“We’ll take her with us.” Owen shrugs back into his shirt, not bothering with the buttons, and now it’s time for my appreciative gaze to roam over him. “There is a children’s museum over in Savannah that I heard was pretty cool. We could take her there and then maybe hit up Leopold’s for ice cream or something.”
“She’d like that.” I smile, as I settle back on the edge of the bed. “She’d like it more if Huck could home.”
“I don’t think the museum would approve.”
“The ice cream will probably sway her,” I say with a laugh as I slide the knee-high brown boots over my leggings. Once finished, I stand up and run my hands through my loose curls. I only halfheartedly dried my hair when I got out of the shower. I know Owen loves my hair down, but I honestly don’t feel like messing with it today so I tie the strands back in a quick braid, letting it slide down the middle of my back.
“Just let me run home and change clothes and then we’ll go pick her up from my parents’ place.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t think she’s going to want to come home with the way your mother has been spoiling her.”
“The ice cream will probably sway her.” He repeats my earlier statement.
I snort. “I think your mother bought the grocery store out of ice cream so it probably won’t seem like much of a treat.”
Owen just shrugs. “Then we’ll steal her back. My mother is going to have to get used to sharing.”
Forty-five minutes later, with Stella safely buckled into the car seat Owen had moved into his car, we’re heading toward Savannah while I listen to Stella talk about all the fun she had with Leeham and Mama G, though occasionally she slips up and calls them Grandma and Grandpa. I corrected her the first time, but after that I just let it go. Somehow, after watching them with Stella this morning, I don’t think either one of them would mind if she called them Grandma and Grandpa.
With a quick smile, I turn in the seat and study her again. She didn’t come home in an outfit that I had packed, or hell, even purchased. The brown-and-white-striped tights are paired with a ruffle and lace, pink dress that hangs to her knees and a pair of ankle-high brown boots. Her curls are tied up in two neat, little ponytails on either side of her head, and I’m pretty sure my sweet girl convinced Mama G to put a little lip gloss on her.
“Mama, I wan eawwings.” I blink several times. I’m not opposed to her having her ears pierced at such a young age; I had just waited for her to want them for herself. I hadn’t expected her to want them at three years old.
“You want to get your ears pierced?” Owen reaches over and grabs my hand, giving it a quick squeeze.
“Yes! Manny has eawwings and I wan them too.”
Manny is short for Emmanuelle, one of the little girls in her daycare with whom she’s become close over the last couple of weeks. “You want earrings because Manny has them?”
“No, I wan dem cause dere pwetty.”
“Okay.” I give her a small smile. “Well, I’ll think about it. Okay, baby?”
“Otay, Mama.”
As a mother, I’ve learned quickly that it’s the little things that get you. They start to stack up: the first time they go to the bathroom by themselves; when they can feed themselves; when they no longer want you to carry them, or pick out their clothes. They seem likes wins, and I guess in the grand scheme of things they are, but they are also small steps your baby is taking toward independence, toward no longer needing you. The lip gloss she’s wearing, paired with her sudden desire for earrings, feels like giant steps away from me. I shake off the thought as Owen parks the car in the small parking lot next to the Savannah Children’s Museum.
“So I read up on this place,” Owen says as he shuts the car off and unbuckles his seat belt. “It’s set up entirely outside, and is part of the Central of Georgia Railway Carpentry Shop so it’s a pretty unique children’s museum.”
“Dere’s a swide!” Stella starts dancing in her car seat. “I see a swide, Owen!”
Owen chuckles from the seat next to me. “There is a slide. There’s also a maze, and a garden, and a place where we can read.”
“I can’t wead, silly Owen.”
“Maybe I can read to you.”
“Yay!” Stella claps her hands, obviously happy with the idea. “Wet’s go! Wet’s go! Wet’s go!”
Owen laughs again, smiling over at me. “Let’s go.”
The concept for the museum is pretty cool, though we don’t spend more than a couple of hours exploring the various exhibits. One, because the museum isn’t that large, and two, because Stella lasts no more than fifteen to twenty minutes tops at each exhibit before she’s ready to move onto the next one. It’s been an experience watching the patience Owen has as Stella bounces from one to the next, dragging him along with her.
“So, Stella.” Owen pulls out a chair for her at Leopold’s Ice Cream as I set her small bowl of birthday-cake ice cream in front of her. “This place has been around for almost one hundred years. That’s a really long time.”
Stella shoves a bite of ice cream in her mouth, eyes wide. “Did the dinosauws eat ice cweam hewe?”
“Dinosaurs?” Owen looks at me and I just shrug. Dinosaurs are a new obsession. “I don’t know if dinosaurs eat ice cream.”
Stella nods her head earnestly. “Dey do. Dey like chocwate just like me.” She speaks as if she is the sole authority on the subject of the type of ice cream dinosaurs like to eat.
“I didn’t know that. You didn’t get chocolate this time.”
“Is bifday cake, Owen,” she tells him, like that clears everything up. For her it probably does, and Owen takes her statement as gospel as he shares a bite of his chocolate ice cream with her, and pretends to be sad when she won’t share her ice cream with him.
I sip quietly on my coke float, watching the two of them interact. Stella has accepted Owen’s new role in our lives as if he’s always been a part of our little family. It’s honestly a little scary how easy she’s accepted him. I’ve watched them all day today, and he’s slid right into a father role effortlessly.
I don’t know why that gives me pause, but it does.
Is it too easy?
The conversation this morning was a little daunting. I enjoy my time with Owen, and I love watching the interactions between him and Stella, but the thought that we’re meant to be together, that I’m the pulse of his heart, as he said? That’s a lot to handle.
He seemed so sure of what he was saying, outside of the sorceress part, which obviously embarrassed him because of the absolute absurdity of it, but the rest? He believes it to be true. He believes he knew the moment he saw me that we were meant to be together.
“Tristan?” I glance up as Owen calls my name. By the look on his face, it’s not the first time. “You okay, baby?”
Stella giggles at the nickname. “Mama’s not a baby. She’s a mama.”
Owen flicks her nose with a finger. “It’s a nickname. Like how sometimes your mama calls you sweet girl.” His gaze turns to me. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just tired.”