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“What are you doing?”
“Tea party with our dollies.”
He picked one up, held it, and put it back down after it winked at him. Dolls were freaky, always watching.
“Do you know our daddy?” Gemma asked.
I feel him.“No, unfortunately I never had the opportunity to meet him. I’m sorry he’s not here.”
“The person killed him with their car,” Lynnea said quietly. Grayson didn’t know how to respond.
“Lynnea, don’t say that. Mommy will get mad, and she will cry.”
Lynnea’s expression turned sad. Grayson tugged on the ends of her hair. “Hey, don’t be sad.”
“I’m mad,” she said as she crossed her arms over her chest. “At her!” She glared at her sister.
“She’s trying to protect your mom,” Grayson pointed out. “You don’t want her to be sad, right?”
“She laughed today,” Gemma said. “At whatever you said to her up there.”
“Oh yeah?”
“’Cause you funny,” Lynnea told him.
How could children go from talking about their father being killed, to laughing? Lynnea was right. There wasn’t any way to sugarcoat it. Their words went right to his heart, which began thumping wildly, thumping in his ears. He placed his hand over it to quell the noise. Looking at the girls, he waited for them to make eye contact, to ask him why his heartbeat was so loud. They never did. Couldn’t they hear it?
Will they want to hear it?
He could do that for them. The pamphlet was at home, describing the heartbeat teddy bears that stored twenty to thirty seconds’ worth of sound. They were meant to help families of those who had lost loved ones and had made the ultimate sacrifice by donating their organs.
Gemma set a cup and saucer down in front of Grayson. “Do you like cream in your tea?”
“I—I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had tea or been to a tea party.”
Lynnea stood, ran to a box, and then returned with a hat and feather boa, which she draped dramatically around his shoulders. The hat didn’t fit, so she set it on top of his hair.
“You have a big head,” she said as she giggled. “Big brains.” She shook her head while laughing until she rolled over.
“My dad calls her a hurricane,” Gemma told him while she continued to prepare their imaginary tea. “I’ll put cream in your tea. That’s how my grandma likes it.”
“Grandma Lorraine?”
Gemma looked at him sharply. “How do you know her name?”
“Like your mom said, we went to high school together. I know your grandparents and your aunt Sienna as well.”
“Do you know my cousins?”
Grayson shook his head slightly. “No, I don’t think so. What are their names?”
In a shocking move, Lynnea sat on his lap. He acted as coolly as possible. “Lincoln and Jaxon. They live in Arlington.”
“So does my mom,” Grayson told Gemma. “Maybe when you come visit your grandparents next time, we’ll go to the zoo. We can visit the elephants.”
“I like the pandas,” Gemma said.
“They’re funny,” Lynnea told him. “We watch them on the video when it snows. He’s always rolling in the snow. He’s going to be a snowman.”
