✅ My Cousin's Keeper [NaNoWriMo 2021]

123. My Little Treasure

I had some toys in the bedroom. I'd borrowed them from the nursery, although I doubted that Tess would miss them. When she moved in, I had bought her so many things that she probably didn't know half of them yet. That was only appropriate, I thought. A baby would play with whatever was put in front of her, and she would never notice what wasn't there unless it happened to be one of her favourites. Giving her enough to confuse her hadn't been a part of my original plan, but now that I knew her a little better I knew that she would appreciate that little detail helping her to sink more easily into littlespace.

For Ffrances today I had a toy train. The carriages were blobby plastic shapes with smiling faces on, and soft foam wheels that turned with a little squeak as they were pulled across the carpet. There were a couple of dolls as well, and plush animals who could ride on the back of the train. I didn't really know what age she wanted to play as, and I'd expected that these toys might be a little too young for her, but I was also sure that she would be pretty imaginative and adaptable. If she'd been old enough to be dissatisfied with my choice, then she would probably also have been old enough to make her own choice.

And she seemed to be delighted. She did her best to balance the dolls and plushies on the back of the train, and then crawled back and forth around the bedroom, making excitable 'choo choo' noises. She laughed when the dolls fell off, and dashed back to put them on again. After a while I realised that she was putting many of the fallen ones onto the same carriage, and when I asked her why she could tell me that it was her ambulance. I couldn't help smiling at that; she was just like a real little, putting all her adult thoughts to one side and enjoying a break from thinking too much.

I felt like I was almost redundant then. She was so happy just playing with her toys like a little kid, and she didn't need me to play with her. But I sat on the floor beside her and watched her play. I praised her when she came close to me, and told her what a good girl she was. It seemed like that was all I needed to make her smile now.

I heard the front door open downstairs, and I heard Tess come in. But she already knew that we were doing something special tonight, so she wouldn't think anything of it if Ffrances and I didn't come down for dinner. As much as the idea of leaving a little to fend for herself made me uncomfortable, I was aware that sometimes she liked to try cooking for herself. As I heard her moving around, I thought about it a little longer. Should I keep on watching Ffrances play, or check if Tess needed my help? How long could a little one play the same game without getting bored? There was a lot more to this than I had ever realised.

"Do you want some food, sweetie?" I asked her, after a couple of attempts to get the little one's attention. I guessed that she had probably had a light dinner already, but only something small to leave space for snacks. Neither of us had fully planned this evening; it was so different from Tess's regression days, when I'd had to think ahead about every detail to make sure she didn't have an opportunity to stop feeling little. She paused a minute, and then nodded. Then she went right back to playing with her dolls. The little animals seemed to be trying to eat each other now, but presumably in a cute way, because Ffrances was still laughing.

"Want me to bring you some snacks so you can have food while you play?" I asked, and then tried to think more about what a little kid might want. I needed to think about Ffrances like a little, and stop using so many adult words if I wanted her to be happy. "We could have a tea party with your dolls, would you like that?"

"Yeah!" This time the content smile turned into a wide grin, and I knew I'd found the right words to bring her alive. "I can cook for Mavis?" She indicated one of the dolls, which looked almost like a little cloth replica of Ffrances herself; the right hair and the right face shape, at any rate. I wondered why she would have chosen that name, but I wasn't exactly surprised once I reminded myself that she was playing with the limitless imagination of a toddler now.