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Hades turned and looked at Kristoff. “Let me have her.”
He gave her over easily, looking so relieved when he gave her up that it was nearly comical.
“Go,” Hades ordered. “We’ll watch her for a little bit.”
Kristoff looked torn for all of three seconds before I said, “I’ll cook her something. And if you like, I can borrow the van and take her to the RV place with us. Might be something we need to get used to, anyway.”
Kristoff looked at me as if he knew without me actually voicing the words what I meant.
Hades took about three seconds longer.
“You knocked my sister up?” she squeaked.
Kristoff shook his head. “This parenthood thing is the absolute hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Good luck, and may the odds be in your favor. And, yes, you can take her…I’m assuming Simi is going with you?”
I nodded.
“And she has her memory back?” he asked hopefully.
As much as we could tell, she did. She remembered all of our interactions.
“Most of it,” Simi called from above. “And why are y’all so fuckin’ loud? Can’t a pregnant person get some sleep around here? It’s hard making a life. And yes, I’ll be going with him. I want to make sure he gets me a big enough one that I have my own reading nook.”
My lips curved up.
“In that case…” He left without another word.
The kid kept crying.
Hades looked like she was going to lose it herself.
“I don’t know why I took her,” she whispered loudly enough for us to hear, but not the retreating Kristoff. “I’m actually quite scared of kids. And I’m fairly sure that my uterus is about to expel itself from my body. I came to ask my sister if she could spare some tampons.”
I looked from her to the kid and back, then walked forward and caught the kid up around the middle.
I didn’t have the most experience in the world with children, but I had enough to know that she was likely suffering more because the people around her were stressed.
She was a cute little thing.
She had almost zero hair, just enough fuzz to let people know it was blonde.
Hades looked instantly relieved when the little blue-eyed baby was out of her hands.
“Ulitza is allergic to avocado.” I looked warily at the avocado I’d just pulled out for a quick breakfast of avocado toast. “But only when ingested,” Simi called from the bedroom. “And I have tampons in the tiny bathroom in here, I think. Piper put everything away while we were out to dinner yesterday.”
Piper, I’d come to realize, was the cleaning lady.
She came in and cleaned everyone’s stuff up, even my own. I’d gotten back to find everything I owned hung up in the tiny little closet above the kitchen, in the same damn room as the tiny toilet and shower.
Ulitza screamed harder, and I walked to the toast I’d been about to pop into the toaster and pushed it down into the space between the metal plates. Once it was toasting, I walked to the fridge and grabbed out the butter.
“We need to go to the store today for some fresh meat,” I said as I looked in the fridge. “The container that is labeled ‘bad kitties’ is almost empty. Is that my job, too, or someone else’s?”
“Mine,” Hades grumbled. “I usually keep stock of animal food, bus food, and the kids’ tent snacks.”
“Yet you don’t have anything to do with a kid?” I asked as Ulitza screamed quite piercingly into my ear.
I moved her to the other arm, then gently patted her back as I slowly started to sing a song I remembered my dad humming when I was little.
“Are you singing ‘Back in Black’ to her?” Simi appeared in the opening of the upper level.
“Yeah,” I answered as the toast popped up.
I reached for it, slathered it with butter using the clean knife, then tore off a hunk and offered it to her.
She took it and smashed it between her fingers, then rubbed it along my neck.
Awesome.
“That looks good on you,” Hades teased before disappearing out of the room. She came back with ten tampons in her hand. Then said, “If y’all go out, get me some super plus, plus.”
Then she was gone, leaving me standing there watching her go.
“Do they make super plus, plus?” I asked curiously.
I’d had a sister. I was no stranger to periods and period talks.
What I wasn’t used to was someone needing anything that extra strength.
“It’s for people that have issues like my sister,” Simi said as she walked toward me. “Do you want toast?”
Ulitza put the toast into her mouth, then started to chew on her fist.
I gestured toward the cut-up avocado. “I was putting that on toast, but maybe you should just toss it. We can have regular toast. Right?”
