What is he holdingback?
“Thanks for inviting me out,” he says, and I feel very certain that’s not what he was thinking justnow.
My weight shifts to my other foot. “Claire really wanted to see youagain.”
“Right.” He nods. “Well, Claire, are you ready to have somefun?”
“Yeah!” she yells, one fist in theair.
“Can I have funtoo?”
My head snaps around to the voice. A woman’s voice. A tall, casually dressed but immaculately well-kept woman. Who has stopped at Isaac’s side and woven her arm throughhis.
Isaac glances at me. I hope I’ve rearranged my expression into something that passes as kind. Whatever emotion was on there, it wasn’t something I wanted himseeing.
“Aubrey and Claire, this is my friendJenna.”
Jenna smiles at us and waves hello, but keeps her position beside Isaac. Her posture is stiff, but looking at her face you'd think she’s not at allnervous.
Isaac does his best to keep it from becoming more awkward than it already is. Thank god for Claire, who keeps us all from having to spend too much time fakingconversation.
We follow her from game to game, watching. She squeals when she tries to smack the rodent that keeps popping up from different holes, and it’s quickly apparent that one-handed basketball shooting is not where her talents lie. She wastes a majority of the tokens Isaac has given her to get candy from the machine with thegrabber.
“I can’t believe you’ve never brought her here,” Isaac says as he hands our menus to the server after we’ve placed an order for food. Jenna sits across from Claire, leaving Isaac to sit oppositeme.
I grab a rogue crayon from beneath our table and hand it back to Claire. She’s wired from the four pieces of candy she gobbled before I took away the rest and hid it in my purse. Her coloring is more scribbling, as she uses the hand that sticks out from her cast to steady the paper and her good hand to draw a rainbow. Whenever her casted arm moves on the wooden table top, it makes a scratchysound.
“Honestly, a place like this is full of germs.” I take my little travel bottle of hand sanitizer from my purse and spritz it on Claire’s hands, then rub it in forher.
“Safety first.” Isaac smirks. Beside him Jenna has a frozen smile on her face. She has no idea what he’sreferencing.
I narrow my eyes. “Single mother, fewer sickdays.”
Isaac stares at me, his mouth a straight line. After a few seconds, he says, “What about John? Hasn’t he been a bighelp?”
“My dad has been amazing. Without him, I can’t imagine how I would’ve done it. And I’m sure if I asked him to, he would call in sick to work and take care of her. But I’d rather avoid having to ask by eliminating thepossibility.”
“When did you move in with him?” Isaac sits back, laying his arm across the top of the booth. Jenna sits back too, her posture relaxed for the first time allnight.
“How do you know he doesn’t live with me?” Eyebrows raised, I fish a piece of ice from my drink and pop it in mymouth.
Isaac gives me his own raised eyebrows. “So you chose the bear rug mounted on yourwall?”
Isaac’s right—the house is all Dad. “Is that what gave itaway?”
“That and the sets of antlers on the shelf in thehallway.”
“Oh?”
Isaac leans forward, his face playful. “I put it together with the bumper sticker on the back of his big truck. ‘I’d rather behunting.’”
“It was either that or ‘I like big bucks and I cannot lie.’” I bite the tip of my finger to keep fromlaughing.
Isaac’s eyebrows draw together. “A buck isa…?”
“Maledeer.”
“Of course.” Isaac laughs when he says it, because he so clearly knows nothing about my dad’s number-one pastime. Jenna laughspolitely.
