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He nods. “I have a breakfast meeting,” he explains.
“Um, okay,” she says, her voice softening. Then her eyes brighten. “Are you sleeping over again tonight?”
Kyle’s eyes meet mine. For a nanosecond he looks as if he’s at a loss as to how to answer that. A piece of me revels in his confusion. Yet, another part of me wants to save him.
“Eve, we’re—”
“Married,” Kyle blurts out. “I married your aunt,” he finishes, looking over at me.
Eve gasps and covers her mouth.
My heart sinks for the second time this morning.What is she thinking? Is she upset?
“You’re married. Like, husband and wife married?” Her gaze shifts between the both of us.
“Yes,” Kyle answers firmly. “We are. Your aunt wanted to tell you, but things moved quickly. She was going to tell you on her next visit to school. But you surprised us.”
“Oh.” She looks around, then says, “Does that mean we can all have dinner together?”
“Excuse me?” I finally say.
“Dinner.” She repeats the word like I’m the dummy who doesn’t know what it means. “Like a real family.”
That last sentence bounces around in my head. I hear her desire for it louder than anything. All of a sudden, thoughts of Wallace Jr. come to mind. My shiftless brother, who still hasn’t contacted Eve almost a month after she called him.
I look up at Kyle knowing that he’s not going to go for it. I have to intervene before he says something that stomps all over my niece’s heart.
“Kyle usually works late hours,” I explain. “He won’t have time.”
“I’ll be here. How does six-thirty sound?”
Eve’s face lights up at his words. “Okay.” She nods giddily. “My aunt cooks really good. She can make almost anything.”
“Not anything,” I mumble, feeling like this conversation has gotten away from me.
“Whatever she makes, I’m sure it’ll be great,” he says with such confidence that I almost believe him.
I stand there trying to figure out what’s going on while the two of them say their good-byes. When I hear the door close, I look down at my niece.
She’s grinning from ear to ear.
“Can you cook burgers and home fries for dinner? I love your home fries, and Kyle just said he loves burgers, too.”
I shake my head because I completely missed that part of the conversation.
“Eve, we need to talk.”
“Wait, if you two are married does that make him my uncle? Should I call him Uncle Kyle?”
The idea of what she would call him hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m not sure he’ll be comfortable with that.”
Her shoulders slump, but I think it’s for the best if I don’t let her get her hopes up. This isn’t a real marriage and it’ll be over soon enough. The last thing I want is for Eve to get her heart broken when this all ends.
“What about the home fries?” She goes back to talking about dinner.
“Yes, I can make you what you want for dinner. But first, we need to talk about what happened at school and why you’re here.”
“Are you going to kick me out?” Her voice becomes shaky and her eyes watery.
