Page 113 of Dark King Daddy

“I’m here.”

She did not let go of my sleeve.

Iset up the library while she was still in the kitchen finishing her water.

The yellow blanket went on the floor beside the low table. I retrieved the miniature greenhouse from the shelf where it had sat since she left it four days ago. The pieces were where she had left them: walls assembled, roof panels cut, the bag of paper plants waiting to be folded and placed.

I set my laptop on the table and opened the file. Kiki’s Delivery Service. The title screen appeared, the animation bright against the dark library walls.

Ksenia appeared in the doorway. Misha was still under her arm. She looked at the blanket, the cushions, the greenhouse, the screen.

“Can I bring the greenhouse down?” I asked.

She nodded. Already settling — her movements looser, her shoulders lower, the particular softening that told me she was letting the adult architecture come down piece by piece.

I placed the greenhouse on the table beside the laptop. She sat on the blanket, crossed her legs, and pulled the cushion behind her. I sat beside her. Close enough that our knees touched when she leaned forward to sort the pieces.

The film started. Kiki stood on the railing, looking at the sky.

Ksenia opened the bag of paper plants and spread them on the blanket between us. Tiny, die-cut, each one requiring folding along scored lines. She picked up the tweezers and a small fern and began.

“You’re on ferns,” she said.

She handed me a flat piece of green paper and a pair of tweezers that were far too small for my hands.

“Fold along the center line. Then fold the fronds down. Alternate sides.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

I looked at the paper. I looked at the scored lines. I folded along the center line. I folded the fronds down. I alternated sides.

The result looked like a cabbage.

Ksenia looked at it. She looked at me. Her mouth pressed flat. Her eyes widened. Then she laughed, sudden and bright, the sound filling the library the way the firelight filled it, reaching the corners the warmth could not.

“That’s a fern?”

“It’s a work in progress.”

“It’s a cabbage, Daddy. It’s a tiny malformed cabbage.”

She took it from my hand. She turned it over. She turned it again. She placed it on the table beside the greenhouse entrance with the deliberate care of a woman installing a centerpiece.

“We’re keeping it.”

“It doesn’t look like a fern.”

“It looks like you tried. It goes by the door.”

She handed me another piece. I folded it. This one was worse—the fronds collapsed inward and the stem bent at an angle that suggested the plant had been struck by something heavy.

“Excellent,” she said. “That one goes next to the other cabbage.”

She was smiling and I was happy.

We worked through the film. Kiki flew. The cat talked. The music swelled and softened and swelled again. Ksenia’s fingers moved with precision I could not match—her ferns had fronds that curved, her flowers had petals that opened, her tiny trees had canopies that held their shape. She glued the roof panels while I held them in position, my fingers pressing the edges while hers applied the adhesive in thin, exact lines.

“Hold that one. Don’t move.”