EPOV

Staring outside the window and watching the raindrops fall, it's hard to believe that summer is almost gone. Days have blurred into nights and nights into days – a cycle which has somehow taken away the edge of the sword hanging over everything in my life. The past ten days have passed in constant activity. I had to go on a business trip for a week, a couple of days after my birthday – something I joked about when I called Bella to let her know. See, there's my vacation, I told her. She laughed and said I would just end up bringing back more stress than letting go of some.

She was right. She always is. She knows me better than I know myself and sometimes, looking into her eyes is like finding the darkest depths of my soul.

I see a man filled with guilt. I see a man who never did learn to take a hold of life and fight back the odds. I see a man putting a woman through so much sadness, just so he can appease another woman who is nothing but an obligation now.

I sigh as I watch Sophie step down the porch and into the rain. She holds out her arms and catches raindrops in her hands. Tanya shouts from a distance at her – you'll catch the flu, Sophie, get back in! Don't ruin your clothes, Sophie, it's raining! – and I light up the cigarette that I've been trying very hard to resist. I've only been smoking for a couple of months, and miraculously enough, nobody has noticed. Not even Bella. I take a long drag and the burn in my chest is distracting enough to give me some seconds of peace, but it doesn't last long.

"But mom, I wanna play! Look!" Sophie's voice filters even through the noise of this rain against the rooftop, and when I look down at the garden, she takes off her shoes and jumps barefoot into a puddle, shrieking with happiness as the muddy water stains her denim shorts, while Tanya stands under an umbrella, holding a towel for Sophie, wearing a scowl on her flawless face and flip–flops on her feet. I don't think she has ever worn those before.

Even like this, Tanya looks perfect. Lost in her own head, eyes emotionless, she could well be an exquisite painting. Too perfect. If I try hard enough, I can look right past everything she lacks as a person – as a mother – and I still see a lost girl, in a world she doesn't belong to. She's cold and detached. It's not like she doesn't try to belong – she just doesn't fit in here. She's otherworldly. I could never find warmth in her eyes – not even for our daughter. I could never really reach her.

She's not flawed like Bella. Bella isn't perfect. Bella is real. Bella is imperfection and tears and freckles on the face. Bella is a tiny scar on her eyebrow and chapped lips. Bella is tired eyes but worried about the bags under mine. Bella is freaking out over a gray hair on her head, but strength when she was homeless. Bella, who touches me like I mean something. Bella, who laughs with her eyes and cries with her soul. Bella, who gives me a sense of being. Bella, who grounds me in the moment and conveys so much by just a kiss, than she does by so many words, but who burned her words to make them last forever.

Bella, who would probably be jumping barefoot in puddles too.

I take one last drag of the cigarette and open the window. The raindrops spray on my face lightly as a smile makes its way to my lips when I hear Sophie – a lot louder now – still being stubborn about playing in the rain. I toss the cigarette to the left, straight into a puddle near the fence that no one will clean. I close the window and step out of the bedroom and into the hallway. Our house inside is also always a mess. Pages and pages filled with shapeless stories that only a child's crayon can tell, hang off the walls. Sophie puts them wherever she likes them. It's the one thing Tanya doesn't have a problem with. She'd rather see these pages than crayon lines on the walls which were painted in her favorite color. I pick up the toys littering the living room as I hear more whining from outside. Sophie really doesn't want to come in.

I sigh and walk out to the porch, and just stand there, letting the wind caress me. Tanya looks over – her tense face finally morphing into relief because she knows Sophie will listen to me. What she doesn't know, is that I don't plan on calling Sophie in. I ask Tanya with a tilt of my chin to get back inside, and she does, handing me the towel and umbrella. She grimaces when she sees Sophie picking something up from a puddle and walking towards us.

"Daddy, look! It's a frog! It's a small frog!" she squeaks and bounces on her feet. I laugh when she shrieks as a tiny, tiny frog jumps out and gets lost in all the grass, as soon as she holds out her hands for me to see.

"Those things are gross, baby. Loaded with diseases," Tanya says, still standing there with a now horrified expression. It sort of makes me laugh harder when Sophie says "But it's sooooo cute!" and hops back into the lawn, trying to imitate the frog that she can't find, saying "Come on out, Freddie the Frog," in a soft voice.

"It's all you," Tanya mutters as she stands beside me. "Sometimes it's so hard to believe that she has any of my genes in her."

"Of course she has," I say. "Her hair is just like yours. Strawberry blonde. And her nose. Oh, that is definitely your nose. Mine isn't as pointy. And she scowls just like you."

She rolls her eyes.

"And when she is angry," I say, "she is loud as hell."

Tanya finally cracks a smile and shakes her head. "Call her in. She'll catch a cold."

"No, she won't. It's still summer."

"She has school in a few days!"

"She's just a kid. Let her live a little, Tanya."

She throws her hands up in the air and huffs, before turning around and walking inside. As soon as she's gone, Sophie looks at me and gestures at me to stay silent and come closer. I discard my shoes, roll up my pants, and step out into the rain, foregoing the umbrella, just enjoying the raindrops falling on my head and the wet grass under my feet.

I have to bend on a knee to see the other frog she whispers that she has in her hands, and as soon as I do, she splashes water allover my face. No frog in her hand – just rainwater from the puddle.

It's disgusting, and it makes me deliriously happy.

She starts laughing and I laugh with her and splash some water on her too. Then we get into a small contest, which she easily wins by giving me a hug – and hence getting me wet because of her wet clothes.

Her laughter, her squeals, her hugs, her wet hair in my face as she gives Eskimo kisses, her jumping around the lawn and holding on to my arms while I twirl her in the air – that's life.

––x––

We both catch a cold.

Tanya looks at us with smugness radiating from her face as she places two bowls of tomato soup on the table in front of us, while Sophie burrows deeper in her oversized, dry pajamas.

I wonder why Tanya is being so nice today. I wonder what she wants.

"Want me to feed you the soup?" Tanya asks Sophie, wringing her hands while she just stands there. Sophie sneezes into her tissue – causing Tanya to flinch back – and shakes her head.

"Okay," Tanya says, and sits on the other couch, switching on the TV. She flips the channels obsessively. It gives me a headache so I stop staring at the TV, wipe my nose, and put a spoonful of soup in my mouth. It's good.

"Why aren't you drinking that?" I ask Sophie.

She shrugs. "I don't like tomato soup."

"I know, but it's really good. Just try it. It will help with the cold."

She shakes her head.

I take a spoonful again and extend it towards her. "Try it, try it, before it falls on my hand!" I whisper urgently. She makes a scowling face very similar to what Tanya would, but blows on the spoon gently and lets me feed her anyway.

"See? That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It's okay."

She doesn't drink up the soup by herself. I have to spoon–feed her, slowly. Even though I am very careful with it, she giggles when a spoonful lands on my white t–shirt, and I narrow my eyes at her playfully and point to her own clothes, where there's a soup–stain, because she sneezed just as I was feeding her.

"You're both such kids," Tanya says. I didn't even know she was looking at us. She looks…bothered by something. She is confusing me today.

"But mom, Daddy's not a kid," Sophie says in a confused tone, her voice not as nasally as it was an hour ago, thankfully.

Tanya rolls her eyes. "I know."

And that's that. No one says a word as we finish up the soup. The silence is only broken by Sophie's request to watch SpongeBob. Tanya changes the channel and gets up to wash the empty bowls.

She never does dishes. By now I know something's wrong.

Sophie's eyes start drooping after five minutes of SpongeBob's babbling and she climbs into my lap, making me smile. She continues watching the cartoon while I kiss her forehead and gently stroke her hair, and within a few more minutes she's deeply asleep with her head on my shoulder.

I gesture at Tanya to switch off the TV while I carefully get up with Sophie in my arms. She stirs and her eyes open, but once she sees where we're going, she puts her head on my shoulder again and her arms tighten around my neck.

Kicking open the door to her room and then the toys on the floor, I reach her bed and gently tuck her in, placing her favorite stuffed toy next to her. She snuggles up to the toy immediately and her breathing evens out. I kiss her forehead again, before turning off the light and tip–toeing out.

When I get back into the living room, Tanya is standing in front of the open refrigerator, biting her lower lip in contemplation. I reach past her and pour myself a glass of water.

And then just about choke on it when she asks, "Who is she, Edward?"

––x––