Leah
Four Months Later
Bella was a cloud.
Not just any cloud.
A Texas cloud, according to her, which meant she needed “extra puff” and “confidence.”
She had white felt pinned to a pale blue shirt, silver glitter on her cheeks, and a cardboard raindrop wand she had already whacked Jacob with twice during drop-off.
“Accident,” she said both times.
Jacob looked at me over her head.
“She has your aim.”
“She has your ability to deny obvious evidence.”
Bella sighed. “I can hear you.”
“Yes,” I said. “That was on purpose.”
She stood in the school hallway with her cloud costume fluffing out around her little shoulders, clipboard in one hand, wand in the other, and the expression of a person who had a production to manage.
“Mommy,” she said, “you and Daddy have to sit together.”
Jacob
