Page 4 of His Vivacious Angel
“You followed me?” she screeches when I step out of the SUV. She stands just out of arm’s reach, lifting the can with her finger on the nozzle.Bear spray.Christ almighty.
“No!” I put my hands up and back away, readying my tired body to dodge the spray, if at all possible. I tip my head toward the tall, wooden FOR SALE sign to the left of the driveway that my realtor hasn’t removed from my yard yet. “I just moved in.”
She narrows her eyes with suspicion. “Prove it.”
“Put the can down first.”
“No.” She flexes her finger, a multitude of silver rings reflecting the street lamps’ light.
“Fine!” I yank my keys out of the ignition and quickly lock the SUV’s doors to protect the kids, then dash across my expansive lawn. I jam my fingers against the electric keypad to unlock the freshly stained, wooden front door, throw it open with a bang, and make it back to the SUV within a minute.
“Well, there goes the neighborhood.” She lets her arm drop, her numerous bracelets clinking together, and gives a sidelong glance at the SUV, where the children have begun to cry again. “I’ve seen this play before.”
“What play?”
She purses her lips. “It’s how James trapped my sister.”
“Who’s James?”
She tilts her head, looking down the street, and says to herself, “Although I think she wanted to be trapped.”
I scrub my hands down my face with frustration, ready to be done with her and this horrible night. “What are you talking about?”
She lifts her small chin. “I do not babysit for anyone but family, so don’t even bother asking.”
Bewildered by her sudden declaration, I blurt, “As if I’d hire a lunatic like you to watch my kids.”
“You’d be so lucky.” She tosses her long, shiny platinum hair over her shoulder, spins on a heel, and runs back across the street. I don’t know how she does it in heels so high.
I hate that I look at the backs of her thighs again, her lithe muscles flexing below her dress, which bounces up with every step.
She suddenly whirls and yells, “Stop watching me, weirdo!”
“I’m not!”
She gives me both middle fingers before disappearing into her house.
That’s one way to welcome someone to the neighborhood. I can only hope my new coworkers are much nicer and less inclined to threaten me with bear spray when I start my new job tomorrow.
The ice cream is a melted mess by the time I get the kids and groceries inside. Unopened cardboard boxes are scattered throughout the one-story, four-bedroom house. The only thing I have properly put away is our furniture, since we all need a safe place to sleep.
I recognize my parenting game isn’t up to snuff when I simply hand the pint of chocolate ice cream to Sebastian after he climbs onto his twin-sized bed in the nursery, allowing him to slurp it like a milkshake while I get Josephine settled into bed in her room. Fortunately for her, the hall bathroomseparates her room from the boys’ so their ruckus doesn’t keep her up at night.
With Benjamin tucked into one arm, I kneel beside Josephine’s bed and smooth back her ponytail. “I’m so sorry I left you alone in the grocery store.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, curling on her side with her stuffed bunny rabbit, tucking it against her chest. She hasn’t slept with it since she was six years old, and it kills me that the past month has been so upsetting that she’s reaching for her younger childhood comforts.
“No, it’s not. I scared you, and I never, ever want you to be scared of anything. I promise I’ll do better.” I hope I’m not making an empty one. “We’ll get through this. You’ll see.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she says, smacking her lips and burrowing deeper under her rainbow quilt, as worn out as I am.
When I make it back to the boys’ room, chocolate rims Sebastian’s lips, and he’s only grown more wired with all the sugar. My stomach hollows out. I really do suck at this, and I’m in for another long, sleepless night.
With Benjamin and a bottle of his expensive-as-all-get-out formula, I settle into the corduroy rocking recliner in the corner. It’s the strangest feeling, feeding and taking care of a six-month-old baby that isn’t mine, while staring at the two-year-old that also isn’t mine.
It’s been ten years since my ex-girlfriend, Lindsay, signed over her parental rights when Josephine was born. As much as it devastated me, I’d understood when Lindsay had said she wasn’t ready to settle down yet. We were only seniors in college. I was ready, though—or at least I naively thought I was.
When I was recruited for a senior position in my field, I’d been intrigued by the idea of raising Josephine in a smaller city, relocating from San Antonio to live a slower pace of life. It was just my luck that, only two days after going under contract onthis house, I received the phone call about my ex and her husband passing, leaving behind the boys and irrevocably rocking our world. It was shocking, to say the least, to learn she had listed me as her emergency contact. With no one else—family or friends—to take the boys, it fell to me to decide their future—take them in and raise them with their older sister, or let the state put them in foster care. It was an easy decision to step up for them.
