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“I—
“Lily!” Franny comes running out, still in her uniform. “I wanna show you my room!”
“Want to,” Cormac corrects her.
“Iwant toshow you my room!” She holds out her hand for me.
“You got it, kid.”
So, I take her hand, and we run to her bedroom. There, I finally see some color. In fact, all the colors. It’s like a rainbow threw up in there. Angled stripes on the walls, a pink and orange bed, green carpet, and blue breezy curtains, Franny’s room is a riot of colors. She has a dollhouse in the corner that’s almost as tall as I am, and she’s colored over it with crayons a hundred times. Her drawings cover the walls in cats and fairies. I think they’re fairies. They could also be dragonflies.
“Are you an artist, Franny?”
“I am!”
“What’s your favorite thing to draw?”
Her gap-toothed grin kills me. “I like cats, but they don’t hold still to draw them right. Neither do gone flies.”
“You mean dragonflies?”
“That’s what I said,” she says as she pulls one of her drawings off the walls. “See? They’re always blurry when I try to get them to hold still and draw them.”
I nod. “That’s a predicament.”
“What’s that?”
“A conundrum.”
She wrinkles her little nose at me. “You talk funny.”
“Thanks!”
She giggles, and Aiden walks in. Her face drops. “You’re supposed to knock.”
“Sorry, Franny. Lily, can I show you my room?”
“Do you mind?” I ask her.
“No. But his room isn’t as fun as mine.”
“Thank you for managing my expectations. Lead the way, Aiden.” His room, as it turns out, is next door and decked out in Spiderman merch, top to bottom. “Wow. This is a lot of Spiderman.”
He nods happily. “He’s my favorite.”
“Looks like it!”
“Do you like Spiderman?”
“Peter Parker is great, but I also like Miles Morales.”
That gets me an enthusiastic grin. “It’s hard to find Miles’ stuff, but I try. Do you like trampolines?”
“Sure,” I say with a shrug, having never been on one.
“Come on!” He leads me to the backyard, where a trampoline, jungle gym, and swimming pool take up most of the otherwise empty backyard. He runs and jumps onto the trampoline, causing my heart rate to spike. “It’s like being Spiderman!”
“Are you supposed to be on that without your dad around?”
