“We can have both,” added Logan. “Don’t worry, Candace. I’ll take care of dinner tonight.”
“Breakfast for dinner.” The pancake and waffles would be mixed with sugary syrup that would make it impossible to put the girls to sleep after gelato. “It’s all on you.”
“I can handle them.” Logan parked at the gelato place. We got out and stood there, looking at the board of options.
“I want a double chocolate chunk scoop,” Annabelle said. She was our resident chocoholic.
“I want ‘nilla,” said Emily in a soft voice. She clung to my leg and looked up at me. I picked her up and balanced her on my hip.
“I’ll share some vanilla gelato with you, nugget,” I said before I booped her nose. She grinned at me. Every single day with Emily and Annabelle was a joy, even when Annabelle exercised her executive leadership skills.
“I’ll get mint chocolate chip gelato,” Logan decided. “Why don’t you girls stake out a table while I put in our order?”
There was almost nobody there, because we had come before dinner. Annabelle grabbed a wad of napkins before spreading them all over a table. She was as focused as when she played tea party with Emily, who was coordinated enough to drink pretend tea. Logan came back with a small tray with all of our gelato on it. He quickly gave Annabelle her double chocolate chunk gelato and gave Emily and me our vanilla gelato. He handed everyone a sturdy recyclable spoon and dug in. There was near silence at our table beyond Annabelle’s enthusiastic lip-smacking as she ate her double chocolate chunk gelato at the highest speed she could manage. There was gelato all over her face by the time that she had finished her scoop. Emily and I were sharing a double scoop of vanilla. She was eating at a sedate pace, secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t touch her scoop. Logan was done with his gelato almost as soon as Annabelle; he loved ice cream just as much as she did. Emily and I were still eating when Logan took Annabelle to the playground that was nearby. Emily put her spoon down and said, “I’m done.” I scooped the last of my scoop into my mouth before taking Emily out. She was more placid than her sister, but she was fully capable of throwing a full tantrum if Annabelle got to do things that she didn’t get to do. I helped her use the slide while Annabelle swung with Logan.
Times like these made me sure that I had made the right choice when I left New York. Instead of fighting a line of people to get ice cream, we had the place almost to ourselves since we’d come at an odd hour. I missed the restaurants in New York every so often, but with an Instant Pot, I was able to cook dinner at home a lot more often than I did when I was single. I had Instant Pot cookbooks galore. Logan spoiled our kids with breakfast for dinner at least once a week. He also took care of all the meals on the weekends. He made sure that my Saturdays were low-key as he took care of the kids and sent me off to yoga class, which was followed by a massage at the local spa. He said that I came home basically floating, so it was worth it. I loved my two daughters as much as I could. They loved crawling all over the place and flinging their toys everywhere. My life was full of love and laughter in a way that it had never been before. I was an only child, so the controlled chaos of our house was nothing like what I’d had with my mom. For her, everything had its proper place; I was responsible for putting all my toys in my toy chest when I was done. The kids took up almost every inch of available space in the house with all of their things. We had a weekly cleaning service that got rid of the worst of the mess, but within an hour of arriving home from the park the kids would make the house into a disaster zone again.
Epilogue IV
“No school!” screamed Emily. My normally quiet little girl was struggling as I fought to put her pants on.
“School is fun,” said her older sister. Annabelle had her hair in braids and her backpack on. She loved going to school and playing with other kids. Emily was old enough now for her first day of school. Or she would be if she’d let me put on her pants.
“You love these pants,” I pleaded with her. “Please put them on.”
“No!” she shouted before running to her bed and sliding underneath so I couldn’t reach her. “No pants! No school!”
“I can go by myself,” Annabelle offered. Logan and I both primarily worked from home, so he’d be fine at home with Emily while I drove Annabelle to preschool.
“I packed Dunkaroos in your lunchbox,” I begged. “Please come out.” We bought Dunkaroos, a childhood staple for both Logan and me, from Amazon. The kids loved them; when they were at school, someone else had to deal with the sugar-high maniacs that our daughters turned into.
“No!” Emily crawled further under her bed. “No school.”
I put the pants down on her bed. I sighed and thought about calling for reinforcements. Logan was on a conference call, which meant that he was out. I called my mom.
“Mom, Emily won’t go to school.”
“Isn’t she going to that cute little place that Annabelle goes to?”
Annabelle was almost old enough to go to first grade. They’d only have a year of overlap since Annabelle went to full-day kindergarten at a highly rated place close to our house.
“Yeah, she’s been there to pick up Annabelle. But right now she’s under the bed and won’t come out.”
“Put me on speaker.”
“I already brought out the big guns. I promised her Dunkaroos.”
“It’s okay. I raised you, didn’t I?”
“I always thought that you had eyes in the back of your head.”
“Only when you were being naughty.” She laughed a little. “I remember the day that you peed in your pants at preschool and locked yourself in the bathroom.”
“I hope Emily doesn’t do that.”
“It’s par for the course, sweetheart. Every child is different.”
I pressed the button to put my mom on speakerphone.
“Hi Emmy-bear,” my mom started. Emily was still under the bed. I got flat on the floor to look at her. She was sucking on her thumb. “I heard you didn’t want to go to school today.”
“No school!” announced Emily.
We were already nearly late for Annabelle’s first section of the day. She was in Montessori, where she was learning Spanish and French, and her Spanish teacher had the first section today. She loved learning other languages; we had a calendar with three languages on it in Annabelle’s room that was bright and cheerful. Annabelle was doing a little dance like she needed to go to the bathroom. She was impatient to go to school.
“Do you need to go potty?” I checked.
“No, I don’t want to be late.” Annabelle stuck out her lip. “Emily is being a stupid head.”
“Am not!” howled Emily from under the bed.
“You’d get time out in my house. We don’t use that word,” admonished my mother.
“Sorry, Grandma.” Annabelle was ashamed to be chastised by the kind of grandmother who baked her cookies and made lemonade with her. My mother was hardly ever upset with them; she would pump my kids full of sugar and then send them home to me. She said she was entitled after the pure terror I was as a little kid.