I wink at Declan as Willow claps her hands together and celebrates it as a small victory.
“Wait ’til I tell Chels!” she squeals, her fork clattering against her plate. “She’s gonna be so excited! I wish she were coming.”
Neither Declan nor I say anything at first. We let an awkward silence settle over the dinner table as we telepathically communicate how we’ll handle the topic. It’s the kind of thing parents do when navigating a minefield of young children’s emotions.
I decide to take the lead.
“Lo, this trip is for family,” I say gently. “It’s just you, me, Emmett, and Daddy.”
“But Chels is like family, Mommy, isn’t she?”
I fall silent, meeting Declan’s gaze to silently tap him into the conversation. He takes the baton, using a different approach.
He clears his throat, resting his forearm on the table. “Listen, Widget… Chelsea’s brilliant. Top-notch, really. We all love having her around, yeah?”
She nods.
“But she’s got her own life outside ours, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. She’s got things to do, people to see, probably some terribly boring adult stuff she’d rather not drag you into. We can’t nickallher time forever, can we? That’d be a bit selfish, don’t you think?”
She squints at her plate, thinking it over like he’s just asked her to do long division. “I guess…”
“How about this,” he adds, picking up his glass of cranberry juice. “While we’re in Scotland, you can pick out a souvenir for her. Something she’d like. Some knickknack with flowers on it, maybe. Or something daft with a highland cow on it.”
Willow perks up. “I wanna get her a big stuffed unicorn!”
Declan chuckles. “Perfect. Let’s hope they’ve got just the one.”
The fire seems like it’s put out for now, but as I reach over and feed Emmett his own spoonful of mashed potatoes, I know better.
Declan voices this a couple hours later when we’re unwinding before bed.
“Widget’s gutted about Chelsea, isn’t she?” he says, sinking onto the mattress. He rubs the back of his neck. “The two are nearly best mates.”
I sigh, smoothing body butter onto my arms on my side of the bed. “Yeah, they’ve grown really close.”
“Makes it tougher if we give her the boot after Scotland, like you were saying.”
“What other choice do we have, babe?” I ask. “We can’t keep her on forever just for Willow’s sake. Eventually, we’ll need to move on.”
He nods, resigned. “True. Maybe we really do need to buy her a unicorn to soften the blow. A big fluffy one, pink sparkles, the works.”
I roll my eyes, smiling incorrigibly at him. “Do you ever quit with the sarcasm?”
“Then I wouldn’t be me, would I, love?” He crosses from his side of the bed to mine, sliding his arms around my hips to pull me close and drop a kiss on my mouth. I hum at how warm and tender his lips feel against mine, only spurring him on to do it again. “We’ll sort it,” he whispers reassuringly, brushing his lips to my brow next. “But you were right. No point hurting our brains thinking about it now. We’ll leave it for after Scotland. Agreed?”
I reach up and tap his chiseled jaw. “Agreed. Now let’s get some sleep. This melatonin is about to take me out.”
Willow’s been talking nonstop since breakfast. She trails after me through the bedroom, bouncing in place like a wind-up toy as I sort through outfits and toss folded stacks into the open suitcase on the bed.
“Did you know the Loch Ness monster’s really a girl?” she announces, clutching her favorite stuffed rabbit to her chest like it’s some kind of moral support. “Chelsea said so. She said her name’s Nessie and she’s not scary, Mommy.”
“Mmm,” I murmur, rifling through Emmett’s onesies in the drawer. “Poor Nessie.”
Willow’s pink suitcase sits near the closet, still empty despite the fact that I’ve asked her—twice—to start packing it. She’s far more interested in following me around and tossing out fun facts like an overly enthusiastic tour guide.
I want to be patient. I reallydo. But between the half-written email to my publisher, the manuscript deadline that’s creeping up on me like a wave I can’t outrun, and the nonstop buzzing in my head from everything I still need to pack for tonight’s flight, I feel like I’m unraveling one thread at a time.
Willow hops up and down by the nightstand on my side of the bed. “What do you think Nessie eats, Mommy? Does she eat fishies? Mommy? Mommy!”
