“That’s okay,” Thais said, taking Jeffrey’s hand again. “We can do other things.”
Jeffrey’s face lit up again. “We can climb trees.” He gripped her hand with excitement. “Or! Or, we can build me a rowboat!” He became animated suddenly, as if the idea that had just come to him was the best idea ever.
He dropped Thais’ hand and smacked his palms together.
Then he looked right at me.
“Can you help build me a rowboat?”
“You know what, Jeffrey”—I pursed my lips in contemplation—“I think I can help you out with a rowboat if you know where to get some supplies.”
Thais beamed, and thanked me with her eyes.
“I get you supplies—I mean us! We can build me a rowboat!” Jeffrey glanced over at Thais. “You can help too,” he said. “If you want.”
“Oh, of course I want to help,” she said right away. “You name it and I’ll do whatever I can.”
Jeffrey smiled with teeth, and turned back.
“Okay,” he said with urgency, “what do I need to get you to build me a rowboat?”
I gave Jeffrey a verbal list of everything I’d need, and although I didn’t expect him to find every item on the list, I told him not to get discouraged, to only bring back what he had, and that I’d still somehow make it work.
“And don’t go anywhere you haven’t already been,” Thais said, taking him into a hug, “because I don’t want you to get yourself hurt, okay?”
Jeffrey squeezed the life out of her.
“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”
He high-fived me again before rushing out the back door.
“I’ll be back later!” Jeffrey shouted as he ran down the steps. “And you can build me a rowboat!” The bushes and trees shook as Jeffrey rushed past them and darted into the forest, and then he was gone.
“I didn’t know you were a carpenter,” Thais said as I closed the back door.
“My grandfather was a carpenter.”
Thais pushed up on her toes, reached out both arms and hooked her fingers behind my neck. I lifted her; her legs went around my waist.
“So, he taught you?” she asked, looking into my eyes.
I leaned in and pecked her on the lips.
“Yeah. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather before he died. He was a good man.”
Thais regarded me.
“You’re being very sweet to Jeffrey,” she said.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
She smiled. “I guess I’m just glad you are the way you are.”
“And what way would that be?”
“Almost perfect,” she answered.
My eyebrows pinched in my forehead.
“Almost?” I questioned; a lopsided smile on my face.
Thais kissed the tip of my nose.
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” she reasoned.
I squeezed her, and my smile grew and grew.
“I don’t suppose it only takes a week to build a rowboat?” she said seconds later.
Ah, she caught that, I see. I hugged her closer.
“No,” I answered. “I don’t suppose it does.”
“How long does something like that usually take?”
I shrugged. “It really depends on what I have and don’t have to work with—I’m guessing a month at the least.”
Thais beamed with a burst of happiness, and she wrapped her arms around me in response to my decision to stay longer.
Just a little longer, I thought. Not indefinitely; we had to leave sometime; we couldn’t press our luck.
What am I doing? I know we should go, but why are we still here?
51
ATTICUS
“What role would you want to play?” I asked.
I was lying across the sofa, my head rested against the arm behind me. Thais was lying in the same position on the opposite end. I was massaging her foot. We had been talking for an hour about fighting and armies and war.
“I’d fight,” she answered straightaway. “I wouldn’t want to sit back while everyone else fought, or hide in a basement with the children and the elderly. I’d fight right alongside you.”
I stopped massaging her foot long enough to say, “No way in hell would I ever let that happen,” and then my hands went into motion again.
Thais’ mouth fell open with a little burst of air, followed by laughter. “That would be my decision, don’t you think?” she argued, lightheartedly. “Who are you to keep me from becoming a great warrior who dies in battle and is remembered throughout history like Achilles and Alexander the Great?” She waved her hands in a dramatic fashion. I could detect a rush of tamed laughter rising up in her throat but she contained it.
I laughed, however, tossing my head back once.
“That would be some feat.” I brought her foot up to my lips and kissed her toes.
Pretending to be offended by my comment, Thais pushed her foot toward me in retaliation.
“Oh, so you don’t think I could be a warrior?” she challenged. “I could fight just like you.” She pursed her lips, crossed her arms over her chest, and wrinkled her nose. “Just like being a fisherwoman—I could be and do anything that you can be and do, Atticus Hunt—that includes fighting in battle alongside men.”
I just smiled, proud, and in complete agreement with the iron feather on the sofa.
I kissed her toes again. “I know you could,” I said, and then set her foot down between my legs. “Believe me when I say that I know you could do anything you wanted. But as much as it turns me on to think of you as my shield maiden”—I leaned forward and kissed the top of her bent knee—“I would never want that for you, and quite frankly, I’d do whatever I had to, to stop you from trying—even if I had to duct tape you into a cocoon in a barn, or lock you away in storm shelter.”
She pressed her foot into the flesh of my inner thigh, and pinched my skin between her toes.
“Ouch!” I grabbed her leg and yanked her toward me; her neck slid away from the sofa arm as her body slid between my legs.
Thais cackled as her hands grasped the sofa cushions beneath her. “Let me go!”
I dug the tips of my fingers in her sides and tickled her until she was breathless and red in the face; her legs thrashed around on both sides of me.
“What are you gonna do about it?” I taunted, tickled her harder, knowing that if I didn’t stop soon she’d probably piss herself.
THAIS
Desperate to break free, I drew both of my feet back, knees toward my chest, and shot them forward, spearing Atticus in the midsection. In a bizarre flurry of muscled, hairy legs and big feet, he tumbled sideways over the sofa and landed on the floor with a thu-thump! “Oomph!” he said, and I heard him laugh. “Where’d that come from?”
I rolled off the sofa onto my hands and knees on the floor and pounced on him. Straddling his waist, I tried to return the cruel treatment and dug the tips of my fingers into his sides. Unsuccessfully.
“Ugh! You have to be ticklish!” Frustration mixed with laughter rose up in my voice.
But Atticus just looked up at me, grinning so broadly it made me want to smack him.
Finally, I gave up, drew my arms up and crossed them over my stomach. I felt my hair wild around my face, the springy waves frizzed; a few strands rose and fell in front of my nose, stirred by my breath.
“One of these days,” I warned, “I’ll find something to use against you.”