Trespassing(6)

I figured as much, and I have no choice but to understand and accept his decision. Whatever happened, happened long ago. I have my own demons of memories locked behind doors.

“My mother will come,” he says. “You’ll make it in the meantime.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know. You’re not sleeping.”

It’s another side effect of the medication.

“Take a pill tonight.”

“No.” The last time I took a pill, I woke up in a panic, feeling as if someone had been inside the house and I’d been too zonked out to notice. “What would happen if Bella needed me and I couldn’t wake up?”

“You have to sleep.”

“Well, you’re leaving, and I’m on my own, so I guess I’ll have to sleep when you come back.”

“Nicki.”

A cheap shot. I knew constant travel was part of the package when I married a pilot. I also know Micah would take the shots and gain baby weight if he could. He’d have the baby for me if he could. “It’s just that I have a headache all the time, and those people at Bella’s school . . . if they knew, some days, how difficult it is to get that child ready and out the door—with Nini, to boot—”

“What do you have to do to get Nini ready?” He’s laughing, still rubbing my belly. “Tie her shoes? Braid her hair?”

“You laugh. But yes. She makes everything more difficult.”

“And Doctor Russo thinks it’s best to play along,” Micah confirms. “Pretend this demon child living in our daughter’s hair is really there.”

“That’s what he said.”

“Okay.” He drums his fingers against my tummy. “Then let’s set some ground rules. Just like we did when Bella got her tricycle.”

Before I have a chance to respond, he’s calling into the great room: “Bella? Bella, can you come here for a minute?”

“No,” she pips.

“Come on, sugar cube.”

She glances over her shoulder at us—“We’re busy”—and turns back to her coloring table. “Nini, that’s mean.”

I raise an eyebrow in a silent I-told-you-so.

He tries again: “Bella? Do you want ice cream?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” She’s jumping up and down now. “For Nini, too!”

“Of course Nini can have ice cream. Come on into the kitchen.”

I’m on my way to the freezer.

“Can you bring it in here? We’re busy.”

“No,” Micah says. “You know the rules.”

“Nini says you don’t follow the rules.”

My head snaps up the moment I hear her tone. “Elizabella!”

“Well, I’m a grown-up,” Micah says. “Sometimes I don’t have to follow the rules. And if you don’t come into the kitchen, you won’t get ice cream at all.”

“Thanks a lot.” Bella slams a crayon down on the table. “Mommy’s mad all the time, but now you made Daddy mad, too.” With her arms across her chest, she puffs out her darling, chubby cheeks so they look like pink apples and makes her way toward us.

I bite back a laugh—she’s so dramatic—but Micah doesn’t contain his, which only serves to frustrate Bella more.

“No laughing!”

“Ice cream, Mike?” Just as I turn to pull three dishes from the cabinet, I hear a crash and a wail. By the time I turn around, he’s already scooped up our daughter, who is a cuddly, weepy ball in his arms. “What happened?”

Bella screeches, “Nini pushed me!” just as Micah explains that she tripped.

“It’s okay.” Micah sits at the table, still holding Bella on his lap. “Ice cream makes it all better.”

I scoop out one heap of strawberry into a silver dessert dish, then another, and two into the third for my husband, who makes ice cream part of his daily routine—not that his waistline tells the tale. He’ll eat Nini’s ice cream, as well as whatever Bella doesn’t finish, but he’ll be no worse for wear on the scale tomorrow.

I slide one dish in front of Bella, one toward an empty chair, and the dish with two scoops I hand to Micah.

“None for you?” he asks.

“I’m up seventeen pounds with the treatment.” I show him my left hand. “I can’t even take off my ring.”

“It’s for a good cause,” he reminds me. “And you’re still stunning.”

“And you’re blind with love.”

“So. Why don’t you tell Daddy about this picture Nini drew?” He nods toward the drawing we’ve been perusing, and spoons a bit of ice cream for Bella and offers to feed her.

She allows it, despite the fact that she’s a big girl now and wouldn’t tolerate such an offer from me on her best day. I take the seat next to them.

“You like it?” Elizabella turns her head to look up at her daddy. Her angel-soft hair brushes against his chin, snagging on the whiskers of a five-o’clock shadow.

“I love it. Nini must be an artist.”

“She is.”

An artist. Like my mother.

“What’s the story behind it? Who’s this?” He points to a figure I assume is human, floating in the middle of the page amid black chevrons and red swirls.