Free Getting Lucky (The Marilyns) by Katie Graykowski Page A

have to gather them up. It works.”
    She settled back against Lucky’s chest.
    “I miss my daddy sometimes.” With her tiny index finger, she traced the fingers of Lucky’s left hand. “He used to bring me candy and let me ride on his shoulders. Do you got any candy?”
    “Not on me. But tomorrow we’ll see what we can sneak by Uncle Will.” Lucky was partial to chocolate. What did Dawnie like?
    “Daddy brought me M&Ms. They were our favorite.” She continued to trace the bones in Lucky’s hand. “I haven’t had M&Ms since Daddy died. Think I can have some?”
    Every innocent word chiseled off a chunk of Lucky’s heart. Ricky had loved plain M&Ms. Whatever problems she had with him … this lovely little girl had lost her father. Lucky had been so caught up in anger that she’d failed to see the victims of Ricky’s death. Infidelity wasn’t a victimless crime—here was the proof. And damn it, she’d have loved to see him with Dawnie, with all the girls. Ricky would have been—she shook her head—had been a good father. She swallowed down the hate for one precious moment.
    “What was he like?” Her voice wobbled almost as much as her heart.
    “We played Barbies. We’d get them all dressed up for a wedding. Daddy would put on a suit and marry a new one every day.”
    “Yes, it seems that he had a hard time choosing just one.” Lucky rolled her eyes.
    Dawnie pried Lucky’s hand from the chair and laced her little fingers through Lucky’s larger ones. “Do you miss him?”
    Lucky held the delicate little hand and marveled at the bones and the soft skin. It was a miracle that something so tiny was so strong. She gave up, relaxed back against the chair, and pulled the little girl in close. “Yes.”
    It was the truth, but she was also getting used to living without him. Grief was a funny, fickle thing. After someone died, family and friends were there with casseroles and hugs and then there was the funeral and the hubbub surrounding death. But it was the weeks after that were the hardest. The month later when she’d seen something funny on TV and picked up the phone to call him only to realize after she’d speed-dialed him that he was gone … forever. That was the moment he’d ceased to exist as a living, breathing person.
    Death’s finality took a while to fully sink in. There had been no stepping-down process to gradually adjust to a life without Ricky. He’d been here one minute and gone the next. Everything that he was had ended. No longer could she ask him questions or hear his laughter or see his face.
    Being left behind meant getting up every day, putting one foot in front of the other, pretending to laugh and feel, and stumbling through life waiting for the hole that used to be their life together to fill with something that made sense. The routine became a habit, and then it was her life. Day by day, the void that had been his death got smaller and smaller until it was hard to remember what life with him had been like.
    Grief was always there, but it only grabbed her by the heart every once in a while these days. It was like learning to live with a shoulder injury—a dull pain was always there but only really hurt sometimes. Tonight, surrounded by his things and his children, it hurt like a bitch. And she was beginning to forget him … the little nuances of his personality that had made him who he was. While Ricky had been a shit, he’d also been kind, funny, talented, and compassionate. She’d repressed the good about him for so long it was hard to recall it now. For tonight, she needed to revel in the good and forget the bad.
    “My daddy was funny.” She grabbed Lucky’s hand and pulled it around her waist. “He used to sing me to sleep … called me Little Bit.”
    The ache magnified ten times and threatened to swallow her whole.
    “I wish I could have seen that.” And she did. She’d give anything to have seen Ricky interacting with his children. There had always been