“I don’t want me living here to cause a problem for you or your family.”
He simply blinked at her.
“You can’t be asking to come see me all the time, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I love you, and I always love seeing you, but your momma and daddy don’t want to be badgered all the time about me.”
He nodded and swallowed. “Okay,” he said.
“I’m hoping that by moving here, it won’t be such a big deal when we see each other. It won’t be this…this…this big event.” She flapped one hand as she spoke, not sure OJ as a twelve-year-old could truly understand what she meant.
When he didn’t say anything—a rarity for OJ—she knew he didn’t really get what she was saying. And maybe he didn’t need to. She’d spoken to Georgia and Otis, needing them to understand she wasn’t coming back to Coral Canyon to become more of a motherly figure in OJ’s life.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
She wanted to make life easier for all of them, and she wanted to be closer to her family. She wanted her presence in Coral Canyon to be commonplace, not special, and when she was a part of normal, everyday life, she hoped she could sort of…disappear from people’s radar.
“Can I still text you?”
“Of course,” she said. “Maybe you could come work at the clinic, the way you go up to Bryce’s stables and help him.”
“I go on Saturdays,” he said. “Sometimes. I’ve been playing flag football on the weekends, though, so I haven’t been too much.”
She cut into her pancakes and reached for the buttermilk syrup OJ liked. “You liked that, right?”
“Yeah, it was pretty fun,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll play again. I might try whittling or something next.”
OJ was the only person Bailey knew who went from flag football to whittling to “or something.”
“You can come help with the animals, but I don’t want it to be at a sacrifice to your family,” she said. “Do you know what a sacrifice is? What I mean by that?”
OJ frowned, something he rarely did, and cut another bite of his pancake. “No,” he said.
“It means, OJ, that you can’t make their lives harder just to come see whatever cat I’m helping. Okay? You can’t make your momma and daddy’s lives harder just to come over to the vet clinic.”
She leaned forward, words in her mouth she didn’t want to say. “I love you, OJ, and I always, always will, but I’mnotyour mother. You understand that, right?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice a bit clipped.
“I don’t want you to put me, or coming to the clinic, above your family. That’s what I mean by sacrifice. That’ll have a cost you won’t like.”
He nodded. “Okay,” he said. “How will I know if I’m sacrificing them?”
“You can ask them,” she said. “Or me. Or Bryce. Or Grandpa Graham, or Uncle Tex.” She swallowed, her throat kind of sticky, and not from the syrup. “If your momma looks upset, you know you’ve asked for something a step too far. If she says no, then the answer is no. And buddy, I won’t be on vacation when I live here. I’ll be busy working, and taking care of my house, and settling into a brand-new place, with lots of people I don’t know.”
“Okay,” he said, though Bailey couldn’t expect him to understand all the things adults had to do in their lives. “Daddy says I’m bugging him sometimes, and that’s when I know I need to back off.”
“Exactly,” Bailey said. “You can’t bug them to see me, come to the clinic, anything like that.”
“All right,” he said.
Bailey nodded, finally free of the things she’d wanted to tell him. “Now, I am going to need your help in the springtime.”
“You will? Why?”
“My new house has a place for a duck pond, and I’m going to need someone who can pick out and name all the ducks I’m going to get.”
OJ looked like she’d just told him he’d get a birthday party every month for the next year. “Really, Bay? Can I?”
She grinned and grinned at him. “Yeah, buddy. I think we’ll start with four or five and go from there, and since I haven’t lived here in a long time, I’m going to need help figuring out where to get the ducks.”
