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“Yes. Replace me.”
He instantly pulled her in for a tight hug, devastated by her revelation. He and Becca’s parents needed to have a Come-To-Jesus moment before their daughter could do any further damage to Toni. “First and most importantly, you arenotbroken. You were hit by a car and injured. And we’re going to work very hard to fix that injury so it gets all better.”
“I am broken,” Toni insisted. “My leg doesn’t work right. Becca said that means I’m broken and you will want a little girl who isn’t broken. And you’ll love that one best. That’s why you marriedher.”
“Not a chance. Mia and I aren’t having any babies. That’s simply not happening.”
“Do you promise?” Toni asked urgently. “No babies? You won’t place me?”
“Yes, Ipromise. No babies. We won’t replace you.”
“What if I don’t get all better?”
He hugged her tight, anguish sweeping over him. It killed him that a five-year-old had to deal with such complex issues and he had to find a simplistic way to explain them to her. “Then you’ll walk with a little bit of a limp. But I still love you no matter what.” He tilted her tiny face up to his. “Did you notice that Mia walks with a limp, too?”
“Mia’s broken?”
“Yes. And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because love doesn’t work that way.” He struggled to find a way to illustrate the concept. “Do you loveNonno?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But he’s old.”
“I like his wrinkles.”
“What about your cousins. Do you love them?”
“Yes.”
“But sometimes they cry.”
“That’s because they’re babies,” she scoffed.
“And you love me?”
“Of course I do, Daddy.”
“Even when you do something wrong and I punish you?”
“I don’t like getting punished,” she conceded.
“No, sweetheart. No one does. But we still love our aunts and uncles and grandfather and cousins because our hearts are so big we can love all of them at once. Do you understand? Love just grows and grows and grows. The more people you love, the bigger it gets.”
“I don’t love Mia,” Toni insisted. “I don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to love her right now. Ijust want you to get to know her. Maybe you’ll love her tomorrow or the next day or the day after that.”
Her mouth formed a tiny pout. “I won’t.”
“I’ll tell you what. We don’t have to talk about her anymore this evening. We’ll just take some time to get used to her, see how you get along with her over the next few weeks.”
God, it sounded like he was talking about a pet instead of a woman. He pressed a soft kiss to Toni’s forehead and gently placed her on her beanbag chair. “Let me go talk to Mia for a few moments, and then you and I have a date, just the two of us. Pizza from Vito’s? Maybe a nice, hot chocolate chip cookie from the bakery next door?”
She didn’t respond, so he pressed another kiss to her forehead and handed her a book before leaving. Time. It was both his enemy and his ally in this moment. The longer Toni delayed accepting her mother’s death and setting aside her fantasy life, the more difficult it would be for her. The harder she pushed away her new stepmother, the more likely Mia would leave before Toni found her way home again. Found her way home and achieved a full recovery.
He couldn’t expect Mia to stay indefinitely in a house with a five-year-old who hated her. But perhaps, just maybe, she could help break down the tower walls that held his daughter prisoner before she moved on. He silently prayed she could outlast the stubbornest child he’d evermet.
He suspected he would find Mia in his bedroom.Theirbedroom? He really did need to talk to her about that. He hoped she wasn’t planning an escape given the shit show she’d just witnessed, but, frankly, if he found his windows open and a bedsheet rope hanging out them, it wouldn’t surprise him.
