Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 162369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 812(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 812(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
With her bowl of cereal and milk situated in front of her, she leans her elbows on the table and quietly watches me make a Bloody Mary.
“So, it’s like breakfast wine?” she asks.
That makes me laugh. “Somethin’ like that.”
“You shouldn’t drink in the morning.”
“Who says?”
“My dad. Sometimes, my mom has wine, and he tells her it’s too early. She has white wine, though, but never this early.”
The chair legs screech across the floor as I pull it out from under the table. “Your mom drinks a lot?” I fall into the chair and take a long sip. The liquid burns a trail from my throat all the way down to my gut.
“She likes wine. She doesn’t get drunk, though. She says she just wants to not think sometimes.”
“What’s she not thinking about?”
Penny scoops cereal out of her bowl and spoons it into her mouth, chewing before she answers. “The baby.”
I almost choke on my drink. “She’s drinking while she’s pregnant?”
Penny shakes her head and swallows another mouthful of rainbow-colored loops. “No. She’s not pregnant anymore. The baby changed its mind.”
“She lost the baby?” I ask softly. I’m completely out of touch with the reality of being with kids, but this is not the conversation I thought I’d be having at nine fifteen a.m. on a Saturday with a nine-year-old.
“Yeah. That’s why she’s going to the doctor today. To find out if she can have another one.”
“Oh.” I feel a blip of empathy and struggle with what to say next. “I’m sorry you guys went through that.”
Nodding, she says casually, “I told her all she has to do is ask the baby to come back, but she doesn’t want to listen to me.”
“Ask him to come back?”
“Yeah. It didn’t work for him this time, but he can have another chance. That’s how it works.”
Years of bizarre conversations with Brianna kindle my curiosity. I can’t resist nudging for more. “What makes you think that’s how it works?”
“I just do. It worked for me.” She swirls her spoon in the bowl, and I feel dizzy staring at the milk cyclone. “You asked me to come back, and I did.”
Amused, I lift my glass and finish my drink in two gulps. “I said you could come back and see the elephant. I didn’t ask you to.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “Not that time, the other time.”
Before I can ask her what she’s talking about, Cherry bounds into the room with her old favorite tennis ball in her mouth, spitting it out at Penny’s feet.
Picking the bedraggled ball up, Penny looks over at me with a big smile. “She wants to play.”
She hasn’t done that in years.
“Can I throw it?”
“You can roll it gently down the hall. If you throw it, she’ll wreck the place chasing it. She’s a sixty-pound klutz.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Penny sits on the floor and rolls the ball across the house for Cherry to trot after. She giggles every time the dog brings it back to her.
After I clean the table, I stop the ball midroll with my boot. Four eyes pin me with a how dare you stare.
“How ’bout we go over to the studio and do some work?” I say.
“Yes!” Penny scrambles to her feet. “I love the barn.”
“Bring your ‘drink in a box’ and a snack.” I suddenly feel like I’m responsible for an exotic pet. How often am I supposed to feed her? Every two hours? Three? Beats me.
“I’m bringing a snack and juice for you, too, Fox.”
I stop in my tracks on my way to the back door, my head snapping in her direction. “Did you just call me Fox?”
“Yup.” She smiles innocently. “Isn’t that your name?”
“It’s my last name… and a nickname.”
Confusion glazes her eyes as she blinks at me.
“Never mind,” I finally say. She reminds me of Brianna in the oddest, most subtle ways. Shaken, I step into my work boots, not bothering to tie them and swing open the door from the kitchen leading to the side yard.
“Are we gonna go hunting through people’s garbage?” she asks eagerly.
Laughing, I shake my head. “Nah. I don’t think your mom would like that.”
“You’re probably right, but I still want to do it.”
She wanders around the barn while I sort through a wheelbarrow full of stuff I picked up earlier in the week. People throw out the weirdest shit. Most of it really is garbage, like broken appliances, old clothes, tons of shoes, and scrap metal. Not to mention the toys—the kid kind and the adult kind. Yes, I wear gloves. But every once in a while, I find things that obviously weren’t thrown away due to being old or broken. Things like jewelry boxes full of expensive jewelry, brand-new wedding dresses still with the tags on, photo albums, and filled diaries. Those items go into what I call my haunted memories pile, where they can sit undisturbed with their secret tragic backstories. I rarely use those pieces in my art unless it’s for something very special.