the story of us |h.s.|

05 - right where you left me

"if our love died young, i can't bear witness
and it's been so long
but if you ever think you got it wrong
i'm right where you left me"

Nadine.

"Mommy," Andie drags out the 'y' in an incessant whine. She's been doing it all morning, "is Lennie coming to play today?"

She sits patiently at the dining room table, waiting for her lunch while I finish cutting her grapes in half.

"I'm not sure, peach. I haven't heard back from her dad yet." I turn on my heel, approaching Andie with our lunch. "If Lennon doesn't come over to play we can have a mommy-daughter day. How does that sound?" I set her plate down in front of her.

Andie's lunch consists of a half peanut butter sandwich–with the crusts cut off–halved grapes, her favorite crisps, and a few celery stalks.

She nods her head, taking a crisp in her hand. "Okay mommy. Can we go to the park? And bring Millie bean? And make special sparkle cupcakes?"

Sparkle cupcakes are just chocolate cupcakes with pink icing and shiny pink sprinkles, but Andie loves them. In moderation, of course, that's why they're special.

"Mhm," I hum, chewing a full grape from my plate. "I think we're going to have to stop at the store to get the sprinkles for them, but yes, my sweet. Whatever you want to do today we can do."

"Did you hear that Millie bean? We're going to the park today!"

Millie tilts her head to the side like she's confused. Andie giggles, like she always does when Mille does that.

"We're only going to the park if Lennon and her dad don't come over, okay?" Andie nods her head again.

We finished our lunches, all the while Andie tells me about the stuffed animal tea party I missed when I was at work. She made sure to tell me how awesome and fun Daphne was as a guest and insisted I attend the next one (like I don't already attend every one that I can).

We played some board games, cleaned Andie's room up some more, after which she thought it was only fair to clean my room too as the hours ticked by. It was almost dinner time and I still had no word from Harry. Luckily Andie had forgotten all about Lennon coming over today.

"Come on my little peach, let's get your shoes on so we can go to the store and get special sparkle cupcake stuff!" I rub my hand on her stomach, wiggling my fingers and tickling her.

Andie's laugh is my favorite sound in this whole world.

"What shoes do we want to wear today?" I ask her and she inspects her outfit.

She's wearing a yellow dress; the bottom half being a plain pale yellow and the top half being more of a golden yellow with a graphic print of a sun with a content smiley face on it. Her hair is in two french braids. She wears her favorite beaded necklace with it.

"These ones." She pulls her yellow rain boots from her closet.

"Perfect choice. They match your dress and everything!" Even though it's not raining. "Do you want to help mommy pick out her shoes?"

She leaves her boots and runs into my room across the hall. I follow her, boots in hand.

"Hmm," she hums, looking at my outfit.

Today I'm wearing one of my late younger sister's sweaters—my favorite of hers, actually—tucked into a pair of flared jeans. The sweater is a combination of blues, oranges and yellows, looking kind of like a Van Gogh painting. My hair is down today, and I've noticed my bangs are in my eyes a lot more than usual.