“Yes! With Mummy and Richard. Did you see it?”
“No,” I admitted, and her smile widened. “What’s it about?”
Maya looked out of the window, pulling on her shirt.
“Well. Okay. Princess Leia is looking for Obi Kenobi and Darth Vader kidnaps her.”
Maya glanced into the mirror. I pulled a face, and she giggled, making me chuckle for the first time in weeks.
I was pretty sure the guy’s name was Obi One Kenobi or something like that, but I didn’t dare correct Maya.
“Hansalwaysworries,” she continues. “And Obi Kenobi is a teacher. He’s teaching Luke how to use his little light sword trick but then he dies, and Yoda teaches him.”
“Whoa! He dies?”
She shook her head vigorously. “And Luke gets Princess Leia out of jail. And they blow up the planet!” Her eyes grew bigger as she remembered something else. “It’s all Darth Vader’s fault! And, and… Oh! And he’s Luke’s father! You should watch it.”
Or not. The Star Wars craze passed me by. I wasn’t much of a movie fan, period. Still, I would happily watchFrozenif Maya told me to, but despite Claudia’s efforts to raise a girly girl, Maya was becoming more of a tomboy.
“I will. It sounds good, especially that bit about Obi Kenobi and the light sword.”
Maya kept going for another fifteen minutes about Luke and Darth Vader, and from the little I knew about Star Wars, I had a feeling she told me about all the movies at once.
Either that, or whoever wrote the script was high.
She made little sense, but the excitement in her voice was addictive. I forgot about my problems listening to her babble about Obi Kenobi and Princess Leia. By the time she was done, I genuinely wanted to watch it just to see why she liked it so much.
We ate at my favourite Italian restaurant. The waitresses crossed their hearts when I entered with Maya. One scanned my fingers for a wedding ring, and when she hadn’t found it, her features softened even more. She must’ve thought I was a single dad.
Maya chose spaghetti. I settled for a plate of spicy cannelloni, but I only swallowed a forkful. My stomach refused to accept a normal meal. Considering the amount of alcohol I poisoned it with, I didn’t blame it.
Maya finished her dessert consisting of three scoops of chocolate ice cream an hour later. I paid the bill and took her to the grocery store to buy bread for the ducks. She skipped across the shop, filling the basket with more things—most of which were made of chocolate.
Nick was home when we arrived at the cottage shortly after five. He opened the door and was about to throw a fewfucksat me for not showing my face at work or ditching his calls, but he spotted Maya in time. His expression changed from furious to blissful.
I wasn’t the only one under Maya’s shoe. Nick had a soft spot for her, too. Whenever we showed up at the cottage, he dropped whatever he was doing regardless of importance to entertain Maya for hours with a smile on his face.
“Long time, no see, princess,” Nick said, bending down on one knee to pick her up. “Where have you been? Why haven’t you visited?”
“I don’t know. Where is Melia?”
We walked inside, and Nick put Maya down, then immediately opened a cupboard in the kitchen where Amelia kept her emergency chocolate supplies, AKAthe period munching stash.
“She’s still at work, but she’ll be back soon.”
“Okay. Well, can we feed ducks now?”
“Sure. I saw two swans in the lake this morning; they might still be there.”
Maya grabbed my hand to drag me out to the back garden. I gave her a loaf of sliced bread and walked her over to the spot between two trees where we always sat down to feed the birds. Maya stood next to me, tossing large chunks of bread into the water. Not many ducks were around at first, but by the time Maya went through half of the loaf, a flock flew over from the opposite shore.
“Why haven’t you answered my calls?” Nick plopped down beside me, his voice not louder than a whisper. “I went over to your house last night. Where were you?”
“At home.”
“Then why didn’t you open? I banged on the door for five minutes.”
Banged, yelled and swore. Apparently, I missed the six-monthly management review meeting, not that I cared. The meetings served as grounds for the star managers to bitch about stupid things. No important issues were ever raised.