“He says it’s okay. And yeah, I pitched a fit because my undies were pink. So I’m going to get Bekka a crispy chicken sandwich and tots, and I need you along to tell me what everyone else wants and from where. You see everything.” Couldn’t hurt to suck up to her a bit, and it was the truth besides.
“Oh God, Bekka and the damn laundry.” She looked at him as if she was daring him to say anything about her cussing, and he didn’t, so she kept going. “Seriously. I know she’s trying to be all grown-up and stuff, but she is not the mom, and she needs to stop touching other people’s stuff. She isnotmy mom.”
“Do you remember your mom?” Did he just ask that? What was wrong with him? A decent person didn’t ask a nine-year-old if she remembered her dead mom.
Sarah shrugged and took his hand as they headed out of the barns. “Sort of? I don’t know. Kind of, but not as much as Bekka obviously.” She rolled her eyes and scrunched up her face. “I remember that she was pretty and she smelled good and she knew how to make cookies.” Sarah shrugged. “It’s funny because when I think about her, I always feel like I watched her turn into a balloon and then she popped.”
Weirdly enough, from what he understood happened, that made sense. She got pregnant and she threw a clot. Still,damn.
“I’d say I understood, but I don’t. I still have my mom.”
“I know. And you’reold, like as old as Daddy. You’re so lucky because your mom’s nice. She brings food and she cleans stuff and she knows stuff, so that’s cool. I don’t even have a granny or a grandpa.”
Jesus save him from being old in his thirties. “You don’t?”
“Daddy doesn’t think I know, but Bekka told me. Daddy and Momma were both bisexual. Do you know what that means?”
He was going to die. He prayed she hadn’t asked what he thought she asked.
“Do you hear me? Do you know what bisexual means?”
Yeah, no, she’d asked it. “I do.”
“Okay, so it means that you can like both boys and girls, right? And it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl. So Daddy had dated a boy, and Momma had dated a girl, and that made both of their parents really, really,reallymad. Then when they got married to each other, they both said, ‘If you don’t like me when I love somebody one way, then you don’t get to like me the other way.’ And that’s how it happened.”
That broke his fucking heart. “Had to have been really hard.”
“Can you imagine Daddy not loving me anymore?” She looked at him with huge eyes. “I mean, I could go to Daddy and say, ‘I’m in love with the Mothman,’ and Daddy would say, ‘Well, I hope that they’re very good to you. And if they’re not, I’m goingto punch them in the nose.’ But that’s it. Daddy would love me no matter what. Daddy would love all of us no matter what.” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s wrong with people? What is wrong with them that his momma and daddy would say, ‘We don’t love you anymore’? That’s stupid.”
“That is really stupid, kiddo. I mean, my dad wasn’t thrilled when I came out to him, but my momma, well, she just nodded like that was that. But Dad wasn’t gonna kick me to the curb, either.”
What was happening here? How was he having this conversation with Sarah, she of the dark monster mini books and boy dogs named Rosie?
And she was holding his hand.
He got her to the truck and opened the door, looking back and forth between her and his truck seats. Did she still need a booster seat or a…
“I can sit in your back seat. It’s okay, I’m big enough.”
“As long as you know what you’re doing, and your dad’s not going to kill me if I do something wrong.”
“Daddy would’ve told you when you texted if you needed to move a car seat from the SUV to your truck.” Her tone was so rational. Not at all sarcastic though, which he was proud of her for.
“Good point. Okay.” He opened the back door of the truck to help her get in. And a furry black and brown bullet came flying out from the direction of the barn to jump into the truck.
“Rosie, I don’t know if you can go to town with us. We’re going to the store.”
Cam glared at the dog. “How long has he been getting in and out of his stall without any help?”
Sarah shrugged. “Couple of days. You’ve been really busy.”
“Huh. Well, I don’t want to leave him in the truck while we’re in the store. If we were just going to get food. It would be fine,but Rosie, you’re going to have to go back to the barn.” Cam waved a hand because he hated snapping his fingers at anybody, even a dog, and let out a sharp little whistle.
Rosie heaved a sigh, but he hopped down out of the truck limping terribly, as if it had been his leg that was injured in the first place. What a ham.
He made sure Rosie was well out of the way of the truck, though before he got in and started the engine. He had no intention of hitting that damn dog. It would kill most of them at this point to lose him.
Sarah chattered at him all the way into town, and he wondered if she would be okay with just getting a book from the Walmart. Did they carry spooky kid books at the Walmart?
