“This was always his job,” Oakley said, looking over at Dawn.
Anne nodded. “I should have tackled it before now. But it never even occurred to me. I just… forgot it was something that needed to happen.”
“He carried so much. Ugh.” Oakley pressed her hands to her eyes, frustrated by the sudden burn of tears. It had taken her completely off guard.
“I know.” Anne rubbed a hand up and down her back. “I miss him too. Every day.”
“Okay, that’s enough!” Dawn shouted after a while. “Good job! Pull the vacuum up so we don’t keep losing water. There you go! Great! Okay, who wants to dump in the baking soda?”
With great reluctance, the kids clambered out of the catchment tank and down the ladder. Annie Oakley wrapped them in beach towels while Grandma poured bleach into their drinking water.
“There has to be a better way to do that,” Oakley muttered.
“We turned out alright,” Anne said with a shrug.
“You sound just like Mom.”
Anne gasped theatrically. “Rude.”
“Now for the hard part,” Dawn announced from her place at the top of the ladder.
“What’s the hard part?” Pete asked.
“Getting this dang cover back on.”
The three adults worked for a solid ten minutes trying to get the massive cover back onto the tank, but they didn’t manage it until Zoe and Noah arrived and gave them a hand.
When they were done, Zoe retreated into her little backyard hut. Anne and Noah wandered off into the ironwood forest. The freshly-showered kids piled onto Grandma’s bed for a movie. That left just Oakley and Dawn.
Unless she volunteered to tag along on some errand or another, Oakley rarely got any one-on-one time with her mom. It had always been that way. Now, sitting on the back porch, it felt strange not to be doing something. When she was a kid, Tutu Kalama was always shelling peas or sewing clothes or doingsomethingwith her hands. Now she understood why.
Oakley didn’t like to sit idle. That was how worries crept in.
“How are you?” Dawn asked suddenly.
“Fine,” she said automatically.
“You always say that.” Her mom’s smile was half affection, half exasperation.
“I have an amazing life. What would I have to complain about?”
Dawn was silent for a moment. “How’s Trent?”
“Fine! Good. Working hard, like always.”
“You know, I haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“No! That can’t be right. Didn’t he come for Christmas?”
“Not since the year before last.”
“That’s right. He was slammed with work last Christmas. We just had a cozy morning with the girls, and then he stayed towork when I brought them down here for dinner. He’s just busy. You know how it goes.”
“Oakley, he didn’t even come to the memorial service.”
She flinched.
“Are you two okay?”
