“Daddy.” Ruby’s angry voice carried down the hall.
“What?”
“My swimsuit is ruined.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look.”
Devon and I both turned our heads from the television and saw Ruby standing at the mouth of the hallway, holding up her one-piece swimming suit. It had holes cut in it, along with other wide strips of material missing.
“What in the world happened to it?” I asked.
“Jax?” Devon called, seeming to already know who was responsible. I tried to hide my smile as Jax emerged from his room, head bowed, guilt written all over his face. “Did you do this to your sister’s swimsuit?”
“I needed something to make a slingshot with! The material of her suit was stretchy and I had to use it since I couldn’t find a rubber band big enough.”
“You used my swimsuit to make a slingshot?” Ruby yelled, obviously not finding the humor in the situation I was. She lunged toward him, but he was faster than her and ran away before she could catch him.
“Ruby,” Devon called out, his voice sharp and swift. “I’ll handle your brother. Don’t lay a hand on him.”
She huffed out a frustrated breath and stomped back down the hallway. Once she was out of earshot I buried my face in Devon’s chest and let out the laughter I’d been holding in. His warm hand came to the back of my head, holding me to him, and I felt his chest rumbling with laughter too. I pulled back and looked him in the eye.
“Only Jax would cut up his sister’s swimsuit to make a slingshot. He’s crazy smart.” My smile was wide. I’d been smiling a lot in the past few weeks.
“I don’t know about that. Smart people usually consider the consequences before performing such obvious crimes. Did he not think he was going to be caught?” He let out another laugh, but when it died down it turned into a sigh. “A swimsuit trip was not on my agenda. Evie’s coming to get the kids tomorrow and I have to work all day.”
“I can take her to get a swimsuit,” I said, moving my hand up his chest to rest on his shoulder. “I’d love to, actually.”
“You have time tomorrow?”
“I’m free as a bird,” I responded with a smile.
“You’d really be helping me out. Ruby’s been a handful lately and I’m sure Jax doesn’t want to go swimsuit shopping with his sister.”
“It’ll be good. I’ve had plenty of one-on-one time with Jaxy at school and stuff. It’ll be nice to have a little girl time with Ruby. Maybe we can go get our nails done or something too.” A sweet smile spread across his face and he leaned in, kissing me deeply until I was out of breath. “What was that for?” I asked when he pulled away.
His thumb came up and rubbed right under my bottom lip. “You called him Jaxy. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call him anything except Jax.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that I hadn’t been using his nickname. I’d heard Devon and Ruby call him that ever since we started dating.
“I guess you finally rubbed off on me,” I said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.
“I think, perhaps, you finally are starting to feel like a part of our family.”
“Perhaps,” I whispered, emotions creeping back into my voice. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined finding a man as wonderful as Devon and finding a place in a family. A family was all I’d ever dreamed about, and sitting here with him, his arms around me, children arguing down the hall, it all seemed too good to be true.
“I think you should stay here tonight.” His words were definitive.
“All right,” I agreed. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t stayed over almost every night in the last month.
“And I want you to be here when the kids wake up.”
“Devon—” I began to argue, but he cut me off.
“I want you to get used to it as much as them. I promise it won’t be a big deal. In fact,” he sat up straighter with his words and then called out, “Kids, come out here for a moment.”
“What are you doing?” Panic made my heart race.
He smiled at me in response, then pressed a quick kiss against my forehead before moving me off him and sitting up straight on the couch. Ruby and Jax came down the hallway, both with expectant looks on their faces.
“Quick family meeting,” Devon started once both kids were in front of us. “We’re all going to go out to dinner tonight, the four of us, and we’re going to stop at Grace’s on the way home. She’s going to grab some of her stuff and she’s going to stay the night here. Then, tomorrow, I’m going to take Jaxy to Grandma’s like normal, but Ruby’s going with Grace to get a new swimsuit and do some other girly stuff.” My mouth gaped open and I stared at Devon as though he’d grown a second head. “Anyone have anything to say about any of that?”
“I wanna go do girly stuff too,” Jaxy whined.
“Sorry, bud. You cut up your sister’s swimsuit, you lose out on the fun stuff.” There was a pause. Devon gave a small clap of his hands. “Okay, as you were. We’ll leave for dinner in a few hours. No more fighting or Grace and I will pick a really boring, grown-up place.”
“Okay,” both the kids said in unison before they turned and made their way back toward their rooms.
“See?” Devon said, turning to me. “Problem solved. Now everyone’s on the same page.”
I was speechless for a moment, my thoughts trying to catch up with everything that had happened in just a few minutes. “You’re crazy,” I said on a laugh. I wasn’t laughing because I thought it was funny, I was laughing at how surprisingly he handled it, and how the kids didn’t seem to bat an eye at the idea of me spending the night.
“I’m tired of losing time with you, Grace. Tired of watching you get up early and go home to a cold and lonely bed when there’s no reason you can’t stay here, with me, and be a part of this life. Unless you don’t want to be….” His words trailed off as insecurity seeped into his voice.
“No. God, no. Of course I want to be here. You and the kids mean everything to me. I’m just worried about taking this too fast. What if we all get comfortable and a few months down the line something happens and we aren’t together anymore.”
His hands formed fists, the muscles in his forearms rippling from the tension.
“I refuse to live my life worrying about the future. I love you and you’re not some woman I just met on the street. I know you, and I know how much you care about my kids, and we’re all better off when you’re here, with us.”
I reached over and laid my hand on his arm, and let out a breath when he relaxed. He exhaled, the tension in his arms melting away, then his head dipped low and he turned to look at me. “I can’t keep you away because I’m afraid of losing you. That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“When you say it like that, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.” I leaned toward him, my side resting against him, my head tilting until it landed on his shoulder. “I’ll try to stop worrying about everything. I want to be here. I do.”
“Just let us love you.” His words were pleading.
It’s all I’d ever wanted.
“Okay.”
There was no particular nail salon I favored, as regular manicures weren’t really in a teacher’s budget, but I figured one at the mall would be as good as any. Ruby and I had gone to a coffee shop and I’d gotten a chocolaty coffee drink with far too much sugar, and she’d ordered an Italian soda. We’d wandered through part of the mall on the way to the salon, but she was being particularly quiet. She didn’t look so great either, if I was being honest. She was pale and she looked tired. I hoped she wasn’t getting sick right before her trip to California.
When we’d walked into the nail salon, I helped her pick out a pale pink color for her nails and then decided to use the same one. We were ushered to chairs right next to each other and then the nail techs went to work on us.
“Are you excited for your trip?” I asked as the nice woman in front of me cut down my cuticles.
&nbs
p; “Yeah, I’m just not looking forward to the plane.”
“Flying isn’t my favorite thing either. But that’s why Evie’s flying here, so she can ride back with you and Jaxy, so you aren’t alone.” I looked over at her, wondering if it was the stress of the flight that was making her look off. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Ruby. Your father would never let you get on a plane if it weren’t safe.”
She gave me a small, unconvincing smile. “I know.”
“Are you all right, honey? You don’t look like you’re feeling well.”
“I’m okay, I think. I’m just really tired and I have a stomachache.”
I took the hand that wasn’t being worked on and pressed it against her forehead. “You don’t feel warm.”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel like I’m sick. I just feel icky.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. Do you want to go home?”
“No,” she answered softly. “It’s okay. I was really looking forward to a girl day.”
She said the words with a sad smile that broke my heart. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her as far into me as I could without disrupting our manicures.
We spent the next half hour chatting quietly about her entering middle school, finally being at a school without her brother, and which boy band she’d fallen in love with over the summer. When our nails were dry we stood and as I went to pay she asked the tech if they had a restroom.
“I’ll meet you up front,” I said as she wandered to the back of the salon where the tech said the bathrooms were.
I paid and then took my phone out and started thumbing through my e-mails, catching up on some district communication from the school. It was boring, back-to-school business, but it took a few minutes to read through. When I got to the end, I realized Ruby had been gone a while and I debated whether I should check on her or not. I decided to give her a few minutes, but with each passing second she was gone, worry worked its way through me. Finally, I walked to the back of the salon, following the path I’d seen her take, to a door with a restroom sign on it.
I knocked gently and called out to her. “Ruby, are you in there?”
“Grace?” she asked, and my heart squeezed at her voice. She sounded panicked and scared. “Is that you?”
“Yes, sweetie, it’s me. Are you all right?” I pressed my ear to the door, trying to grasp any tiny piece of information about what was bothering her. Had she gotten sick? Was she hurt? I heard sniffling, like she was crying, and I knocked more urgently. “Ruby, what’s going on?”
Finally I heard shuffling, then the lock clicked, and the door opened just slightly. I saw Ruby’s tearstained face and every instinct inside me went into overdrive. Something was wrong with her and I needed to fix it. She wouldn’t meet my gaze, but after a moment she opened the door and took a step back, allowing me in.
I slipped into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind me, and then took a moment to look her up and down. She didn’t appear to be hurt, but there weren’t any other clues as to why she was upset.
“Ruby, can you tell me what’s wrong?”
She finally looked up at me, but then burst into tears. She reached up to wipe the tears away, but I went straight to her and wrapped my arms around her, running my hand down her hair. I held her while she cried and I just kept praying she’d tell me what was upsetting her. Finally, the cries died down, but she didn’t let go of me. A few moments later, she finally spoke.
“I think I started my period.”
There were so many emotions blooming in my mind, it was hard to keep them all from overwhelming me. The first was relief; I was so glad there wasn’t something more serious bothering her. The second was concern, then confusion, and then I just wanted to hug her.
So I did.
“Is this your first one, sweetie?” I asked gently, trying not to say the wrong thing. She nodded against my chest, and my heart just ached for her. Suddenly, everything fell into place: her stomachache, the fatigue, the general ickiness she felt. This would also be a huge reminder of the fact that her mother was gone. No matter how well Ruby and I got along, no matter how much she liked me, I could only think of how much she was probably missing her mother. I knew I could never replace her, but right then I vowed I would do everything to make this day easier for her.
“It’s okay. Hey,” I said, pulling away and cupping her wet face with my hands. “Everything is going to be all right. I know it’s scary and probably not a lot of fun right now, but this is a magical day, Ruby. Today’s the day you become a woman.” I couldn’t help the tears that stung my eyes and the pinching in the back of my throat. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but this is something to celebrate.” I let out a little laugh. The words were so true, but I hated getting my period. “You’re part of an elite club now.”
“An elite club?” she asked, her tone sardonic.
“Yes,” I exclaimed. “Being a woman is a beautiful thing, and even though it sometimes sucks, you should appreciate all the things your body is capable of. You don’t need to think about having kids for another ten or fifteen years, maybe even twenty, but this is just your body preparing itself for the most amazing feats.”
“Amazing feats?” she parroted, still not buying into my spiel.
“Growing and birthing babies. It’s the most amazing thing anyone will ever do with their body, and only women can do it, Ruby. It’s a gift.”
“It doesn’t feel like a gift.”
“I know. Most of the time it doesn’t, but it is.” My throat tightened again, thinking about the torture of still getting a period, my monthly reminder that my body was broken.
“Do you have anything at home? Pads? Midol?”
“My school gave out these little boxes that have three pads in them,” she said.
“Well, that’s not going to do the trick at all. You’ve got nothing else at home?”
She raised her eyebrows at me. “No. I haven’t asked my dad to stock up on maxi pads just in case I started my period.”
I laughed and ran my thumb under her eye, trying to dry the last of the tears.
“Fair point.” She laughed with me. “Okay, new plan. We’re headed to Target. We can get everything we need there. Do you still want to try on swimsuits?”
She thought about the question, and her face scrunched up, giving me my answer.
“Of course not. I wouldn’t want to try on swimsuits while on my period either. Okay,” I said with new enthusiasm. “We’ll go to Target, get everything we need, then we’ll pick out a few swimsuits you think you’ll like, buy them, and then later tonight or tomorrow you can try them on at home. Keep whichever one you want and I’ll return the rest.” I ran my hands down the sides of her face, then rested them on her shoulders. “Sound like a plan?”
“Okay,” she said softly. “But…,” she started, then looked as though she was too embarrassed to continue.
“Hey, you can ask me anything, Ruby. Okay? Anything.”
She took a breath then said, “What should I do right now? You know, about the blood.”
“Right,” I said, thinking. I had exactly one tampon in my purse, not ideal for an eleven-year-old. “Is there a lot? Has it leaked through your underwear onto your jeans?”
“No. Not yet. There isn’t much.”
“Okay, good.” I walked to where the toilet paper was and pulled a bunch off, wrapping it around my hand until there was a thick pad. “I’m going to step outside and I want you to put this in your underwear. Do you know where it goes?” She nodded but didn’t say anything. “This will be fine for the drive to Target. As soon as we get there, we’ll buy everything we need and then get fixed up in the bathroom. Don’t worry. Every woman has faced this dilemma. You are not alone.” I handed her the toilet paper pad, then made my way out of the bathroom, giving her my best smile before I shut the door behind me. I heard the lock click into place and I leaned against the wall, letting out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been hold
ing.
After a few quiet minutes, Ruby finally emerged from the bathroom.
“Good to go?” I asked, putting a smile on, trying to communicate that everything was going to be all right.
“Yeah,” she said, although she didn’t look too convinced.
We walked out to the car and I could tell she was tense. I totally understood. Any woman would understand the dreaded walk through a public place when you weren’t properly equipped with suitable period protection. It was horrifying and embarrassing all at the same time—no matter your age.
We made it to the car and she slid in with a sigh of relief.
“Everything will be fine, Ruby. Promise.” She gave me a weak smile, but I could tell she didn’t believe me. At least, not yet. “I was eleven when I got my first period too.” I wasn’t sure why I’d offered that information, but I figured anything I could tell her at this point to make her feel like less of a leper would do her some good.
“Yeah, same as you. Although, I had already started sixth grade and was in school when it happened.”
Ruby gave me a horrified look.
“Unlike you, I hadn’t had any symptoms. No stomachache, no fatigue. And the worst part was, I had no idea I’d even started. The bell rang between classes and I left one class to go to the other and didn’t realize I had a big bloodstain on the back of my pants.”
“Oh, my goodness,” she said, obviously disturbed by my story.
“Right? And I walked all the way through the school before a teacher grabbed my arm and whispered in my ear that I needed to go see the school nurse.” I remembered the day so vividly and realized Ruby would probably remember today much the same way. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t horrible. “I had to wear a saggy pair of sweatpants the rest of the day with a giant pair of underwear the nurse had given me.”
We were both quiet for a moment, then Ruby said, “I guess it could have been worse. I could have been out somewhere with Dad and Jax.”
I tried to contain my laughter at the mental image popping into my brain. “Your father loves you very much, but you’re right—he probably would have freaked out.”
The Presence of Grace (Love and Loss #2) Page 17
