“Thanks,” I whispered knowing I was no further in my endeavors to get my sister-in-law to snap out of it.
I let her go and moved out of the room, out of the house and back to my wheel to salvage the vase that would one day make me two hundred dollars richer which would go a long way to keeping my baby girls in oats.
As I sat, before I got my hands back in the clay, I tagged my cell phone, scrolled to Mike and hit go.
It rang twice before, “Hey, Angel. In a meeting.”
There it was. Never any time to communicate.
“Right, can I just tell you a couple of things quickly?” I asked.
“Yep,” Mike answered.
“Hang onto your hat,” I advised.
“Shit,” Mike muttered and I grinned.
“Good news, no Debbie.”
“Right,” he prompted, saying the word slowly when I said no more.
“And the great news for two people we care about but maybe not for you is that Fin asked Rees out. So she approached me to approach you about letting her go on a real date. I gave her the bad news that you were firm about sixteen. But I also kinda guided her to the realization that car dates were not the only option. She’s studying with Fin now and since she’s got a lot of work to do, we’ve asked her to stay for dinner.”
This got me silence.
I talked through it, “Oh, and I’m teaching her to ride horses on Saturday then we’re going to the mall.”
“It’s good you bought the chore of takin’ my girl to the mall after you guided her to the realization that car dates weren’t the only option.”
He sounded peeved.
I pressed my lips together but I did this to stop myself from smiling.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
“It’s happening, you already knew it would, you gotta roll with it,” I advised.
“Right. No studying in his room,” Mike declared.
“Gotcha, already informed Fin it was the kitchen table.”
“And Saturday, she has the money she has from her birthday and trading the jeans. No more and, sweetheart, she’ll give you big eyes and sweet pouts but even if she sees stuff she’s real good at convincing you she has to have, she doesn’t. Presents are one thing. She’s still three weeks out on her allowance and I do not want what was becoming a habit of her begging and borrowing to buy shit she does not need actually to become that habit. You get me?”
I got him. I so got him.
But I needed detail.
“Can I buy her a coffee drink?”
“Yes.”
“If she wants another piece of jewelry from that place I got her present, can I buy her that so she’ll like me more, want me around and maybe she’ll be open to me someday soon spending more nights than four a month in her Dad’s bed, some of those nights she’s in hers?”
“Bribery?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I answered.
I heard him chuckle.
Then he stated in a quiet voice, “Make it clear it’s special, Dusty. Not a bribe. Not something that will happen every time you go out. You are not a new person for Reesee to hit up when she’s convinced she needs some shit to fill some hole that I gotta figure out what she really needs to fill it.”
Seriously, Mike and I had to talk. If he hadn’t figured it out then I was probably closer to knowing what it was then he was.
And Rees was closer to getting it.
My eyes went out the barn to see Fin holding the backdoor open for Rees to go through. Her book bag was over his shoulder. It didn’t look heavy but he still carried it for her.
Seriously, Fin had it going on.
I watched them go through. Then I watched the backdoor close.
Definitely closer to getting it.
“Angel?” Mike called.
“Special. Not a bribe,” I confirmed. “And…Mike?”
“Yeah.”
“Honey, we have to find time to connect and I don’t mean bodily.”
He sounded alert when he asked swiftly, “Everything okay?”
“For me, surprisingly, yeah. For you, I’m sensing, no. You told me you were there to talk things through with. Goes both ways.”
This was met with more silence.
Then I heard, soft and sweet, “I got a meeting, sweetheart.”
“Right.”
“Do you get me?” he asked and I didn’t.
“Get you?”
“I’m at a meeting,” he stated, I stared at the ruined clay and then light dawned.
He had words he wanted to say and he couldn’t because there were people around.
“I get you,” I whispered.
“Right. We’ll connect. Promise.”
“Okay.”
“I want my daughter home by nine,” he decreed.
He was such a good Dad. That was study time, dinner time and TV time.
“Okay,” I repeated then added, “And just so you know, you being a good Dad and giving that to Rees and Fin, right now, I wanna kiss you all over.”
More silence then, “Jesus.”
I grinned.
Then I got a, “Later, darlin’.”
So I gave a, “Later, gorgeous.”
I hit the button on my phone, threw it to my side and dipped my hands in the water in order to drip it on the drying clay.
Then I turned on my wheel.
*
“In life, am I gonna use geometry?” Clarisse asked Fin, he looked from her paper to her and grinned.
“No clue,” he answered.