After school, I picked up the girls every day with Winston, which was a big hit with all the other kids as well as for the attention whore of a dog. We’d have a snack on the way to whatever was on the agenda that day—soccer or karate for Olivia, fencing or ballet for April. Winston and I hung out, and I checked in with Huck about his ETA for visiting Ursa and if anything was up with Cahill. Once the girls and I got home, there was homework, though April had to assist Olivia with her math, because I had no clue what was up with the fancy new way it was supposed to be done, Common Core something or other, and then they helped me make dinner.
Sometimes, Emery joined us, and I stayed quiet as the girls told him about the events of their days. He had given me a credit card for groceries and other things the girls needed. And even though he seemed sad that he missed our trip to the soup kitchen and delivering blankets to the homeless shelter, he was honestly far too busy to ever join us. I had no idea how he’d done everything he had to do before I got there. I’d never really given being a single parent a lot of thought before, but seeing what he was up against, I wondered how people without money to hire someone coped. I had a new respect for mothers and fathers who parented alone.
Mid-November, on a Friday, I had to take April and Olivia to a fitting for their flower girl dresses for the early December wedding, and when I saw them walk out of the back to stand on the little dais in front of the wall of mirrors, I nearly fell off the bench I was sitting on. I hadn’t laughed that hard in years.
“It’s not funny!” April railed at me, trying not to smile as Olivia ran around pretending she was an abominable snowman.
“C’mere.” I snickered, touching all the layers of white satin and the fur cloak and chiffon that she was wearing, trying to pat it all down to find her head. “Dude, you look like you’re covered in frosting!”
Olivia attacked me, climbing up into my lap and hugging me so very tight as April put the cape over her face and stood in front of me with her arms out.
“Let’s get googly eyes and glue them to this,” April suggested, muffled under the cape.
“You guys need ears ’cause you look like polar bears in dresses.”
Olivia snarled and growled into the side of my neck, and it was April’s turn to run around like a crazed yeti until both her sister and I were gasping for air.
“I can’t even with these dresses,” I said, wiping my eyes as the three of us lay there, side by side on the little stage, breathing hard. They probably weren’t supposed to lie down in all the finery, but I couldn’t muster enough feeling to care.
“I don’t want Daddy to marry Lydia,” April said suddenly, and Olivia grew still on my left before taking a breath.
“I don’t wanna leave my room,” Olivia confessed. “Mommy painted the clouds on my ceiling and walls, and what if, when we move, the next people paint over it?”
“Lydia’s house is so big,” April echoed, sitting up and crossing her legs, which looked strange in the dress. “And her dad lives there, and he always tell us not to put our feet on the furniture, and he said that Winston won’t be able to go in all the rooms.”
“Well, Winston’s pretty cute,” I reminded them. “So maybe you need to show Mr. Cahill how great he is.”
Both of them were making faces like I was nuts.
I gestured at April’s dress. “I mean, clearly Lydia likes white, and Winston is white, so… maybe you guys should brush him more and make him super fluffy, and then if she likes him, her father will too, and it’ll be all win-win.”
Olivia sat up then, and so did I. We were there, quiet being still together. I didn’t know what to do to get their minds off things, so I did the only thing I could think of, and punted.
“You don’t think these capes are real fur from, like, an animal somebody killed, do you?”
Their eyes got really big, and April pulled hers off and checked the tag.
“There’s only a name on it,” she told me. “Let’s ask the lady.”
It turned out that for the winter wonderland wedding Lydia wanted, she was wearing white mink, her maid of honor and bridesmaids were wearing fox, and the girls were wearing Angora rabbit. I informed the nice lady in charge of the fitting that if the girls ever saw those capes again, they would vomit all over them.