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Three Months Later
Sticky residue from an hour-old apple juice spill is melding onto the kitchen table, a sugary and sweet mess that hasn't gotten the chance to be wiped down yet. A passable replica of rutabaga and parsnip soup grows cold and lonely in the ceramic pot on the stove, steam no longer wafting up toward the ceiling. The powdered formula that escaped from a measuring cup dusts the granite counter, a telltale sign that the morning has been very rushed.
Very, very rushed.
It's a quarter after nine, and Harry should be at work right now. He should be walking through the hospital halls with his clipboard in hand and a ballpoint pen tucked into the breast pocket of his doctor's coat. He should be hearing little gasps and footsteps running toward him as arms wrap around his knees, instantly brightening the dismal day ahead. He should be making himself a black coffee with a pinch of salt and sitting down in his decorated office with sun and rainbow stickers on the sky-blue walls, giving hopeful hands a lollipop of their choosing after a checkup.
And yet he's not because Reese hasn't arrived yet.
She's supposed to be at the house to babysit, yet she's nowhere to be found. Friday morning light pours into the kitchen, a beautiful golden hue worth basking in, however, Harry can't wait around much longer. He has to go to work. The kids need him.
An onslaught of calls and texts has already been sent to her, and his fingers are cramping from the number of messages he typed. He can't help but overreact, especially since Marlowe is becoming fussy from all his running around and mumbling to himself. His face is getting warm with worries that something terrible has happened.
Harry needs his lifesaver. Where has she drifted off to?
He's not angry or disappointed. God, he could never bear being upset with her simply because she's never given him a reason to. Maybe she overslept or got her days mixed up. It's an easy mistake that shouldn't warrant a freakout. Right?
Unfortunately, the dark-haired girl who swooped in and eased her way into his bubble is currently making him a high-strung, jittery mess.
Reese really was some angel sent to him when he needed her most. Every time he's come home for the past three months, he's never seen his daughter more immersed in what she's doing. Whether it's watching Reese read a picture book or sitting on her hip while she cleans, she's mesmerized.
Harry would be lying if he said he wasn't mesmerized by her, too. The softness of her voice, for example, is so quiet sometimes that he often has to ask her to repeat herself. He doesn't mind, though, since it gives him time to admire the way her cheeks turn cherry red. And when she comes over in her thrifted outfits and stumbles over her words when he compliments her style, there's just a way about her that makes him never want to leave for work. He desperately wants to get to know her.
