After losing her job and her girlfriend, it's time for Annie Abraham to admit defeat and move back in with her parents. She has hardly been back to her tiny Montana hometown since the unforgettable summer before her senior year of college, when she...
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It must have snowed all night. There's at least a foot of snow blanketing the garden when I wake up way too early and glance out of the window at the drifts of white illuminated by the neighbor's Christmas lights. Which goes to show how early it is – the sun isn't up yet, and neither is Laurel. She's fast asleep on her stomach, her face towards the space I just left. It's the first time we've ever slept together in the truest sense of the word, the first time I've watched her eyelids flicker as she dreams.
I don't know why I'm awake. I'm not an early riser and I don't tend to have problems sleeping in new places, and my bladder isn't urging me to pee, although I trudge to the bathroom anyway, just in case. It's only when I get back to the bedroom that I realize what has woken me more than two hours before sunrise. There's a baby monitor on the bedside table, a new addition since Ava got her own room, and it crackles quietly when Ava makes a noise.
I move as quietly as possible down the hallway so as not to disturb anyone else in the house and I slip into her room. She's sitting up in her crib, talking to herself, and her face brightens when she spots me; she pulls herself to her feet and reaches out to me.
"Hey, Avie. You're an early bird, huh?" I lift her out of her crib and when I feel the weight of her diaper, I change her on the mat on top of her chest of drawers. "I don't usually get up this early. What's the deal? Does your mommy get up with you or does she leave you to fend for yourself?'
"Ba."
"You want a banana? It's a bit early for breakfast, isn't it? You tell me, I'm honestly not sure." Once she's in a fresh diaper, I set her on the floor and find her something to wear today. Something pink, like I'm dressing up my own little mini-me.
"You like B-words, how about a book?" I take one off of her shelves and yawn as I sit in the armchair and give her a hand clambering onto my lap. "Let's have a story."
I read to her from a picture book and try not to fall asleep with her on my lap. We read three entire picture books – which isn't saying much when each one is about twenty pages – before Ava gets bored.
"I don't want to wake up your brother and sister by clattering about with that stair gate," I say. "We'll just stay in here for now, okay?"
"Kay."
"Good girl. Can you say Annie yet? Annie."
"Nana," she says after a moment of intense concentration.
"Hey!" I clap and beam at her. "That's pretty close!"
She grins at my encouragement and says it again, and when I open my arms, she cuddles me. Oh god. She's making me broody. I want one.
"You know, when your sister was a bit older than you, she thought her name was Nana. Your mommy always called her Banana, because it rhymes. Is that why you like bananas so much? Is it 'cause you love your big sister?"
