to my phone and playing Legs’s special playlist from my Spotify, as per usual.
I know immediately that the song is by One Direction. I don’t love the fact that I know this.
Legs begins to sing along. Loudly.
Who knew so much volume could come from such tiny lungs?
An involuntary smile creeps over my face, and I turn up the music a little more.
Legs cheers, and I tap my index fingers on the steering wheel to the music. It’s actually a pretty catchy tune, something about making the most of living while you’re still young.
Immediately, I think of Annie.
