Page 57 of Wicked Proposal

“Well, Principal Johnson thinks Dr. Summers can help with that. Even if you’re not going to her school anymore, she wants to make sure you’re taken care of.”

Eli is quiet for a while. Then he murmurs, so low I almost don’t hear him, “Am I sick, Mommy?”

“What?” I crane my head and meet his eyes. “Of course not, baby. Why do you ask?”

“Because Dr. Summers is a doctor.”

I laugh. “There’s all sorts of doctors out there, honey.”

“So I’m not sick?”

“You’re not,” I promise. “You’re just… just… a little fish.”

He gives a big, theatrical blink. “I’m afish?”

“Yup. A cute, adorable fish. But sometimes, little fish get put in the classroom with little squirrels. And while the squirrels are really good at climbing trees, fish are good at other things.”

“Like swimming?”

“Exactly!” I snap my fingers. “Dr. Summers… She’s there to help you find what you’re good at. As a little fish.”

He pauses for a long, thoughtful moment. Maybe I underestimated my boy. Maybe he does get it, does understand,is old enough to grasp the things at play here. He opens his mouth and…

“Does that mean we can get a pool?”

I can’t help but laugh. “Maybe, baby.”

I don’t tell him that, with Yulian’s money, we could get a whole damn mansion and burrow there for the rest of our days, far away from the Bobby Perkinses of the world.

It’d be way too tempting for both of us.

“First, you gotta learn to swim, though,” I add. “And do math. And take long, big breaths when you’re mad.”

“I can’t read yet,” Eli points out. “I don’t think I can do math, either, Mommy.”

“Well, I can’t do math, either, so that makes three of us.”

He giggles at the joke. “Can I still play basketball?”

“Of course! I happen to know little fish can beverygood at basketball. Or at least, this little fish right here.”

With an ear-to-ear grin, Eli starts bouncing on the car seat, excited to be playing again at some point in the future.

Me? I’m not thinking about the future at all. Instead, I think back to the day he was born: pale, wrinkly, small as a puppy.

I remember holding him close to my chest and promising him:You’re safe with me. I’ll always protect you.

“Hey, munchkin?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you to the moon and back.”

Eli’s face spreads into his biggest, dimpliest, most gap-toothed grin yet.Love you to the moon and back—that’s our phrase. My bit, at least.

“I love you to the stars, Mommy!”

“Whaaat? All of them?”