“Did you? Wow, you eat more than me! We’re going to have to call you dough girl.” He tickles her belly while she squirms to get away from him.
“She is so adorable! Hello there, princess, what’s your name?” Nancy asks her.
Jackson leans into her and whispers something in her ear I can’t hear, but she nods her head yes. “Go ahead, tell her your name and then I’ll take you out to play in the sand.”
“Lilah,” she says to Nancy then turns to Jackson. “Now we go sand? We go park?” She looks at me. “Momma, park, you come park? With Ackson?”
“I don’t—” I start to talk and then Nancy cuts me off.
“Oh, you have to! She is going to love it. Go ahead and take them outside, Jackson. Brenda and I can start on the lunch I brought over, and we can all have a late lunch or early dinner together. Do you like meatballs, Lilah? I made my special kind, and we can have it with spaghetti.”
“Pizza?” Lilah asks her.
Jackson grabs her from me, stunning me with how easily she went to him. Her eyes never leaving mine, I nod okay. “My mom’s meatballs are better than pizza.” He kisses her forehead and turns to walk outside.
“Aren’t you going to go put on a T-shirt or something?” I say to his tanned, muscular back, which is also covered in some ink designs.
“Are you uncomfortable with me being without a shirt? If you are, I’ll go inside and put one on.” He stops walking and looks at me. I’m being silly. He isn’t like them. He isn’t flaunting it, looking for a reaction. I shake my head no. He turns around, asking Lilah where she wants to go first, the sand pit or the slide.
It’s no surprise she says the sand pit. Once he sits her at the edge of the box, he brings out a plastic bag with shovels and pails and animal-shaped forms.
What he does next stops me in my tracks, though. He sits down right next to her in the sand, his big body bending in half to get close to her as he fills the pails with sand for her to turn over as she follows his instructions to build the castle.
“We should make four castles and then put water all around so no one can come in and see you without swimming over.” Jackson fills up a bucket while Lilah fills in another one.
“I want four castles. No monters in castles? Momma no ouchies in castles. We go castles, Ackson, come castles?”
“No, sweetheart, no one gets ouchies in castles,” he says to her, not even making eye contact with me. His hands shake as he continues to fill the pail up with sand.
“You don’t have to play with her. You can go rest or help your mom. I can take it from here.” I walk slowly to them.
He looks up, his eyes shooting daggers at me.
“I’m making castles with Lilah, where there are no ouchies or monsters. Got it, Bella? I’m going to make it safe for her and for you. So why don’t you go help my mother so I can make it safe?”
The determination in his eyes makes my breath catch. I have no idea what he’s talking about, if it’s the monsters or the ouchies, but I hear his message loud and clear. He is going to do his damnedest to make sure I’m safe and so is Lilah.
With that thought, I sit on the grass right next to the sand pit and listen to them talk about how they will build bridges and put alligators all around to eat the monsters.
Chapter Thirteen
Jackson
“What are you doing?” my mother whispers to me while I bring in the rest of the dirty dishes.
After playing in the sand box with Lilah, her telling me about monsters and fucking ouchies, it took everything I had not to go hulk over the whole situation. I sat in my corner, filling buckets and more buckets with sand, trying not to glance over at Bella, who was sitting with her knees up, her head resting on them.
My mother and Brenda finished preparing lunch and called us in, where we devoured everything. Not a single meatball left over. Lilah’s face had tomato sauce from ear to ear. She slurped up the spaghetti faster than I cleaned my plate.
I knew Bella was nervous because she kept pushing her food around her plate. It also had to do with the fact my mother just didn’t know when to stop asking fucking questions.
Finally I dropped my fork onto my plate, which made an echoing sound that had Lilah covering her ears. The look of fear in both girls’ eyes finally got my mother to stop with the questions.
Brenda filled the awkward silence with the stories of their shopping trip. Once everyone finished eating, I told Lilah about my big television and my cartoon channel.
Her eyes were big like saucers, begging her mom for just one second of watching.
She tried to tell Lilah no. She also tried to help us clean up, but both my mother and I put our foot down. “Guests don’t touch a thing. House rules.”