She gives me a solemn nod that lets me know I’m hitting the nail right on the head. “It’s really hard to turn my brain off. I don’t even know how.”
“Well, it might not be possible to turn our brains off completely. We’re always going to be thinking about something, even while we sleep. But let me ask you a question—were you worrying about all of those grown-up things while we were practicing our routine?”
“Was I?” She cocks her head to the side and squints her eyes. I can almost see the wheels spinning in her head as she thinks back to a few minutes ago. “Huh. I guess I wasn’t.”
“Do you remember what you were thinking about?”
“Um, well…” Her face scrunches up for a few more seconds, then she nods. “I was thinking about the dance moves you taught me. And I was counting in my head to the music—one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Mostly I was just trying to do everything right.”
I smile. Lord, I love this kid. “See? You distracted your brain by concentrating on something else. Something fun.”
She sits up straight in her chair as the lightbulb goes off. “Yeah, I guess I did! So when I’m thinking about my mom and dad, I can just do something fun instead?” I don’t answer right away and it takes a second for her to realize what she’s just admitted. “You won’t tell on me, will you? I don’t want my dad to get angry. Angrier than he already is, I mean.”
God, now I’m close to welling up as I shake my head. How can this little girl make me feel so proud one moment and then break my heart in the very next beat?
“I promise your dad won’t be angry with you if you tell him how you feel.” The last thing I want to do is betray her trust, but I also don’t want to encourage her to hide her feelings. Not from her dad, in particular, but not from anyone else, either. Ever. “He’s a busy guy and his job causes a lot of stress, but he’s never punished you for telling him how you honestly feel, has he?”
“No.” Her voice is quiet as she shakes her head. “I guess not.”
“So if I tell him about our talk today, maybe I only have to say we talked about how to keep your mind distracted by happy things when you find yourself worrying about stuff that’s out of your control. How does that sound?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s okay.” She takes a deep breath and then slowly exhales. “So the next time I start thinking about… about stuff… I just have to do our ballet routine?”
I smile and reach out to pull her into a quick hug. “It doesn’t have to be our ballet routine. You can distract your brain with music—singing along to your favorite song or playing the piano or maybe some other instrument if that interests you. You can distract it with almost anything, really, as long as it’s something you enjoy.”
“Okay! Thanks, Ella!”
She scoots off the chair and darts toward the door, already distracted by who-knows-what in the other room.
Yeah, she’s going to be okay. The rest of her family might be a bunch of assholes, but Isla?
Isla is one of the good ones.
CHAPTER THIRTY
KEIRAN
Isla has been on my mind all day. Sort of ironic, since we were just talking about distracting ourselves from things that we can’t control.
But even though I don’t control a lot of the outside factors in Isla’s life, I do have some influence on her day-to-day activities. And maybe, just maybe I can help her find a few more fun distractions.
Bonus points if those distractions also happen to be educational.
I’m brainstorming ideas at the dining room table and have half a page of notes written when she pops in and skips over to me. “What are you doing, Ella?”
“Just thinking about some fun things we could do.”
My answer is intentionally vague, and I know I’m just setting her up to ask a million other questions, but I can’t help myself. I love seeing that spark of curiosity as it takes hold in her eyes.
“What kind of fun things? Going to the park? The zoo?”
I quickly add those two things to the list. “I was thinking more like… something we could do tonight. And then if that goes well, we could make plans to go somewhere else to do the same thing.”
“What thing?” She’s hopping up and down next to me, completely unable to contain her impatient excitement. “Tell me what it is! Please?”
“Okay, okay,” I laugh, trying in vain to calm her down now that I’ve gotten her all worked up. “Remember how we were reading about the constellations and the solar system last week?”
Her face immediately falls and her eyes narrow suspiciously. “Yeah. But… you aren’t going to make me read tonight, are you?”
I really should try to hold my laugh in, but I can’t. “Not unless that’s what you want to do. You like reading, don’t you?”
“I guess, but it’s not something fun we can do together.”
Okay, the kid has a good point. Can’t fault her for that one. “Well, you’ll be happy to know I don’t have a quiet night of reading planned for us,” I snicker. “But I thought maybe we could go up on the rooftop deck and do some stargazing, maybe try to identify some of those constellations we were reading about?”
She catches an excited breath as her eyes go wide. “Yeah! That sounds like fun! Can we do it now?”
“We have to wait until it gets dark so we can see the stars, silly. But we can start figuring out what we might need while we’re up there. Blankets, flashlights, pillows, stuff for s’mores…”
“S’mores? What’s a s’more?”
Now it’s my turn to be surprised. “What’s a s’more? Only the best, yummiest thing ever invented. It’s graham cracker, chocolate, marshmallow ooey gooey deliciousness. We’ll make them over the fire pit up there.”
She squeals and claps her hands together. “That sounds so good! This is going to be fun!”
Keir’s deep voice from the doorway startles a gasp from both of us. “What’s going to be fun? Are you two planning a party in here?”
“Sort of,” I shrug, smiling as Isla runs over to her dad. “We’re going to do some stargazing up on the roof when it gets dark.”
“And Ella said we can make s’mores!”
“With s’mores,” I add.
Keir grins as he picks his daughter up and spins her around, eliciting another round of shrieks and giggles as he sets her back on her feet. “That does sound like fun. You know, I’ve never had s’mores before?”
“What?” Isla and I ask at the same time.
“Nope,” he shrugs. “It’s one of those American things I’ve always heard about on TV and in movies, but I never knew people actually made them in real life.”
“Oh my gosh,” I shake my head. “Of course we make them in real life. If you want to join us up on the roof later, you’ll be able to try them for yourself.”
This is the closest we’ve come to a friendly conversation since our big argument, and I’m shocked that he actually seems to be considering hanging out with me—well, probably more with Isla than me, if I’m being honest—tonight.