Dandelions

Margaret Buckley

The smell of Buck's house was oddly comforting — faint lavender from the diffuser in the hallway, coffee lingering from hours ago, and something vaguely sweet that she suspected was Elle's shampoo. Margaret stepped inside with slow, deliberate movements, letting the door click shut behind her as she removed her scarf with more flair than necessary.

She hadn't told Phillip she was coming. In truth, she didn't feel like explaining it to him. There'd been a brunch scheduled with the club wives — crustless sandwiches, polite comments about retirement homes, and the looming promise of another afternoon pretending everything had always been fine.

No, thank you.

Buck's house, though... that was something else entirely. It wasn't just the open floor plan or the ocean-colored throw pillows that made her want to stay. It was the noise. The life here. She could hear Elle somewhere deeper in the house, babbling away in her little pen, singing to herself in a language only toddlers spoke.

Margaret smiled to herself as she wandered toward the living room. Her heels clicked softly against the hardwood, the sound steady and familiar. She passed the painting of Long Beach that Buck had insisted on hanging despite her comments about it being "a bit loud." It had grown on her. So had most things, actually.

"G'anma!"

That one word stopped her dead in her tracks.

Elle was already standing in the middle of her pen, arms up, grin wide and shameless. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her curls stuck out in every direction like she'd just survived a tiny hurricane. She looked absurd. She looked perfect.

Margaret felt her throat tighten.

"There's my girl," she murmured, stepping into the room and kneeling down beside the pen, her voice softer than she'd meant it to be. "Come here, sweetheart."

Elle toppled into her arms without hesitation, limbs flailing, giggling the whole way down. Margaret caught her, laughing despite herself, and sat back on her heels, letting the baby climb her like a jungle gym. The soft weight of her was familiar now — a rhythm she was still learning, but one she didn't want to forget.

Buck had told her Elle was like him at that age. Same bright eyes, same reckless little heart. But Margaret couldn't see it — not really. Her memories of Buck as a toddler came back in flickers, like slides on a dusty carousel: the back of his head at Daniel's appointments, the way he'd cling to Maddie's hand at family functions, always looking for someone to follow.

She hadn't realized how much she'd lost until she saw it showing up in someone new.

Elle was pressing a block to her cheek now, making an odd little hum that Margaret suspected was supposed to be a lullaby. She watched her, one hand resting gently on the child's back, and something ached in her chest.

There had been too many years where the silence in her house had been unbearable. Too many hours spent folding laundry that didn't fit anymore, or setting extra places at the table she never needed. The kind of silence that gets under your skin and settles there like dust in the corners. She'd ignored it for so long, blamed it on the weather, on work, on Phillip's moods. But the truth had always been simpler.

She'd missed them growing up.

Not all at once. But in pieces.

A science fair she didn't attend. A birthday cake bought instead of baked. The way Buck stopped asking for bedtime stories and she hadn't noticed until he'd stopped coming to her altogether.

Now here she was, holding his daughter in her arms, wondering how many versions of the same mistake a person was allowed to make before the universe cut them off.