“Me, too.”
“Lucy,” Sutton called, “I’m leaving!”
Little footsteps came pounding down the hallway, washing away Charlotte’s warm feelings to replace them with nerves. It was only a couple of hours, she reminded herself, before Lucy was supposed to go to bed. Right?
Lucy’s hair was slightly damp and braided, clearly indicating that she had had a bath in the recent past. She was wearing some sort of children’s themed—Charlotte would have to figure out what exactly said theme was—matching pajama top and bottoms. They were clearly a favorite pair, as they were a little worn.
She hopped right into Sutton’s waiting arms, clearly a goodbye ritual. Sutton laid a kiss on Lucy’s cheek before Lucy mirrored it on Sutton’s, then squirmed down her mother’s legs like a little monkey. “I love you.”
“I love you more,” Sutton mirrored. “Be good for Charlotte, honey.”
“I willlll,” Lucy sang in a way that made Charlotte wonder about the validity of that statement.
“Be good for Lucy,” Sutton aimed at her, a warm laugh in her voice.
“I will,” Charlotte echoed. Shewould be.
“Goodbye you two.” Sutton waved/ “I’ll be back in a few hours. Before midnight.”
Charlotte gamely waved before looking down at Lucy, whose big, bright blue eyes were already on her as she bounced on her feet. “I watched you on the TV with Mama on Monday!” she announced.
Charlotte cleared her throat, nodding as she thought about her appearance on CNN to discuss her developing healthcare initiative. She could work with that. “What did you think?”
Lucy shrugged, playing with the bottom of her pajama shirt with fidgety hands. “I dunno. It was boring stuff. But you looked pretty,” she asserted brightly.
“I’ll take that,” she accepted. She gently set down the bag before sliding her jacket off and hanging it over the back of an armchair. “So…”
“Soooo…” Lucy mimicked her, staring up at Charlotte as she bounced back and forth on her feet, silence surrounding them.
Lord, what was Charlotte doing here? How did she talk to a child? She’d gone forty years without engaging in conversation with someone this young, just the two of them!
“What’s in the bag?” Lucy asked, clearly and thankfully not feeling the same sort of awkward nerve that Charlotte was.
Charlotte was relieved she’d had Autumn go to the store for her as she tugged the bag back up. “Ah! Well, I thought I would bring us some things to… play with?” That seemed like the appropriate terminology.
Lucy’s eyes—the exact same color and shape as Sutton’s—widened adorably. “Can I see? Please?!” She held her hands out excitedly but didn’t move to take the bag or peek into it herself. Charlotte attributed this to good parenting; god, had she seen some entitled children in her social circle.
Charlotte acquiesced, and Lucy squealed, revealing her missing teeth in an exuberant smile as she took the bag.
And Charlotte… well, Charlotte was truly worried about what she was in for.
CHAPTER SEVEN-AND-A-HALF
BABYSITTING AN ENERGETIC six-year-old for two hours, Charlotte learned, actually felt more like babysitting for six hours.
It started with Lucy exclaiming, “Kin-kinet… sand?!” Then she turned confused eyes Charlotte’s way. “What’s that?”
Charlotte kneeled next to her and took the box from her. She’d asked Autumn to get some sort of DIY craft thing as Sutton had informed her that she wanted to get Lucy more into some activities that were calming for the evenings.
She studied it for a few seconds before saying, “Kinetic sand. It appears to be sand that is… magnetic?” She pointed out the shapes and figures made out of colorful magnetic sand on the back of the box and watched as Lucy’s eyes popped wide.
“That is so cool! Can we do it?”
“That’s why I brought it.”
She learned during this activity that she truly needn’t have worried about making conversation with Lucy because Lucy was happy to make conversation with her. She didn’t appear to notice or care that Charlotte didn’t know how to use those soft child tones that people used on young children or that she answered the same way she would answer an adult.
Treating Lucy like she was an adult, but small, seemed the best way for her to go about this.