She shifts back in her seat, breaking our contact and erecting the wall back in place. “You can go back to doing whatever you were doing. I’ll stay out of your way.”
I wasn’t doing anything overly important before she came, but if she wants normalcy, I’ll oblige.
* * *
12 years ago…
“Liv, I think you earned employee of the month.”
“Shut up,” she scoffs, hopping up on the only clear workbench in the shop. She comes every day after school to hang out with me. She does her homework while I work on cars.
Some days we work diligently in silence, and some days the conversation never ends.
She’s a couple of months into her senior year, and I’ve almost completed all the certifications I need to be a full-time mechanic here instead of an apprentice.
“How was your birthday dinner?”
“It was fine. My cake was terrible. Organic and all-natural sugar.” She makes a sour face, and I chuckle from my spot under the hood of a 1975 Ford Pickup.
“Just think, one more year until you’re legally an adult and don’t have to put up with the hippie mom recipes.”
“Yeah, I’ll be far away at college hopefully.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think a wire stabbed me in the chest, but I know it’s just the thought of her leaving. She hasn’t picked a college yet, but I know she’s one foot out of the state already.
“Have you decided what you’ll major in?”
She sighs like she always does when this topic is broached. “I’m doing really well in AP Calc. Maybe I’ll do something with mathematics.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Well, no.”
“Pass.”
“Not everyone gets to do things they love for a living.”
“Not everyone, but you should.”
“Hmm. Business?”
“Do you want to be someone’s boss?”
“Maybe. I like bossing you around.”
“HA! That’s only because I let you. Not everyone will be as nice as me.” I give her a cheeky grin, and she throws her head back and laughs. I love it when she does that.
“I don’t know. I’d like to help people but…” She shrugs.
“You have time, don’t worry about it.”
“I could go into Social Work.”
“Why would you do that? The pay would be terrible.”
“I don’t know, I always had a nice social worker.”
It’s one of those things that she brought up once, and we don’t talk about. She was a newborn still when hippie-mom adopted her, although she swears she was less weird when she was a kid.
