All Wrapped Up
by G Benson
“I lost Toby.”
Not sure she’d actually heard right, Anna cocked her head at Lane, who was shifting from foot to foot.
“What?”
“Anna, I lost him.”
Finally, it all clicked. Leaning slightly to the left, Anna looked out from the living room where they stood and into the kitchen: Toby happily sat in his highchair, cheeks packed with food and blue eyes sparkling, giggling at his sister. Ella sat with her back to Anna, so she had no idea what Ella was doing to make her brother laugh, but she guessed it had something to do with an open mouth of food. Brows pressed together, Anna turned back to Lane. “Uh, he looks pretty not lost?”
As Lane shook her head, Anna felt a shiver trickle down her spine. Lane’s trembling lip did not help matters. Anna genuinely had no idea what was going on. Five minutes ago, she’d walked into what seemed like happy kids who’d survived going shopping when suddenly Lane had dragged her away.
Words tumbled out of Lane, uncontrolled.
“We were at the store, like I told you we were going to. I thought I had everything under control—my first time alone with him, and I was feeling kind of smug. I mean, you know, you’d been all unsure when I offered to look after them today, and there I was, all…all over it. I had to pick up some stupid gadget for my stupid dad, and I was standing at the counter, and Toby was right next to my leg. I had my hand on his head, and then I reached into my bag to get out my card. I handed it over in all of ten seconds and dropped my hand back down, and he was gone. Like, just gone.”
Normally, Lane was calm and relaxed, someone solid to turn to in a crisis. “And I looked around,” she said, “and I couldn’t see him—he’s so damn small. How does he move that quickly? And I felt like I was going to be sick, my heart was beating so fast. When I asked the lady if she saw where he went, she just blinked at me uselessly, and I couldn’t see him. I called out like four times, and then he giggled, Anna!”
Lane looked so indignant, Anna almost chuckled but then thought better of it. “He giggled like he hadn’t just scared the freaking hell out of me. I turned around, and there he was, standing behind a rack of blow dryers. I almost lost him, Anna, and you only just got them back a few months ago. I almost lost—”
There was only one thing she could think to do, and Anna wasn’t sure if it was going to get her hit. She kissed Lane, hard, and didn’t let go of her mouth until she felt Lane relax slightly.
“You didn’t lose him. He was right there.” She looked Lane straight in the eye.
“Yeah, but what if—”
“But nothing happened. He was right there.”
“Anna—”
“Lane. He did that to me a few weeks ago. He hid in a rack of coats, and it was only the damn giggle that let me find him.”
Visibly, Lane let out a breath. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. And his sister’s no better: When Ella was two, the shopping centre guards had to go find her, because she’d pulled a Houdini on Sally; she was missing ten minutes.”
“But, what if he…what if—”
This time, Anna simply pulled Lane against her and wrapped her in a hug. They stayed that way, Anna’s head buried into the softness of Lane’s neck, until Lane’s body relaxed, tension seeming to fade from her muscles.
“Kids are hard work.”
In spite of herself, Anna chuckled. “Yeah. They are. They have the ability to scare the crap out of you and make everything really good, all in the same minute.”
Lane nodded.
“Lane, you don’t have to take them again like today, I really appreciate it, but—”
“No. No, I had fun. After the horror feeling that Toby was gone, we had fun. It was hard, and I hadn’t realised how much entertaining they need. Did you know Ella hates picking up her stuff?”
“Oh yeah.”
“We had a ten-minute discussion about why it was her job.”
“Yeah, I’ve been working on that one.” She tried to put on her best expression of gravitas, pretty sure that showing amusement right now was not the best option here.
“I almost lost Toby.”
Slowly, Anna kissed her again, softly. This time, Lane returned it. It was easy to fall into this feeling, to not stop until Lane let go first. When she did, Anna rested their foreheads together. “Lane, you didn’t lose him,” she said. “You found him.”
“Well, I did lose him. Then I found him.”
“Which is all that matters.” Still, trying to be reassuring was getting difficult. Laughter threatened to spill out of Anna.
“What?” Lane’s eyes narrowed at her, and Anna knew she was busted.
“What, what? You’re laughing!”
The whiny tone made Anna smile even harder.
“I’m sorry—you’re just adorable when you freak out.”
“Am not.” Lane’s bottom lip was practically sticking out.
“Are too. Normally it’s me freaking out.”
“Shut up.”
“Aunty Na!”
Both of them jumped at Ella’s shout from the kitchen.
“Aunty Na! Toby just threw the last of his potato at me—oh! That means we’re both finished. Can we have ice cream now?”
They waited, looking at each other.
“Please?”
“There it is.” Anna shook her head in mock weariness, then raised her voice. “Only if you’ve actually finished everything!”
Silence was her answer.
“Lane—thanks for taking them today; I really did appreciate it.”
“It was okay—in the end, anyway. Did you get everything for the party?”
“Uh…”
All Lane had to do was cross her arms and raise an eyebrow for Anna to feel sheepish.
“I got called in to work! I couldn’t.” But even Anna knew her protests were falling on deaf ears. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“You better. Don’t want you panicking the night before.”
“I’m not the type to do that, Lane.”
The bark of laughter was sufficient to show Lane’s thoughts on that.
“What if—”
“Stop it, Anna.”
“But he could—”
“Stop it.”
“But Kym—”
“Anna! It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
Embracing her inner child, Anna humphed and leaned back on the couch. Sitting to either side of Anna, Kym and Lane exchanged a glance over their wine glasses and made a poor show of trying not to laugh.
Anna opened her mouth, and Kym clapped her hand over it. Unable to speak, Anna tried to convey her displeasure at the motion by tugging at the offending hand, then glaring at Kym. Finally managing to pry it away, she wrinkled her nose.
“Why does your hand smell like ice cream?”
Looking everywhere but at Anna, Kym gave an overly exaggerated shrug. “It doesn’t.”
“Uh, yeah it does.” In full detective mode, Anna raised her eyebrows. “Did you feed them ice cream?”
“Uh, no. I had some after they went to bed.”