Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“Oh, it’s so pretty. The illustrations,” I whisper, turning beautiful page after beautiful page, each with a space for a photo, a thought, or a memento.
“Ma will probably bring Matt’s baby book when she comes to visit and bore you half to death with tales of himself and his grand escapades.”
I look up. “You all have a book like this?”
She nods, her flash of surprise evident. “At least one each.”
“That’s so sweet,” I say, looking down again, embarrassed by the slip.
“I’m gonna draw the baby a picture,” Clo says, filling the awkward pause.
“That’s a grand idea. Scuse me,” Letty adds, pulling her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. “Ah, shit!”
“I better get my swear jar.” Clo drops her pencil and clambers from the cushions.
“No time. We’ve got your parent-teacher conference in half an hour. It’s a good thing one of the other moms thought to remind me.” She shoots me an apologetic glance. “Honestly, baby brain lasts for years.”
“I don’t wanna go,” Clodagh whines. “You said I could have a hot chocolate at Uncle Matty’s.”
“Maybe later. Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
“I know we don’t want to be late, because I don’t wanna go!”
“Why don’t you leave Clodagh with me?” I suggest, surprised by the offer myself. But the little girl is really not keen, and her mom looks so frazzled. And I just put my foot in my mouth.
“You’re sure?”
I nod. Because I can’t really say, Lol, jokes, no, can I? But really, how hard can it be? Clodagh is five—practically self-sufficient! Or maybe that was just me.
“I’ll be an hour. Ninety minutes tops,” Letty says, grabbing her purse after shoving one arm into her jacket. “Her teacher is a bit of a gasbag. It’s hard to get away sometimes.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be here.” As usual.
A quick kiss to her daughter’s head, a grateful smile for me, and she’s gone.
Things start out well enough. We sit on the couch with Clodagh’s coloring book.
“This is you,” she says, pointing to a triangle with a pin head and stringy hair. “And this is Uncle Matty.”
“I can tell.” Because his triangle body is upside down, narrow at the bottom and wide at the shoulders. Story checks out, but for his pin head.
“And this is me next to you, and see, you’re holding your baby.”
“I do see. Is it a boy or a girl?”
“I think it might be a guinea pig.”
“Cool. I’ve never had one of those.”
“Ryan, if you weren’t already family, I would choose for you to be.”
“Oh, Clodagh. That’s so nice of you to say.” My heart does the Grinch thing. I’m not gonna correct her. This is her family and my babe’s family too. But I’m not part of them. I don’t belong here.
“I’m thirsty.”
“Then let’s get you a water.”
Next, Clodagh is hot chocolate thirsty, so I make her one of those with cream and sprinkles and marshmallows, because apparently, she’s allowed all that before dinner.
Then she’s hungry for grilled cheese. Given that it’s almost 4:30 in the afternoon, I don’t see the issue and think I might even be doing her mom a favor. Until I consider allergies. Clodagh settles for a piece of fruit instead.
Then her legs begin to ache, and apparently, the antidote is a run around the garden. Because “growing legs need things to do.” So a run around the garden she gets. Which then necessitates a change of clothes after she skids in the wet grass and mud.
“Don’t worry,” she says as I stare in horror at her once-pink leggings. “I have clothes upstairs in my old bedroom.”
So that’s where we go, and as she pulls on some clean leggings, I take my eyes off her for two seconds. And poof! She disappears. Gone. Like aliens beamed her up out of nowhere. As in, no sight or sound of her is available to me.
I look in the closet and under the bed, the same in the next room, and the next. And so it goes, my voice echoing from the walls as panic begins to spout and grow, twining around my ribs like ivy strangling a tree.
“Clodagh!” Each time I call her name, I sound more than a little desperate, even to my own ears. “Clodagh, sweets, where are you?”
The doors are all locked—where the hell could she have gone? Unless . . . she’s tall enough to open them from the inside. And has gone looking for her mom.
She wouldn’t, would she?
I thunder down the grand staircase and check the doors. The kitchen, the pantry, the garden, my rooms, as my heart continues to beat like runaway hooves.
At my wits’ end, I grab my phone and decide there’s nothing for it—I’ll have to call her mom.
So hey, Letty. I don’t quite know how to tell you, but the house ate your daughter. Yep, that’s what I said. She’s gone.