It was all a slow process, and we didn’t rush it.
Thus, it was almost three months after we all moved in together that we made our trip to the courthouse. Isabela was happy to be included, and so we stood together in front of the judge and were married, with Isabela between us, smiling as she looked on from Titus to me to the judge and back.
When it was done and Titus and I were husband and wife, Titus lifted Isabela in his arms—she’d recently begun allowing him to pick her up.
“Hey, Monkey.” He’d picked that pet name for her, and she’d run with it, often doing her best monkey impression whenever he said it. “So. Laurel and I are married. You know what that means?”
She shook her head. “Nuh-uh.”
“It means Laurel is your stepmother.”
She blinked at me for a long moment, which I’d come to learn meant something unexpected was about to come out of her mouth. “Are you gonna make me sleep in the attic with the mices?”
I laughed, and did my best old crone cackle. “Yes, my pretty. To the attic with you, and your little mice too,” and I ticked her.
She laughed and crawled around to hang on to Titus’s back, out of reach. “No tickling!”
I reached for her, and to my shock, she let me take her and settle her on my belly, holding her in a hug, face to face. “You’re my little monkey too, Isa-belly.” That was my nickname for her, and the first time she’d answered to it without correcting me, I’d been overjoyed. I held her gaze, serious, now. “I know I’m not your mom. I’m never going to try to take her place because no one ever can, so just remember that, okay? But I do love you. As much as any person can love another person. And I’ll just be Laurel to you, okay? But if you ever wanted to call me…any—um. Anything else besides Laurel, you can. Okay?”
Beside me, I heard Titus swallow hard.
Isabela nodded. “Okay.” She stayed in my arms, but looked at Titus. “Could I call you Daddy?”
Titus blinked hard, cleared his throat. “Y-yeah, Monkey. You can. I would be honored if you called me Daddy.”
“Okay.” She patted me on top of my head with a look in her eyes that was far too knowing and aware for her age. “Don’t worry, I’ll get there with you too.” She booped my nose, hard enough that I wrinkled my nose and forehead in surprise. “I love you as much as any person can love any person, Laur-la.” That was her nickname for me, born out of a slip of the tongue that had stuck.
I was stunned breathless. “You do?”
She smiled. Despite being only six years old, she sometimes seemed wiser than me. “Yup, I do.” A thoughtful pause. “I know! I could call you…Mom-la. Like Laur-la, but Mom-la.”
“Mom-la,” I whispered. I felt a tear drip down my cheek. “I would really like that, Isabela. So, so much.”
She frowned at me. Touched the tear, then looked at her wet fingertip. “Why you cryin’? I thought you’d be happy.”
“I am. Sometimes adults cry when they’re so happy they don’t know how else to show it.”
“Oh. That’s weird. Crying is for sad.”
I laughed through tears. “Yeah, I know. Adults are weird.”
She looked at us each, then wiggled to get down. “So when do we have the party?”
“Tonight,” Titus answered. “Remember when we first moved into the house, how everyone came over? It’s gonna be like that, only all we have to do is have fun. There’s gonna be an ice cream truck, and tacos, and pizza, and a friend of mine is going to play some cool music, and there’s a bouncy castle. The biggest, coolest, most badass bouncy castle Jeremy could find. And trust me, Jeremy can find the coolest stuff.”
“Ice cream truck and a bouncy castle?” She started to bounce on her tiptoes, as if she could feel the bouncy castle under her feet at that very moment. “Will there be other kids to play with?”
“Jeremy and Bex’s kids will all be there,” Titus answered.
“Yay! They’re so fun. When I had a sleepover at their house, Jeremy made a big fort out of blankets in their living room and we watched Disney movies on their big iPad and we got to sleep in the fort with sleeping bags and everything. Violet wrecked it in the middle of the night, though, and it fell on us and we couldn’t see nothing, and Jeremy had to fix it and he said bad words, and Bex got mad at him for saying bad words, but she said the same bad words to him.” A pause. “Adults are funny.” As if that explained the whole thing.
Which, I suppose, it did.
That sleepover had been great for us, too…for slightly different reasons, though; we’d also taken a turn watching Jeremy and Bex’s kids so they could get a night alone, which was something that was rare indeed for them. The next day when they came to pick up the kids, Jeremy had been positively glowing, vibrating with happiness, and I presumed their night had been a success. For us, that many kids had been slightly overwhelming, but with Manny to help, it had gone as smoothly as five kids under the watch of newbie parents could be expected.
“So.” Isabela looked from Titus to me. “Now what?”
“Now?” We were at our new family car—a Porsche Panamera, upon the recommendation of Lizzy; Titus was buckling Isabela into her seat, and his nimble fingers made quick work of the five-point harness. “Now, we go to the mall and buy you anything you want.”
She squealed and kicked her feet. “Shopping! My favorite!”
Titus laughed, pointing at me. “I blame you for that.”
I shrugged. “Shopping is my true talent, so I’ll take the blame.”
“Wait, so you guys get married, and I get presents?” Isabela asked. “I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I like it.”
“I don’t know if it makes any sense either,” Titus said, “but I like it too.”
When we got to the mall, I quickly discovered that when Titus said anything, he really, truly meant anything at all. He ended up having to get Jeremy to swing by the mall with his truck to haul the insane amount of things he’d bought his—our—daughter. Dollhouses, doll clothes, doll cars, dolls, clothes for Isabela, more than could be quantified.
On the way home, Isabela was quiet. “Ti—Daddy?”
Titus’s face lit up like a neon sign when she corrected herself. “Yeah, Monkey.”
“I want to give the stuff I got to someone else.”
“What? Why?”
She shrugged, was quiet for a while. “I mean, I want the clothes, and maybe one doll. But…when…when I stayed with Miss Mena, before I came to live with you, after…after Mommy…” she trailed off, unable to say it, or to find the right way to say it.
“Passed away?” Titus suggested.
“Yeah, after that. Miss Mena told me about her job. She said her job was to help kids who didn’t have no one to take good care of them. Like me, before I went with you. If I didn’t have you and Mom-la, Miss Mena told me I would’ve had to go stay with other people. And she told me when kids go stay with those other people who aren’t their all the time parents, I forget the word, that they don’t have stuff. Like toys to play with, or nothing. And I got lots of toys to play with already, and I was thinking about how some of those kids don’t got anything, and I was thinking maybe we could get Miss Mena to help us find kids to give it to.”