She started helping him get dressed. “Yeah, what’s he doing?”
“I talked to him this morning. He’s got to shoe some horses over at Mr. Pinkerton’s place.”
Her cheeks pinked, and she shook her head. “Oh, he doesn’t like that. He says those horses are damn fools.”
They both chuckled together, and he buttoned up his shirt. “Can you bring the plate to the front room? I’ll eat at the table.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah, I think that sounds great, and then you can have some cereal or something. We’ll eat together. I don’t like eating alone.”
“No, I know, Daddy. I bet by now Rachel wants something else too, anyway.”
He got his cane and started walking, one foot after another. “Yeah, and you’ll need to call your sister down out of the rafters. I want to know what she’s reading and see how she’s doing. Put eyes on her.”
She wrinkled her nose, her bright green eyes like her momma’s had been. “Oh you know Sarah, she’s plotting the demise of the universe.”
“How on earth do you know that phrase?”
She shrugged. “I watch the news.”
“Oh, dear God, why would you want to do that?” He wasn’t sure what eleven-year-old girls did, but he didn’t think it was watch the news and drink coffee and say things like ‘the demise of the universe’.
“Daddy, you’re so silly. I gotta know stuff for when I vote.”
Vote. Jesus. “That’s sort of a long way away.”
“But I still gotta know things. We all need to know things. Just in case?—”
He wanted to lie down and cry. He hated this shit.
But that wouldn’t do him any good. Lying down crying would only make a body tired, and he had plenty of that already.
He took a deep breath and then another, because damn that hurt. Then he smiled. “Go get your sisters for me, will you? And then we’ll have something together.” He needed to get some salsa or something for these eggs and he didn’t want her to see him do it.
“Okay, Daddy.” She headed off at a good clip, and he dropped his head into his hands for a minute. He wanted her to do Girl Scouts; he wanted her to be happy again, and he didn’t know how to…
The knock on the door broke off his thoughts, and he jumped, which jolted everything all the way down to his toes. Damn it, he wanted to know when he was going to be allowed to be a human being again.
Miz Halley stood there with one of her daughters or daughters-in-law or something, and a couple of gals who were too old to be children and too young to be grandbabies, her face wreathed in a smile.
She was holding something in her hands that probably tasted better than the cold eggs he was going to have to eat.
“Good morning, ma’am.”
She took the door and bustled right in. “Morning. I brought cinnamon rolls, and we came to help.”
“‘Help’?” Was she going to unbreak his back?
“Yes, I know for a fact that you haven’t been able to vacuum, and there’s no reason for those little girls to have to do it. I run a cleaning service, so I thought, who better to practice on than you? I brought Lori, and then I also brought a couple of my girls who are in training. This is Esmeralda, and this is Karen.”
People still named their children Karen?
“We won’t be in the way, we promise. We’re just gonna go do some laundry and change some sheets and clean you from top to bottom. It will make everything feel so much fresher.”
“Oh.” Well, shit, how could he say no to that? “But you have to tell Bekka how good she’s doing. She’s trying so hard and it will break her heart to think you didn’t approve.” No one was going to stomp on his kid.
“Now, Mitchell, you know I would not disapprove of Rebekka’s progress. She’s a wonderful girl.”
