Page 13 of From This Moment (After We Fall 4)
“What do you say, Abby?” I prompted.
“Thank you.” She beamed at him. “I love it.”
“You’re welcome.” He picked up his fork again. “I’m so glad it fits.”
“Can we go for ice cream now, Mommy?”
I looked at Wes. “She wants to walk into town for ice cream. It’s no problem if you don’t have time.”
“Of course I have time.”
“Abby, let Uncle Wes finish his dinner, and then we’ll go, okay?”
“Okay. Can I go back outside?”
“You can go in the backyard. Not the front.”
“Kay.” She went out the back door, leaving us alone again.
“She’s so cute, Hannah.”
“Thanks.”
“How is she doing with…everything?”
“Pretty well, I guess.” I sighed, lifting my shoulders. “She was so young, you know? And sometimes I’m torn between hoping she remembers everything about him and how much he loved her, and other times I’m glad she probably doesn’t. I don’t want her to have the pain of missing him the way I do.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
“She doesn’t talk about him a lot,” I confessed. “At least not with me. Her therapist thinks it’s probably because she thinks it will make me sad, not because she doesn’t want to remember him.”
“Makes sense.”
“So each night at bedtime, she’ll ask me something about him, or I’ll tell her a story.”
“That’s a good idea.” He picked up his wine. “I could tell her some, too, if you’d like.”
“She’d love that. In fact, she just asked me last night what Drew looked like at her age. I told her maybe Nana had a picture at her house.”
“Definitely. Albums full of them. And she loves looking through them. Why don’t you bring Abby over tomorrow? Mom would love to see you both.”
“I have to work,” I said, glad for the excuse.
“All day?”
I hesitated. “Until two. She’ll be here with her sitter.”
“Bring her after that. We’ll swim and have a cookout or something. I can show Abby how her dad and I grilled hot dogs over a bonfire at the beach. And made s’mores.”
“She does like hot dogs and s’mores,” I admitted.
“Good. Then it’s settled.” He finished eating and carried his dishes to the sink, and I followed with two empty wine glasses. For a moment, we stood shoulder to shoulder looking out the window into the yard, where Abby was sitting on a swing Drew had hung from a tree for her. We could hear her singing “Lullaby of Birdland” softly through the screen.
“She sings Sarah Vaughn,” he said. “Just like you used to.”
I looked up at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “My mom loves those old standards. I grew up hearing them.”
