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I laid beside her in her bed, also at her request. She didn’t want a story; she wanted to weave her small fingers in mine then point out all the stars in the solar system projected on her ceiling.
“The ones that are red and big are red supergiants,” she told me. “They’re really big, but they’re big because they’re about to die. In a big explosion called a supernova.” I listened to the little girl expel information that I didn’t even comprehend. “It’s a big event in space. They grow huge and explode. They’re the biggest and prettiest before they destroy everything.”
I nodded, no longer surprised by the immense number of facts that a four-year-old was able to retain. She was something special.
I found it difficult not to see the parallels between me and those red giants. Getting bigger and bigger before eventually exploding and leaving wreckage in my wake.
After she was done educating me on stars, her voice sounding more and more sleepy, I blinked up at the ceiling.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered.
“I love secrets.” She suddenly sounded more awake than before.
“I love your uncle Elliot.” I had to say it out loud, letting it out somewhere before I smashed everything to pieces.
Clara let out a snort. “That’s not a secret, everyone knows that.”
I turned my head to regard her profile. “Everyone?”
She nodded. “You kiss, you have sleepovers, your face loses all of its edges when you look at him.”
“My … edges?” I was incredibly impressed by how perceptive she was.
“Yes.” She nodded, not explaining more, as if I should know exactly what she was talking about.
Which I kind of did.
I had edges. I’d ensured that once I moved to New York, I worked on sharpening all my edges so a man couldn’t cut me. So I could cut. Be a weapon.
I didn’t need edges with Elliot. His family. Or mine.
But it was past time for me to figure out a way to bring them back, sharper than ever. Because the soft version of Calliope was never going to survive what was to come.
“You know, you’re the reason we’re together.” I continued the conversation even though getting her to sleep was supposed to be the goal. I couldn’t handle more alone time with Elliot. I feared it might kill me.
“You being sick… It was the roundabout reason we met,” I explained. “Though I would take that away from you in a second, never knowing you or Elliot if it meant you didn’t have to be sick,” I added, meaning every word.
She was silent for a few seconds. “I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t take away being sick. Because I like you. A lot. I like having an aunt. I like Hannah. And it sucked being sick, but I got lollipops and got to read all the books I wanted. Plus, my daddy was always there.And Grandpa. And Uncle Elliot. I wouldn’t take it away.” Her hazel eyes peered up at me. “Even if I didn’t have all the good things that came from it, I still would make it through again for you, Aunt Loppie. So Uncle Elliot could have you. And so I could.”
I was not a crier. Not one bit. But fuck, if my eyes didn’t well up at the sincerity in her small voice.
“And you know Nora, and that means I get more cakes than before,” she added in a way that only a kid could.
I made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob.
“I wouldn’t change anything I went through to get right here either, Clara,” I smoothed down her hair then dropped my lips to it, inhaling the smell of strawberry shampoo.
Then we lay there, looking at the stars until she went to sleep. I stayed there long after, until headlights softly illuminated her room, telling me I was safe to go back to Elliot with a grumpy Beau as a buffer.
There was the car ride home, but I got creative with my mouth during that, so Elliot did not complain one bit.
Then we got back to his place, and he got busy with his mouth in a way that didn’t allow for any conversation.
And by that point, I’d ensured I’d exhausted him to sleep. Though it stood to reason that I too should sleep, given the day ahead of me that would require all of my energy. Yet I couldn’t. I had to suck up Elliot’s soft, warm torso, catalog every hair, each freckle change in pigment. The angle of his nose, the slight crookedness that had come from a rogue soccer ball in high school. He’d never been in a fistfight.
His favorite dessert was lemon meringue pie. He liked science fiction novels andTheOprah Winfrey Show. His favorite smell was the ocean. “Or it was until I inhaled the scent of your cunt,” he’d told me, hands dipping there one night at dinner.
I recited all the facts, tidbits, idiosyncrasies about him as I watched the steady rise and fall of his chest.