Page 74 of Joker

I stare at that tiny hand on the floor for half a second. Then, because I’m clearly losing my mind, I set the water bottle down and sit.

From the couch, Casey says, “Wow.”

Amy snorts. Gio just looks vindicated, like he knew all along that the giant biker had no defense against a determined toddler.

Lexi pushes the crayon box toward me with great seriousness. “You do this one.”

I look down at the page. It’s some kind of cartoon dinosaur standing in front of a volcano, smiling like it doesn’t understand what a volcano is.

“Looks fake,” I say.

“It’s coloring.”

“Still fake.”

She leans closer, frowning at the page. “No, it’s not.”

“Dinosaurs don’t smile.”

“You don’t know.”

That one gets me.

A laugh slips out before I can stop it, low and brief and enough to make Amy and Casey glance over like they’ve never heard the sound before. Fair. I probably don’t give it away often.

“Alright, menace,” I mutter, taking the green crayon. “Which part am I ruining?”

She points at the dinosaur’s tail. “There.”

“Specific.”

“I know.”

I color the tail. Badly on purpose at first, just enough to make her suck in a dramatic breath and snatch the page closer.

“No, not like that.”

“It’s green.”

“It’s messy.”

“It’s art.”

She stares at me.

I stare right back.

Then she huffs a sigh so exaggerated it belongs in a soap opera and scoots closer, Bunny still hooked under one arm while she corrects my coloring like I’m a very stupid employee she’s trying to salvage.

And somewhere in the middle of letting a three-year-old bully me over a dinosaur’s tail, it hits me.

I don’t just tolerate this kid. I like her. That realization lands with enough force to be deeply irritating.

Because tolerance is one thing. Tolerance is manageable. A child attached to her mother in a guest room next to mine, a little wary and clingy and too quiet for her age, is something I can factor into a situation. Something I can work around. Something I can keep in the category of “not my problem but currently under my roof.”

Liking her is different. Liking her means I notice when she’s not in a room. It means I know Bunny is usually tucked under her left arm when she’s tired and dragged by one ear when she’s not.

It means I know she only really eats the cereal from the purple box unless Emma talks her into eggs. It means I have somehow started waiting for the little crease between her brows when she’s thinking hard enough to ask one of her weird, overly specific questions. It means I’m now sitting on a clubhouse floor helping her color like I don’t have a shred of dignity left.