A few minutes later, Peter, Robin and Felicia were sipping their tea and munching cookies while playing another round of Rummikub. Meanwhile all of them were talking and asking questions about each other. Robin was quite talkative, and had a lot of funny stories for the young girl, which made her as well as Peter laugh. Felicia kept begging him for more stories to the point where Robin asked her if she didn't have any stories herself.
And of course Felicia did. As soon as Peter recognized the story, he felt the need to dig a hole and bury himself into it. Out of all the stories, why the one that was most embarrassing?
Felicia told about the time they played hide and seek at the playground, not long ago. Felicia and David hid, while Peter counted to hundred. However, the kids had both ran different ways. Peter, "dumb daddy" as Felicia called him, couldn't find the toddler and got all scared, as the boy didn't reply when he called him. They spent half an hour searching together when a woman came home and found the boy sleeping in her backyard. He had found a hole in her hedge and crept through it, then fell asleep as he loved sleep more than anything. The woman living there soon clicked the pieces together when she saw the distressed father and sister looking around frantically, quickly calling them over to ease their worries.
'Well, at least your "dumb daddy" didn't cheat then.' Robin laughed. 'If he did, he would have seen where David went.'
'Yeah well, you're right.' Felicia considered. 'But if he had, he wouldn't have needed to cry.'
The boy glanced at Peter, Peter quickly turned away, he was too embarrassed.
'Did he?' Robin asked Felicia.
'Oh yes he did! You know, he cries a lot actually. But he was just wiping his tears while glancing around him, and I told him not to cry because he wouldn't be able to see anything, but he is so dumb, he couldn't stop crying. So I was trying to make him stop crying and I had to look around for the both of us!'
Please don't-
'Well, he must have been very worried something might have happened to David, right?' Robin asked.
'Hmm...' Felicia considered again. 'Yeah, you're right. But crying wouldn't help him find David, so isn't it useless?'
'Can I tell you a secret?' Robin said in a secretive tone. Peter looked up to see the raven-haired moving his face closer to Felicia's. 'I cry too sometimes, and I actually don't think it's useless.' he whispered.
'Why?' Felicia moved her ear closer to Robin's mouth.
'Because it helps getting rid of bad feelings. Do you ever feel like your heart is really heavy, as if it's filled with water and could drop down any minute? At these moments I cry out the water, so my heart feels lighter again.'
Felicia frowned, then after a while she nodded. 'Yes, sometimes...sometimes my heart feels heavy too. Sometimes I think about mommy, and... and...' Suddenly, her lower lip started quivering. 'My heart still feels heavy.' she mumbled, hiding her face behind her hands.
Robin reacted before Peter could, scooting over and wrapping his arms around the five-year-old. 'It's okay.' he mumbled. 'Just let it out.'
He shot an apologetic look at Peter, not realizing that a miracle happened just now. Peter wasn't upset at all, he was surprised. Before Leah passed away, she already cried less than other kids her age, and after Leah's death Peter had only seen her cry twice: when she saw her mom in the coffin, not moving or breathing, and at the funeral, when even her mom's body left. After that, she had kept everything in, which often made Peter worry whether she had actually given herself the chance to process anything.
But at least now, seeing how she clinged onto Robin and how the other held her with concern and empathy flooding his eyes, Peter was now one hundred percent sure that Robin was indeed the right nanny.
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Probably the shortest chapter in this whole book because after this I started to autistically keep every chapter four pages.
Also, I'm gonna do random K-Pop recommendations at the end of each chapter because some songs deserve to be known over the entire globe (even tho probably only one person will read this haha hi Neli)
I've already told u like a thousand times and you listen to it too but MAX IS A MASTERPIECE AND SO IS THIS BOPPPPP