“I wanna pick my wife up from work.”
She went quiet for a second. I’d learned that silence meant she was trying not to let me hear her smile.
“Well.” Her voice came back softer. “Do that, then. I gotta go.”
She hung up before I could get the last word, like always.
We finally made it home, and Kareem helped us with the bags from our mini shopping spree.
Buttercup came everywhere with us, including down to the living room floor, where we dumped out a Lego set, the box of which promised a castle, give or take ten years. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d built a Lego anything. I couldn’t tell her no either.
Cadence settled in with a juice box and a bowl of Hot Cheetos. I had a beer I wasn’t really drinking. What held my attention was Buttercup and five more stuffed animals lined up against the couch, all facing us.
Cadence talked a mile a minute. One thought rolled right into the next without a single connection between them. That reminded me of her rambling-ass mama.
I nodded toward the audience.
“Cady, why all your stuffies watching us? Your mama got ‘em spying on me?”
She giggled, orange Cheeto dust all over her fingers.
“No, silly.”
I looked back at the lineup.
“Well, they making me nervous.”
She laughed even harder.
“We’re playing YouTube.”
I frowned.
“Playing YouTube?”
She pointed at Buttercup like I should’ve known that already.
“They’re watching us play with our toys.”
I looked at every last stuffed animal again.
“Baby...they’re stuffed animals.”
She shrugged.
“Pretend.”
She rolled onto her stomach and grabbed my face. I still wasn’t used to her doing that. Little hands all over me like she’d known me forever.
She traced over my eyebrows.
“Why do you have my eyebrows?”
“‘Cause you got ‘em from me, much like my whole face.”
“Oh.” She nodded like that settled it. “So we’re twins. Mama said that.”
She snapped another Lego into place, frowned at it, then gasped.