“That was salt, and it was only Jesse’s truck.”
“Why only mine?” Jesse demands.
“You called me ‘shortstack’ at the grocery store.”
“You were short!”
“I was having a growth delay!”
“You were four-foot-eight until freshman year,” Wyatt adds unhelpfully.
“And then I hit five-foot-six and became your walking wet dream, so who’s laughing now?”
There’s a beat of silence where they all look at me, and the air in the kitchen suddenly feels charged.
“We thought you’d end up in prison,” Boone says, breaking the tension. “Or at least juvie. You were constantly getting into trouble.”
“I was expressing myself.”
“You were expressing yourself by supergluing the neighbor’s mailbox shut,” Jesse points out.
“She kept leaving rude notes about our lawn height.”
“Fair,” Wyatt concedes.
“See? I was a vigilante. Like Batman, but female and with less money.”
“Way less money,” Jesse agrees. “Remember when you tried to sell lemonade but it was just water with yellow food coloring?”
“That was an art project about capitalism.”
“That was fraud.”
“Creative fraud. And false advertising. You could have ended up in prison. If you’d advertised it on the internet, you could end up being charged with wire fraud, too.”
“See, I’m actually an overachiever. Never go to prison over one measly little thing.”
“Your mom would’ve gotten a kick out of this,” Wyatt says, and the kitchen goes still.
The words hit me unexpectedly, making my chest tight. It’s been years since she died, but sometimes it still catches me off guard, these random moments where her absence feels fresh.
“Yeah,” I manage, my voice wobbly.
“She was great,” Boone says. “Always smiled and waved, even when our families were mid-feud. She’d bring cookies to the church bake sale and label them ‘for everyone except those McCoy boys’ but then wink at us and sneak us a handful.”
“She made the best apple pie,” Jesse remembers. “Brought one to the fair every year. Won first place six years running until Mrs. Patterson started bribing judges.”
“She’d probably have a lot to say about this situation,” I say, gesturing at the four of us and our current arrangement.
“She’d probably think it was hilarious,” Wyatt says, surprising me. “Your mom had a wicked sense of humor.Dry as dust. She once told my dad that his new truck was compensating for something, right to his face.”
“She did not!”
“She absolutely did. He turned purple. It was incredible.”
I laugh, remembering how she could cut someone down while smiling like she was paying them a compliment. “She once told Dad that resentment was like setting yourself on fire and hoping the smoke bothered your enemies. He gave her the silent treatment for three days, which kind of made her point for her.”
“Sounds like someone else we know,” Jesse says with a wink.
