Be the Girl(41)

“About ugly feet?”

“No. Aren’t you supposed to be helping Mom?” I hear the forced patience in his tone.

Cassie holds up an orange flyer. “It’s the Fall Fair this weekend.”

“Right.” Emmett’s smile wavers. Is he thinking about Holly right now?

“Can we go?”

“Oh, so now you’re talking to me again?” He gives Cassie a knowing look.

“Can we go?” she repeats, and I can’t tell if she’s ignoring him or if she’s missed his point altogether.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to see my hockey game schedule.”

“You don’t have a hockey game on Friday. Mom said. So we can go on Friday night. AJ can come. And Zach, too.”

“We’ll see. I have to talk to him.”

“Okay.” She pauses, stares at him. “Can you call him now?”

“No, Cassie! Right now, AJ and I are working on a project for school. I’ll call him tonight. But I need you to let us work on our project for now. Go and help Mom set the table or something. Come on, Cass …”

She finally relents, slowly easing her way down the stairs, one cautious step at a time.

Emmett groans, his head falling back to show off the jagged point of his throat. “And now I feel guilty.”

“Why?”

“Because she just wants to be included, and now she thinks we’re excluding her from something fun. She doesn’t have any real concept of this.” He casts a hand at the laptop. “Most of her work is in class.”

“We can call her back and let her listen to how boring this is,” I offer.

He rubs his hands over his face and then grabs his phone. “Lemme text Zach. See if he’s around for Friday.”

“She likes him, huh?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure she has a crush on him.”

“Really?” I’m struggling to picture Cassie fawning over a boy—like I am over her brother at this very moment. “She can’t even handle watching people kiss in movies.”

“You should see the way she blushes sometimes when he teases her.” A small smirk touches his lips as his fingers fly over his keypad. He sends the text. “Zach’s great with her. His mom works with special needs kids and he has a cousin with autism so he gets it.” His phone chirps with a response. “Cool. He’s in.”

“That’ll make her really happy.”

“Yeah … it’s kind of lame but we go every year. They have the usual carnival rides.” He chuckles. “And they have this haunted house that Cass was begging to go in for years so I finally took her last year and she lost her mind. They had to turn the lights on and guide us out through the emergency exit. I thought my mom was going to kill me.”

“Is it scary?”

“Not for me or you.” He shrugs. “She mostly goes to play the games. Every year she spots one stuffed animal that she has to win and then spends all her money trying.”

“You don’t win it for her?” I can’t help the accusation in my tone. I’m surprised.

“I used to, but we’re trying to help her boost her confidence, which means not doing everything for her. Plus, she’s not five anymore. She has to learn that things won’t always get handed to her.” He shakes his head. “Of course, she comes home from the fair in tears without a toy, and I feel like a jerk.” He pauses. “You’re gonna come, right? Friday night?”

“Yeah, sure. After the mini-meet.” I keep my voice nonchalant.

Meanwhile, my heart is racing.





13





Dear Julia,

I think my mother is having a midlife crisis. That, or she has lost her identity without her job and has decided to assume Martha Stewart’s.

No sooner had Mick finished putting the last pipe in place than she was asking how long it would take to renovate the bathroom upstairs. When I came home from school today, I found them sitting on the porch with tea and a plate of cookies, planning how to replace the steps and what front door would look best. And now that the old appliances have been swapped out for shiny new ones, she’s talking about installing new cupboards. Or at least painting them. She can’t chill.

Plus, she bakes every day. EVERY DAY, Julia. I know … first-world problems.

I can’t help but wonder how Uncle Merv really is with all this. He grumbles about the noise but then tells her to do whatever she wants because he can’t take the damn house to his grave. He loves talking about his grave. It’s morbid. Is that what happens when people get old? Is that all they do? Talk about dying? He doesn’t go anywhere. Mom finally got it out of him that they suspended his license because he ran down five pylons in a construction zone. He’s lucky that’s all he ran down. Iris is the only one who visits every so often. If she was trying to woo him, I think she has given up.

I came home from school today to find him sitting in his chair with his headphones on, listening to an audiobook, and staring up at that wedding picture Mom had framed (she found a hammer: Mick’s).

I think he really misses Aunt Connie.

~AJ





The wind is brisk as we lead Murphy and Roger Dodger in through the back door of the animal shelter, their tongues lolling and their tails wagging. Despite his hip impediment, Murphy managed to keep up with the little Lhasa Apso during our trek across the farm field behind the shelter property.