Raising Isla | ENGLOT AU

Chapter 12: You're Mom - Isla

The presence of a toddler had made itself home so surreptitiously through Calypso's living space that when Emery had first noticed, she'd wondered if she was even aware of the sheer amount of infant-like colour that sat in the stacks of plastic plates in her cupboard. If the stickers, and letters, and drawings sprawled over the refrigerator door had found themselves there without her notice, joining seamlessly with the dullness of what had been there before. Or if it had so simply and so quickly become a new normal.

And then there was the toddler step. Which was a stupid thing, Em acknowledged, to have been so overwhelmingly endeared about. Isla was barely eye level with the white granite of the kitchen countertops, the extra height just about making it possible for Emery, as she stood behind her, to tie the ridiculously small apron around the infants waisted before navigating Isla's hands as they gripped determinedly around the wooden mixing spoon. Flour powdered, miraculously, over only one of the little girls cheeks as the contents of the mixing bowl were haphazardly folded together. Emery tried not to laugh as she guided, but it would only have sounded fond if she'd failed.

The three-year-old's hands were far more clumsy than Em's, unbalanced and unpractised - but Em was learning that the mess was half the fun of it. The blueberries on the floor seemed happy enough to be there. And the chocolate chips seemed to disappear by the tiny-handful every time Emery turned back to the refrigerator.

Calypso might have been smiling at them, but Emery only caught a glimpse of it. Her eyes flickering up to where Calypso had been attempting to tidy the living room; she'd seen it alive on her face for only a heartbeat before she'd turned, though that didn't stop the same sentiment lighting up her own expression.

Emery didn't think she'd ever done something quite so... well, domestic .

Isla was sat at the table ten minutes later, a chubby knife and fork held in her hands and a look on her face as though she were about to march into the frontlines. The inch of tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth doing nothing at all to dim the expression.

It was probably a tad too much sugar, Emery noted, as she raised an eyebrow at the final arrangement Calypso had made under Isla's instruction. Em acknowledged the blueberries - it was an effort at least, but she didn't think it counted for much when they'd been completely drowned in syrup.

She commented on it as Cal left Isla to eat, returning to the kitchen to help Emery clean.

Calypso nodded with a smile, recognising the concern before she explained. "The promise of pancakes was a distraction from the hearing tomorrow. She's been worrying about it all week, I wanted her to have something to look forward to this weekend, even if it was only small."

Emery's eyes turned from mild contempt to understanding. "But there's nothing that could actually go wrong, right? No hiccups or road bumps that would stop you from being in and out of the courtroom in under an hour?"

They'd been talking quietly, and Isla seems to busy with her pancakes, but Cal shushed her voice even further. "There is one little thing," she admitted. "Possibly a thing - arguably quite big, actually."

"Calypso."

She sighed, glancing to check that Isla was still focused on her breakfast. "Her birth father's been unusually quiet about the whole situation. He's put through no protest regarding the adoption yet, but he's also made no agreement not to."

"What does that mean exactly?" Emery asked.

"It means that if he chooses to, he could dispute it at the last minute." Cal explained.

Sheknew - and it was the one thing she was sure of - that no court would ever hand Isla over to a convicted felon who had, so far, spent so little time around his daughter that he probably wouldn't even be able to recall the colour of her eyes. No, Mew would not take her, but he could make the legalities of the adoption damn difficult. As the little girl's last living biological parent he retained the power to agitate the authority behind the line in the will that had left Isla to Calypso. A spanner in the works, Chompu used to call it. But this would potentially be more like throwing the whole tool kit into the system.