Flint heaves a heavy sigh.
With the number of times I’ve heard that sound since he took over digging the hole and transporting the cow—If we want this done before we all burn to a crisp, I’ll do it, and then you can spend some time reeducating yourself on the operation of this tractor later—I’m renaming him.
He’s now Sir Sighs-a-Lot, which I won’t be sharing with Junie because she seems to adore him.
Probably because he took the time to put a tarp over what was left of Gingersnap’s body so as to pay some respect to the dead before transporting it over here in the tractor’s bucket.
Also because he’s a total stranger who’s going to a cow funeral with us.
And that’s after he rode back to the house to get a few knickknacks that Junie insisted the cow should be buried with but that she needed Flint’s advice on picking out from among the eclectic collection of Uncle Tony’s things that weren’t sold at the estate sale or donated to charity by a few of the ladies in town who went through his clothing for me.
Lovely people here. I adore them already.
Mostly.
“If I die and you show up to my funeral with your shoulders bare, I’ll haunt you forever,” Junie tells me. “I just think it’s respectful to wear something nicer than a sweaty tank top showing off yourscrew youdivorce tattoo to a funeral.”
Myscrew youdivorce tattoo is a hummingbird. There’s nothing offensive about it beyond the fact that Dean always said tattoos were crude and he thought I was dumb for liking hummingbirds.
Clearly, we know who the problem was here.
But I have an opportunity to make a point without arguing about my tattoo, so I smile at her with what I hope is a respectful enough smile. “If you died, I’d miss you. You’re welcome to haunt me. I’d like that, actually.”
Sir Sighs-a-Lot does it again.
Please note, he hasn’toncesighed at a single thing Junie’s said. Not when she asked him to show her what would mean the most to the cow,sinceI never really knew my great-uncle or the cow, but I feel this connection to both, and I want to honor them right. Not when she asked him if he’d please use the best tablecloth still left in the house as the tarp for the cow. And not when she asked him to do a eulogy for Gingersnap either.
“Did you at least put on sunscreen?” Junie asks.
“Of course I did.”
I didn’t.
Totally forgot when we got busy picking a burial plot and roping my uncle’sway younger than I thought he wastenant and best friend into helping us put everything to rights.
And when I was trying to not ogle Flint’s biceps. Or the way his jeans fit. And when I was trying to remind myself that Iverymuch get the impression he’s not happy I’m here.
Join the club, buddy. Nobody wanted us back in Cedar Rapids either.
A shiver slinks through my body as I realize there’s a possibility he knowseverything. The tabloids never picked up the other half of the story of why Junie and I had to move, but that doesn’t mean someone who’s determined couldn’t figure it out.
Junie eyes me. No doubt she knows where my brain went.
Allof it.
I catch myself before I sigh too.
I can still see the little girl who used to climb in my lap and ask me to help her with glitter crafts and tell her bedtime stories in this sullen teenager who’s furious with me for uprooting her whole life.
And despite what she might think, I’m not doing this to make her miserable.
I’m doing it because we both need a fresh start.
It’s not just the awkward situation with my mom. Or the way so many of my friends abandoned me because of what she did. Or how the rest of them took Dean’s side.
And I even think Junie could’ve weathered the drama with the few loyal besties she had left in her old high school.
Probably.
