AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know, but you could,mon oncle. You could have the bedroom beside mine.”
“Your parents have have opinions about that.”
“We can hide you in my pile of stuffies. They won’t see you.” I could feel him laughing. There was no way to hang on to my morose mood with my nephew using my face like a rock-climbing handhold.
“Where’s Concordia?”
“She’s napping with Mama.”
“And how is your Mama feeling?”
“Sick, sick, sick! Daddy said she threw up hertoenails!” He sounded both horrified and impressed.
Rodrigo entered the foyer and tossed the tea towel he’d been drying his hands on over his shoulder. “I see you got the official household greeting.”
“If I ever don’t get greeted with a toe in my eye, I’m going to feel completely neglected.”
Rodrigo laughed, his handsome face distressingly more handsome. There was a time I’d thought I was in love with him, and with this life, but now I knew desperation and loneliness weren’t the same as love.
“Where is my brother?”
“Setting the table.” He slapped me on the shoulder and tousled his boy’s hair, then headed back through the house—no doubt to the kitchen.
I carried Prospero through to the dining room, making sure to pretend I might drop him at any moment, as a good uncle should.
“I have it on good authority Minnow is throwing up her toenails.”
Severin’s brows lowered. I should have thought things through before I teased him about how sick she was.
When I’d first found Severin, I’d been jealous. He was surrounded by people who doted on and adored him. Now I understood why. Severinwas odd, but he was the best man I knew. He felt everything so strongly. Loved so deeply.
It had taken time, but now I understood this kind of life could never happen for me. I tried not to care, but knowing I’d never be so loved was a knife in my ugly, mangled soul. Nothing in me was worthy of what he’d earned.
“Did she kick you out of the bedroom?” I continued, not sure how to smooth things over with him.
I watched him folding napkins, which I assumed Rodrigo had sent him to do to keep him out of everyone’s hair. Prospero wiggled impatiently now that I was boringly stationary, and I helped him disembark so that he didn’t fall on his adorable head.
“She doesn’t like when I fuss.” He folded the next napkin with unnecessary precision.
Prospero got on a chair and then climbed onto the table and padded over to Severin, to pat his face and give him a kiss on the forehead.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t be sad, Fang,” he said, kissing the tip of his father’s nose, too. “The doctor said she won’t be sick anymore when the babies come out.”
“That’s a good thing to remember.” He smoothed the child’s hair.
“It’s okay to be worried and have a lot of big feelings.”
“That’s true, Frog.” He was trying not to smile at the earnestness in his son’s eyes. “Maybe you can help me set the table while Daddy finishes cooking and Mommy rests.”
I went to wash my hands and then joined them, not correcting how they set the table, even though it wasn’t how Martine’s servants had done it. In this house, putting the forks in the wrong order wasn’t a crime.
No matter how often I came over, I couldn’t spend enough time here, watching the three of them with their children. It was like watching anaddictive TV show with no plot. I had learned more about families from watching Minnow and Rodrigo than I ever had in childhood.
“Are you expecting guests?” I asked, noticing that he had set out two extra plates. The table comfortably sat twenty, but they rarely had company in the house other than visits from Rodrigo’s family, and my brother’s brother Church, and his family. There were only two extra spots though.
Severin grimaced. “Friends of Rodrigo’s,” he intoned as though it were terrible news.
