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With deft movements and a fast swoop, Fletch seats the girl on his hip and lifts his chin in my direction as the little girl pants her happiness. “Mia Moo-Moo Fletcher, this is Uncle Arch’s friend, Miss Mayet. Do you wanna say hello?”
I can’t reach out, but I make sure to meet the sweet girl’s eyes and show her I’m a friend. “Hi, Mia. My name is Minka. You look a whole lot like your daddy, did you know that?”
When her smile grows, mine does too.
“I work with your daddy a lot of the time, and he’s a big goofball. So I see his smile a lot. It’s almost exactly the same as yours.”
“Daddy is silly.”
“I know!” I continue to infuse; I have no choice. But I don’t make it into a big thing so the girl notices. “How old are you, Mia? Are you ten?”
“No!” Giggling, she holds up four fingers. “I’m free!”
“Five?”
“Free!” she snickers. “I like your hair.”
“Oh.” I want to reach up and touch it, though of course I can’t. “Thank you. I really like yours too. It’s a little bit curly, but a little bit straight. Do you like visiting with Uncle Archer?”
“Yes.” She preens under everyone’s gazes. “He’s silly too.”
“Really?” I look at the man in question and wrinkle my nose. “I’ve always found him kinda grumpy and mean.”
“No!” Again, she dissolves into a puddle of giggles. “He is never mean!”
“What? He’salwaysmean to me.”
“Maybe you were cheeky,” she counters smoothly, bringing a chuckle to Fletch’s lips.
Finally, Mia looks down at the figurative elephant in the room and tilts her head to study my setup. “Are you sick, Miss Minka?” Bringing her beautiful gaze up to mine, she asks again, “Sick?”
“A little bit.”
When I’m done with the factor and have pushed it all into my veins, I work quickly on undoing everything, removing the tape, the needle, and then the loosened tourniquet.
“This is how I get medicine,” I explain. “I have to put a needle in my arm. But it works out, because I’m a doctor for my work, which means I can give myself my own medicine and not go to the hospital for it.”
Considering that for a moment, she looks at Fletch as though the pores in his skin hold all the answers. As though the shape of his nose holds insight, and the length of his lashes tells her all the world’s secrets.
Or at the very least, her family’s secrets.
Then, as innocently as any three-year-old can, she asks, “Like Mommy? Mommy has needles like that too.”
* * *
Hours pass. Dinner is eaten. A game of Kid’s Monopoly is played—a game Archer had sitting in his cupboard, just waiting for a child who can’t read—and cartoons are a constant stream on the television.
And then sweet little Mia begins to yawn.
Instead of forcing Fletcher to take her away, Archer bundles her against his chest and snuggles in on the couch so they can cuddle and whisper and wile away their evening together.
And then she drops off to sleep.
“Mia’s mom is a junkie?” I slide back into the same position on the kitchen counter as I started in, but while Archer stays with Mia, I tug Fletch around by the collar until his eyes meet mine. “She’s a junkie?”
“She’s not a bad person,” he answers instead. “She’s a mess. She’s impulsive, and often, she’s lazy. But she’s not cruel, Minka. And she means no harm.”
“She’s a junkie,” I whisper-hiss, “and your daughter knows about it!” I shoot a look down to my arm, where tonight’s infusion bruised the skin a little. “She associated what I was doing to what she knows about her mother. Does Jada take medication regularly where she needs to inject—”
