She knows things the way a mother knows things.
“You’re very good with her.” She deciphers all of these things that Scarlett isn’t able to tell us. It’s amazing.
“I hope that I’m good with her since that’s why you hired me.”
“I think that you’ll make an excellent mother.” I truly believe that.
Leighton smiles, but something about it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Maybe one day.”
“You plan on having children?”
She breathes in deeply and exhales slowly. “I’d like to… if I could find a husband who didn’t lie and cheat on me behind my back like the last one.”
The last one? “You’ve been married?”
“Unfortunately.” Leighton brings Scarlett to her shoulder and rubs her hand in a circular motion over her back. “I was almost five months pregnant when I found out that he was cheating. I lost the baby a week later. She was stillborn.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Her name was Sadie. And I still mourn losing her, but I’ve come to accept that she wasn’t intended to live here with me. It brings me comfort to believe that I’ll be with her one day… so that’s what I choose to believe.”
I don’t have a clue about how I should reply, but Leighton saves me when she crinkles her nose and says, “I know a little girl who needs her diaper changed right now.”
Leighton leaves the kitchen, but not my mind.
I can’t believe she was married. And had a daughter who died. That is completely unexpected. And it proves that I don’t know this woman at all.
But I want to.