But somehow, he softened when he looked down at her. As if the little hurricane was his calm. “Five minutes, Frankie Leigh, then lights out.”
“All right, Daddy. Five minutes,” she promised with a resolute nod. She turned and hauled me toward the hall that opened right between the living room and kitchen, just on the other side of the table.
I stumbled along behind her, chancing a glance over my shoulder to look at her father.
Fear.
It was so blatant beneath that hard, rigid, beautiful exterior that it clamped down on my chest, a fist on my heart.
The terror in his expression tore through me like a storm.
Whipping and rending.
I pried my gaze away and followed Frankie into her room, wondering what on earth I’d actually hoped I’d achieve when I’d decided to bake him a pie.
What I knew for sure was this wasn’t it. Not that it mattered. That fist on my heart squeezed with soft affection when Frankie turned around and lifted her arms out to her sides.
Pure pride as she offered me all the pink.
“You likes it? My daddy let me helps him paint all the walls, and he took me to the store and let me picks my blankies and my drawers and ever’fing! Did you knows I been painting, and I’m gonna be a painter? My grammy says so.”
My gaze traced the walls. Walls that were pink. More than pink. Wisped with the hints of fairy tales and happily ever afters, the faintest outlines of rainbows and unicorns and princesses lost in the strokes of color.
Delicately.
Carefully.
Beautifully.
At the bottom of one wall was a mess of color, choppy strokes and splotches so clearly added by a tiny hand.
Oh my God. Who was this man?
Frankie dropped to her knees in front of a bookcase and pulled free a thin, worn book, waving it in the air. “This one’s my favorite.”
“Stellaluna?” I asked, a small smile ticking up at the corner of my mouth when I saw the adorable bat on the cover, the story totally unfamiliar.
“Uh-huh.”
She scrambled onto her bed. “You reads it.”
I knelt by the edge of her bed. “Okay.”
I opened it and began to read, that lump in my throat growing as I read each page. There was something about the way Frankie listened, quieted and subdued, glued to the words that tumbled from my tongue as I read about a baby bat that’d lost its mother and was raised by a mother bird, only to be reunited with its mother at the end, remaining friends with the birds who’d welcomed it to their nest.
Why did I feel like I might cry when I finished the last page? It was a happy ending, after all. But it was still there, heavy in the air when I looked back at Frankie. She had her sheet pulled up to her chin and was clutching the material. “Did you know I lost my mommy, too?”
She whispered it like a secret.
Like trust.
I guessed that was what I’d come seeking, but I was wholly unprepared for this kind of offering. My hand was trembling when I reached out and lovingly ran my knuckles down the side of her face. “I’m so sorry, Frankie. I lost my mommy when I was little, too.”
Her eyes went wide. “You did?”
“Yeah.”
Her voice dipped even lower. “Did you finds her?”
“No. I tried to, but I don’t think she wanted to be found. But guess what? My grandma loved me so, so much, and she took such good care of me so I didn’t have to be sad.”
She smiled the sweetest smile, and that fist on my heart squeezed. Squeezed and squeezed so hard it made it difficult to breathe. “My daddy takes good care of me and loves me so, so much.”
“He seems like a good daddy.”
Vigorously, she nodded.
Leaning forward, I set a soft kiss on her forehead, knowing I had to get out of there before I lost myself any further. “I better go. Five minutes are up, and you need to get to sleep.”
“Okay,” she whispered, staring up at me, our noses two inches apart.
I smiled, getting drawn deeper into the heart of this little girl before I forced myself to stand. My footsteps slowed as I walked across her room. I flipped off the light and went to pull her door closed, but at the last second, I left it open a crack. Almost instinctively.
Quietly, I edged down the hall, slowed by the turbulent silence bound to the atmosphere.
I pressed my hands to my tremoring belly when I saw Rex standing in the middle of the kitchen. The expression he wore promised he’d overheard the conversation Frankie and I had shared.
Broken, splintered fury.
It poured from him in a torrent of agony.
“I’ll just go,” I mumbled.
Dropping my head, I started for the door, unsure if I was cowering or if I was just staggered by what I’d unwittingly forced my way into. I felt like a fool. Naïve and reckless. Because I’d come seeking something I hadn’t understood.