Josie Guerrero is focused on one thing: getting accepted into the prestigious art studies program within the Art School at the University of Southern Washington. With thirteen weeks to create her sophomore portfolio, she knows she can't afford any d...
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My hands are coated in cinnamon sugar.
I'm tempted to lick a bit from the back of my hand but temper the thought when Lily lifts her gaze from the apples she's slicing to smile at me. She hasn't stopped smiling since Micah and I arrived an hour ago — Micah with his hands in his pockets and an uncomfortable grimace on his face, and me with a smile that mirrored the excitement of his mother's.
She pulled him into a hug the second he stepped inside, and I smiled at him over her shoulder when he slid his hands from his pockets to return her embrace, pulling her softly against his chest as he bent down to her height. He rolled his eyes when she refused to unlatch her arms from around his neck, but I smiled encouragingly at him, watching as his eyes dipped to my lips and his shoulders slowly untensed to allow his mother to hold him for as long as she wished.
Based on the tears in her eyes when she finally let him go, I have a feeling he hasn't willingly shown affection to her in a long time, and when she turned on her heel and wrapped her arms around me next, I didn't hesitate to return her warmth.
My mouth watered the second we stepped further into the house and the savory aroma met us head-on. It smelled divine, the notes of each dish mixing together as they baked — the quintessential Thanksgiving feast nearly ready. She'd been cooking for hours by the time we arrived, and when Micah tried to pull me into the living room to go watch the football game with his brothers — and father, who was surrounded by wires and oxygen tubes, even out of the hospital —, I slipped my hand from his and opted to stay in the kitchen with his mother to finish cooking.
Her brows rose in surprise, but she didn't fight my offer to help as she ushered me inside the small kitchen, leading me toward the counter where a sack of apples were sitting beside the sink. I've been slicing apples for the past thirty minutes, tossing the pieces in the mixture of cinnamon sugar before sliding the bowl over to Lily to fill the pie crusts with.
"This must be what it's like to have a daughter." Lily muses faintly beside me, watching me toss the apples in the cinnamon-sugar mixture. I smile at the thought, glancing up at her as she blushes as if realizing that she'd said that aloud. "I love my boys, please don't misunderstand me. I love them more than life itself. But can't deny that I've always wondered what it would have been like to have a daughter. A little girl." Her cheeks warm a little more. "The dresses and bows, tea parties, dolls, and ballet. It's a very different reality than the one with four boys — sports practices — hockey, football, basketball, wrestling," she ticked them off as if lost in a memory. "The roughhousing in the house, the wrestling on my couch, the dirt stains on my rugs, the number of glass vases shattered — " she blinks, smiling at me with gentle mirth. "You wouldn't believe the number of vases those boys have broken."
I smile at my hands, imagining the younger version of Micah and his brothers that are running through her thoughts. I try to imagine a younger Micah — a little boy lit with laughter, cheeks flushed with excitement as he tears through the house with his brothers, a book tucked under his arm, perhaps.
