Page 58 of Fall Over You

I smack the tickets against my thigh. “You don’t even dance. You could let me go for once. You always say I need a night off from Ellie⁠—”

“Ha!” He points at me. “You’re going to line dancing night with Becca, aren’t you?”

I roll my eyes. “Does it matter? Can’t I just have a night off? You offer to babysit all the time and the one night I try to cash in on it, you balk.”

He props his elbows on his knees and his chin on his joined fists. “You can have a night off. I just wonder why all of a sudden things are changing.”

Because you’re running this place into the ground and somebody needs to step up and save it.

Instead I go for the answer that I know he’ll tell Mom and they’ll repeat it back and forth to each other for days.

“I think maybe you’ve been right. It’s time for me to live a little.”

“I don’t want to go to Papaw’s!”

Ellie’s wail can probably be heard two counties over.

“Shug, it’s just one night. I can even come sleep there after we go out⁠—”

“I don’t want to go there!”

I flinch as she winds up to launch into another sob.

“Can he come here?” Becca asks gently. I thought she’d be driving off into the sunset by now, and hell, I wouldn’t blame her for it. A three-year-old’s tantrum is no joke. But she’s still here with us, sitting on the floor by our piled up shoes and Ellie’s overnight bag that will likely be getting no use tonight.

I hold Ellie in my lap and rock her. After Ellie’s sob has bloomed and gone quiet again, I respond to Becca. “Dad’s not great with night driving. He keeps putting off cataract surgery.”

“Your mom?” she tries.

“It’s Wednesday. Church.”

“Oh, right.”

Ellie cry-yells over us and Becca opens her arms, trying to give her somewhere else to land. “Come here, little mama.”

Ellie gives an earnest cry that actually sounds like “boo-hoo” before slumping into Becca’s arms. Becca looks great, dressed up for our night out. She picks some of Ellie’s hairs out of her lip gloss after she kisses her temple with a soft “oops.”

“Even if me and your daddy go out for a little bit, we’ll come back. We’ll always come back for you.”

We. We’ll always come back for you. I don’t know whether to feel honored or terrified at Becca volunteering herself like that. Like we are already a family, even though we aren’t.

But we could be very soon.

Maybe Becca’s just trying to do whatever she can to make Ellie feel better.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Ellie sniffs.

Becca looks at me for help. “I could . . . maybe sleep at your papaw’s too?”

“I wanna sleep HERE!” Ellie shrieks.

“I don’t think we can do anything,” Becca says to me.

She’s right. It’s not the sitter that’s the problem. This is just too much for Ellie. I’ve thrown a lot at her this week. I was a fool to think we could just leave her with Papaw.

I’m sure for a kid who hasn’t experienced what Ellie has, you’d just get through the tantrum and leave them with a sitter with a “good luck.” I can’t feel good about doing that to Ellie. She’s almost crying to the point of making herself sick.

I know Becca wants to go out. I know we need to go out. Becca’s rings got delivered to the shop after I left, so I need to at least stop by and pick them up before someone steals them.