With All My Heart - Emilia Finn Page 0,41
again. Aiden never once jumped face first off a change table. He never gouged holes into our table. He never once did the doodle dance.”
The girls squeal with laughter.
He’s Evie’s daddy. Jimmy, the wilder third child, is Bean’s.
Jimmy definitely did the doodle dance.
I grab Evie’s delicate hand – delicate, yes, but she still walks around with cracked knuckles more often than not. The cycle will not repeat for her.
“Your daddy will tell anyone who’ll listen that he’s my favorite…” I laugh. “And he’s not wrong. I love your Uncle Bobby. I love Jimmy. He’s my baby. But Aiden slept, and Bobby didn’t. He didn’t climb out of his crib by his first birthday, but Bobby did. Aiden was the one talking Bobby down from stupid shit; he was four, Bobby six, and he’d be the smart one talking Bobby out of dangerous situations. I love my sons equally. But I like Aiden the most.”
Evie’s grin spreads. “He’s kinda cool. He’s always asking me ‘did you think it through, Smalls?” She lowers her voice dramatically. “That time you snuck out with Ben and Mac, did you think it through? Or did you do a Bobby and figure you’ll deal with the consequences later? He uses the word Bobby like it’s a verb.” She laughs. “Did you do a Bobby?” She turns to Bean. “Did you do a Jimmy? Because he’s dumb as rocks sometimes. He woulda thrown himself off a crane, too. Dumbass.”
The girls dissolve into silly giggles.
“So that was how our family began. Bobby first, our wild one. Aiden next, and he came out just fine even after that night, all those beans and rice, all that worry. Maybe that’s why he came out the way he did,” I ponder. “He knew we were stressed, so he came out prepared to conquer the world… quietly. We were in our own apartment less than two weeks after that day on the floor. We didn’t move far from Geo. We stayed in the same apartment building, and the guys still hung out a lot, but as our family grew, and Geo’s didn’t, they slowly drifted apart. There were no hard feelings. Just different stages of life.
“Bryan was busy working. We had one car, and with the boys, we decided I needed to drive more than he did, so we traded in, bought a truck, then every morning, we’d wake at five. The boys, too. We’d eat breakfast, get dressed. Pile into the truck by six. Drive Bryan to work. We’d come home, do our thing for the day. I’d tutor, and for a while there, I had more than one student per session every day. So I doubled my measly income, and the boys learned math and how to read before they started kindergarten. Bryan didn’t want his sons to suffer because he was a high school dropout, so they learned. They read. They added and subtracted by kindergarten. Then they excelled in school. Bryan would catch a ride with another guy from the garage to his second job…” My eyes turn sad. “For three years, he didn’t come home for dinner between. He would have it no other way. He was going to work, and he was going to save.”
“Did he buy you a house, Gramma?”
I smile. “He did. He bought us a small three-bedroom house before Aiden started school. We were in the apartment until then. Then the little house that I never would’ve moved out of if your daddies didn’t insist and buy where I am now.”
“Do you still own the little house?”
“I do. I’ll never sell it. Not for the rest of my life. And when I die, when it passes onto my children, then onto you guys… I beg you, don’t sell it. Keep it. Keep the millions of pictures on the walls. Mow the lawn, because he was so proud of that shitty lawn. He took it from weeds to the greenest grass in the street. He was so proud of that house; I’ll keep it in the Kincaid name for the rest of eternity if I could.
“When we were handed those keys, when Bryan finally stepped inside his castle, when he pushed the first nail into the wall to hang family photos, he put cartoons on the TV and gave the boys a bag of chips.” I pause thoughtfully. “We never bought chips, that wasn’t part of the plan. But he did that day, then he took me to the room, and voila, Uncle Jimmy.”
Bean