Page 76 of Rebooked For Us
“With her whole soul, I bet,” I said. “You told me that the first day I ever met you.”
“Yeah, like you told me your blood type.”
“I was just letting you know I could save you. If it came to that.”
“Whew. That was loaded.” She giggled, and I gave my attention back to Cadence.
She was spinning when she was supposed to be still, waving at me through the mirror instead of watching the teacher, losing a slipper, and dancing on one foot anyway.
I smiled.
I’d let too many people shape my life. My father. Bianca. Even Skye. Everybody had decided what was best for me, andsomewhere along the way, I’d stopped making those decisions for myself.
That shit was over.
Nobody was ever going to separate me from my wife or my daughter again. Nobody was going to run me off. Nobody was going to make me question where I belong.
I wanted more mornings on the couch. More ballet recitals. More milkshakes. More ordinary Tuesdays that nobody else got to interrupt.
This time, I was keeping all of it.
When the teacher finally let them go, Cadence ran straight at me, no hesitation, no shyness.
“Did you see me, Daddy? Did you see my spin?”
“I saw every second of it.” I scooped her up, tickling her. “You were the best one out there.”
“I know.” She fixed her glasses, dead serious. “Can we get milkshakes now?”
I looked at Skye over the top of our daughter’s head. She was already looking at me.
“Yeah, baby,” I said. “We can get milkshakes.”
We were headed out to the twins’ fifth birthday, but it was like Cadence just couldn’t get it together. She’d spent the last twenty minutes upstairs refusing to put her shoes on, then insisting on a different dress than the one we’d already picked out together the night before, then crying about a headband that wasn’t even hers to begin with.
This was the part of parenting that worked your nerves, but I was patient. I always had been with her.
“Sugar, what’s wrong? Why are you acting out today?” I asked as she plopped down into the car with her arms crossed.
“I don’t wanna go.”
“You love CJ and Carty’s parties. You’ve been talking about the bounce house all week.”
She didn’t answer, just stared out the window with her bottom lip stuck out far enough to trip over. I used to think Ihad this part figured out, reading her moods, knowing which tantrum needed patience and which needed a firm hand.
Six years of reading her moods on my own had made me good at it, or at least good enough. What I hadn’t planned for was a new variable in the equation. Ducane not being in the room, or in the car, or anywhere she could see him, might be exactly what this attitude was about, and I hadn’t had to account for that before.
“Cadence, look at Mommy,” I said, gently pulling her chin toward me. The tears in her eyes broke my heart. “Tell me what it is, and I can fix it.”
“I wanted Daddy to come. Why didn’t you let him come?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” I pulled her in a little closer. “You know how Mommy flies around the world? That's my job. Well, Daddy has a job too, and today that job needed him somewhere else. That’s all it is.”
“I wanna ask him.”
I chuckled, shaking my head, because apparently, we’d reached the part of parenting where my word meant absolutely nothing. I pulled my phone out and called Ducane on FaceTime, praying he’d answer. I couldn’t deal with this attitude all day.
“Yeah, y’all good?”
