✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

62. My Best Laid Schemes

Author's Note: I like the title of this one, but I wrote it more than a week ago; so it's sheer good luck that it ended up coming out today. I'll raise a glass and toast whatever spirit of destiny organised that.

Work was business as usual. It was strange throwing myself into a project without the constant worry of someone discovering my secret over my head. There was a new chapter of The Baby Button ready to read when I got to work on Tuesday, and I caught the next one on Thursday evening. Mommy's Little Devil seemed to be settling into a routine of being updated every Monday now, giving some routine to my reading breaks, and there were always new stories to check out. Everything was back to normal, so I could enjoy my breaks and focus better on my work.

Unfortunately, my experiment on Tuesday didn't give me any useful information. Tess texted me as she promised when she was ready to come home, and I said that I would take her home. But Ffrances decided it would be easier for her to go. It took longer than I expected because she volunteered to take the boy back to his family as well. I would probably have left him to make his own way home, but Ffrances had always been a little too understanding. When I thought about it later, I realised that perhaps that was a good idea; I could have spoken to the boy's father and told him to keep his offspring under control. But I didn't have the opportunity now. Another reason I should have tried to seem more supportive the first time I'd met him.

Ffrances was often busy with her course that week, leaving early in the morning and coming home late. But I could see her often enough that I didn't miss her so much. And there was plenty of time for us to plan a little Christmas treat. Ffrances still said that she was happy to be little alongside Tess, so that she wouldn't be too embarrassed to admit what she wanted. We made plans with that in mind, but I was still looking for the other option. I figured that if I could just get Tess to drop into her headspace a few times without realising, she would start to get used to it. It would be a short hop from admitting that she had enjoyed it once or twice to playing along when I asked her to. In the absence of getting Ffrances to admit the identity of the little she knew – almost certainly someone I had met at her office picnic over summer, because they were all the people we both knew – it was the best way I had to get Tess to accept a change of lifestyle.

It was getting cold out now; I didn't want to go outside without gloves. I got Tess a pair as well; thick woollen ones that were guaranteed to keep her fingers warm, even if they looked a little childish. She smiled, but she didn't start wearing them. She would probably get used to it as the weather got colder; her old house had been down in Raybridge somewhere, and she didn't know how harsh the winds could be when you're not sheltered by rows of houses on every side. The bus stop where she had to wait before school now was probably one of the worst places to stand still on this side of Palmerston. So long as those gloves were in her pocket, I was sure she would give in and try them one day. And they were soft and comfortable too, so once she got over her initial distaste for the pink colour, she was bound to decide that they were too practical to just ignore.

I knew she would be upset on Friday morning. It was her last day at school. Her friends would still be in the area, of course, but it would be harder to visit them without the school routine to bring them to the same place. She would be missing them, and I wanted to make things early for her. But I still needed to make sure that she didn't blame me for not getting to see her parents. I had told Ffrances while Tess was out on Tuesday night. I said that I was supposed to be sorting out the tickets for Tess's flight home, but I was waiting on some of the documents necessary to organise her visa. I didn't want it to seem like something worth investigating; but I mentioned that Tess had wanted to talk to one of her friends before sorting out all the paperwork, and then she'd just started putting it off. I didn't say as much, but I could suggest that the little girl might have been putting off telling us that she wanted to stay near someone she cared about over the holidays. Even if I couldn't stand talking to Spike, I could let Ffrances assume he was the obstacle confusing Tess's plans. It was Thursday before I figured it out myself, and suggested to Ffrances that I thought Tess might have messed up the plans on purpose.