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“I wanted to be here for you in case you dropped, or in case you needed more aftercare than I could give you between jobs today.” Clearing my throat, I decide to show my hand. “I wanted to be here with you, kitten.” When my fingers caress her cheek, she breathes out such a contented sigh my soul resonates on the same frequency. “I need to take care of you.”
When she opens her eyes again, they’re glassy, like she’s fighting back tears. Thus far our entire relationship has been somewhat physical, and her looking after my kid, but what makes Addison tick? What motivates her? What’s she afraid of? What makes her heart soar?
I don’t have the answers to any of those questions, and I want them. I want answers to every question I haven’t yet thought of about this woman.
After my third muffin, I brave the question I don’t really want an answer to but I feel compelled to ask. “Have you thought about what you want to do after you leave us?”
My stomach twists. It’s the last thing I want to think about, having to function around here without her presence. I want her to say she’ll never leave, and not entirely for Matty’s sake.
She shrugs, her shoulders curl forward like she’s retreating into herself.
“What did you do before? Before you met me?”
She launches into telling me that she was a fashion designer for a household name fashion house. The way her smile brightens and her eyes light up as she talks faster and faster about how much she loves fashion design shows me glimpses of joy I haven’t seen in her before.
I don’t know what happened, and I’m afraid to ask in case the light slips from her eyes again.
“I’d love to design and make my own ASD friendly line of clothing.” She casts her eyes down as though she’s embarrassed, or wary of my reaction to her announcement. “It’s stupid.”
I slam my mug down on the table to draw her attention back to me, her eyes snap to mine. “Enough. There are a great many things I tolerate, kitten. But talking shit about yourself isn’t one of them.” What I don’t say out loud is that her family treats her enough like shit without her adding to it. Not under my roof, that much is for certain.
She shrugs. “My sister has such a hard time with my niece. Getting clothes that fit right, or feel right is impossible. I’ve done some research and there are so many kids out there with medical conditions, trachs and gtubes, growing difficulties, special needs when it comes to shoes, needing larger onesies than the stores sell beyond a certain age. It’s a real problem, and I think I could fix it.”
I shrug back at her. “Then fix it.”
She snorts. “That’s fine for you to say.”
“And finer for you to do. What’s the problem?”
She doesn’t answer. Is it a confidence thing? Money? Or maybe she sucks at drawing and at best she’d put stick figures in skirts, but something is stopping this kitten from roaring like the lioness she is. I’m determined to figure out what that is.
“Addison? What’s stopping you from doing this? It’s clearly something you’re passionate about. If you worked with a brand name, it’s also something you’re more than qualified to do. So what’s holding you back?” Take that logic, little lioness.
She nibbles on her bottom lip, indecision clear on her face. “I’m afraid I’ll screw it up.”
Something must show on my face to make her continue. On a loud exhale, she ages in front of my eyes. “I’m the screw up of my family. I’m the runt of the litter, and the one they all expect to fall on her face.”
Balling my hands into fists, I swallow down the bitterness in the back of my throat.
“I’ve given them cause to. Iamthe screw up. I mean, just look at this situation. I had everything planned out, all my dominoes lined up and ready to tip over the first one. Then my car broke down, and they tipped over in the wrong direction.”
I nudge her foot under the table, “Working for me hasn’t been all that bad now, has it?”
Her face softens as she smiles. “No, it hasn’t. I just can’t stand another failure on my scorecard.”
“So your bar for success is what your family considers successful? You’re holding yourself to a target someone else has placed for you? An arbitrary goal that you can probably never reach?”
She scrunches up her face, thinking about my words. “Maybe.” She tongues her teeth like she’s tasting the word. Or perhaps she’s tasting the idea that she’s been chasing a moving target for her whole life, and she needs to figure out her own shit.
“You have to establish your own goals, kitten. You need to pursue your own markers of success. Do you know what that might look like?”
She shakes her head, staring off into the distance over my shoulder.
“Then perhaps start there.” As she cleans up the kitchen, I sneak a peek in on Matty. He hasn’t moved, but he’s eaten the breakfast he got himself while the last batch of muffins cooled.
“Matty bud? What do you think about joining us in the kitchen and coloring with us?”
He doesn’t seem to respond. But I go to what is now my crafts cabinet and pull out the sketch pads and pencils, markers, and crayons and place them onto the dining table where all the breakfast dishes had been.
