This time, it was me who could comfort him.
I tipped my head up to look into his eyes and found him watching me, his grin flattened into a confused grimace.
“Thank you,” I said softly, just for him. “For saving Papá and trying to save my mamá.”
Something worked behind his eyes, and the corner of his mouth disappeared between his teeth. Then his hand lifted and settled on my shoulder for a brief squeeze before he leaned down to say just to me, “Wasn’t tryin’ to save them, Lila. Wasn’t about them at all, yeah?”
I sucked a shaky breath in through my mouth and slowly nodded. “Yeah, okay. But you should know, I found a dream.”
“Oh, yeah?” This time his smile was genuine.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to find the courage to be bold enough to tell the truth. “I thought of it the first day when you guys moved in next door, and now, it’s kind of coming true.”
“What is it then?”
I scuffed my bare foot against the asphalt, took a deep breath, and said the truest thing I’d ever had to say, “I dreamed I’d be a Booth.”
LILA
“Feliz cumpleaños!” I shouted as I flung open the door to the bedroom Dane and Jonathon shared and sprinted over to my brother’s sleeping form. “Happy birthday, Dane!”
Then, not waiting for the rest of the family to file in behind me, I started singing at the top of my lungs as I launched myself at Dane’s bed and kneeled on his chest so I could chant into his sleepy face.
“Estas son las mañanitas,
que cantaba el Rey David,
Hoy por ser día de tu santo,
te las cantamos a ti,
Despierta, Dane, despierta,
mira que ya amaneció,
Ya los pajarillos cantan,
la luna ya se metió.”
I ran through the verses of Las Mañanitas as I shook my big brother’s shoulders and stared down at his smiling, indulgent face.
When I finished, I cocked my head to the side and beamed at him. “We made you a tres leches cake! Molly and me! Do you want us to shove it in your face now or later?”
Dane scowled at me in mock anger and shot up into a crunch position so he could grab me under the pits and tickle me. I snorted on my laughter and squealed as I tried to evade his hands.
“You’re not going to shove cake into my face this year, right, Li?” he demanded as he tickled and tickled me.
I gasped, clutching at my middle, aware that the Booths were gathered around the bed laughing at us. “No, no, I’m not!”
He stopped and bopped me on the nose. “That’s what I thought.”
“She might not,” Hudson called out, only five and always eager for mischief. “But I will!”
Everyone laughed, and I felt the sound score through me. I wondered if you could be scarred in a positive way, if something could sear so deeply into your skin it left a magnificent, lasting imprint.
And then I realized that must be the reason why Jonathon loved the idea of tattoos so much.
I closed my eyes for a moment and made a wish like it was my birthday instead of Dane’s, hoping that this day would remain tattooed on my psyche forever.
“You ready for your birthday breakfast?” Diogo asked. “Molls made you the Booth family classic. Chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes.”
“Oh, fuck yeah.” Jonathon shoved up from his grey comforter, wavy brown hair all over the place like sleep had run its hands through it.
“Language,” Molly chided half-heartedly.
“Mum, we know what fuck means,” nine-year-old Milo said with a sage shake of his curly head.
“I’m a terrible mother,” Molly bemoaned, but she was smiling.
“The worst,” Oliver agreed, wrapping his arm around her waist. “You can make it up to us with those pancakes.”
“Pancakes sound good,” Dane agreed, but he pulled me up onto his thigh and wrapped an arm around me. “But Lila and me got something important to do real quick first.”
Molly rolled her lips under her teeth, eyes suddenly wet like a pipe had burst behind her lids. I stared at her in confusion, but she smiled wanly at me and let Diogo gently usher her out the door with the rest of the crew.
“What do we have to do?” I asked Dane when it was just the two of us. “Don’t you think we should spend the day with them? What if they think we don’t love them and––”
“Hey, hey. Li, you’ve got to stop worrying so much about that. If you live your life in fear, scared that if you act against someone in any way they’ll leave you, you won’t ever live at all. Not really, not fully.”
I stared at my hands, trying to call up the warmth of the laughter that had echoed through the room only minutes before. “I just don’t want to lose them.”
Dane was quiet for a long minute, just holding me, breathing into my hair. Finally, he pulled away enough to look into my eyes, his so clear a blue I thought they were the prettiest thing I’d ever see in my whole life.