The Queen of Hearts(54)

“Hello, handsome,” I said to Drew as he exited the shower. I glanced quickly at the mirror TV, which was set not to CNBC, but to something featuring small primary-colored singing pigs. He winked at me and said, “Brace yourself.” Sure enough, the shower door swung open again, and out popped Delaney, butt-naked and sopping.

“Hi, honey dear. I getted in the shower! With Daddy! Now I’m all wet.” She beamed, strutting around. Drew raised his hands above his head, bearlike, and pretended to chase Delaney around the bathroom as she shrieked in delight. “Aaah! Daddy-Bear! Daddy-Bear! Hiii-yah!” This last exclamation was accompanied by an enthusiastic flail of Delaney’s elbow, which struck Drew squarely in the groin. He yelped in pain and doubled over.

I rushed over to check on him. “I’m fine,” he said weakly, waving me off. “I just hope she remembers that move when she starts dating.”

Delaney considered this. “What’s dating?”

“It’s when two people like each other, and they, ah, talk a lot.”

“Am I dating Henry?”

I took this one. “No. You and Henry are just friends. Dating is a kind of love.”

“Was I dating Eleanor?”

Drew and I met each other’s eyes in the mirror. It had been several months since Eleanor’s death, and Delaney had stopped asking to play with her some time ago. We’d thought she had forgotten.

“Eleanor died,” Delaney announced. “And now she is very dead.”

“Honey,” I said, kneeling down and gathering Delaney in my arms, acutely aware of her warmth and her firm, wiggly little body. “Do you miss Eleanor?”

“Not really, Mom.”

I blinked, surprised. “Why not, baby?”

“Because I am going to see her tomorrow, when she comes back alive.”

Drew knelt down too. He’d started to apply shaving cream, and a strip of foamy white ran down one side of his face. Delaney poked her finger into it, delighted. “Ellie’s not coming back alive, lovebug,” he said. “It’s okay to miss her.”

“Daddy! She is.” Delaney wriggled out of our grasp. “We are going to play mermaids.”

Drew and I rose together. “You’re the child expert.” His eyes were sad. “What do we say?”

“I think we don’t push it,” I whispered. “Children this age view death through a filter of magical thinking; they can’t process that kind of finality. Let her process it however it comforts her.”

“Whisper secrets are not nice,” Delaney said, popping back up between us.

“That’s true, Lainie,” I acknowledged, attempting to corner her to wrap her in a towel. “Why don’t we put some clothes on before you get too cold?”

Delaney clamped her hands over her eyes and sank to the floor.

“Lainiebug.” I smiled. “I can still see you.”

Delaney removed her hands from her eyes but kept them squeezed shut. “No, I’m hiding!”

“Clothes on,” I commanded.

“Nope,” said Delaney, opening her eyes and wiggling her tiny, perfect bottom at us. “I love me like this.” I lunged at her, but she shrieked, “Scatter!” and ran off.

I looked in the mirror. For a brief moment my face looked completely foreign, before it rearranged itself back into its familiar countenance: small, rounded nose; wide, rounded greenish eyes under arched eyebrows; slightly parted full lips. My resting expression was one of mild surprise, which, over the years, had led to a lot of people overexplaining things to me. But for a moment I hadn’t recognized myself, as, for the thousandth time, I’d wondered what it must be like to lose a child.

I looked at the small heap of Delaney’s pajamas puddled in front of the shower. Best not to dwell on this. “I need to buy something,” I said.

Leaping on the chance to lighten the mood, Drew dropped his towel and swatted me with it. “I’m sensing some defensiveness here,” he said.

Defensively: “What makes you think I’m defensive?”

“Because,” said Drew, replacing his towel and fumbling around the counter for his razor, “you just got that stubborn, sort-of-sly look that you always get when you’re about to say something outrageous.” He assessed me. “There, that one.”

I started to protest, but unfortunately I was still facing the mirror. Hastily, I rearranged my face to simpering sweetness. “Is this better?”

“Much,” he said, grinning at me. “Out with it.”

“It’s a dress crisis. Dire. I was thinking I might get another one, right away, for the Arts Ball.”

“What happens if you don’t?” he asked pleasantly over the hum of his electric shaver.

“Social doom.”

Drew finished with the shaver and reached for his toothbrush. “Well, you’d better do it, then. I can’t have a socially crippled wife. Do I have to get a new monkey suit?”

“No, darling, you’re fine,” I said, pleased that he hadn’t whipped out his laptop on the spot and recalculated the monthly budget. Maybe he was loosening up a little.

I met his eyes in the mirror. His face transformed from blandly handsome into fully gorgeous when he smiled, despite a mouthful of toothpaste. “You know whazeben more essciting thandisippy soshellebent?” he asked.