"You said the S word."
"I said shoot."
“No. You said the other one. But I won’t tell.”
I looked down at her. Maisie Blackwood — MaisieBlackwood, legally, officially, as of four months ago when the adoption went through and she'd informed everyone at Sunday dinner that her name was now Maisie Grace Blackwood and if anyone forgot she would remind them — was sitting cross-legged on the barn floor in her pink cowboy boots with a socket wrench in one hand and a look on her face that dared me to argue.
I didn't argue. Nobody argued with Maisie. She was seven years old, and she ran this ranch and every person on it knew it.
"Hand me the ten-mil," I said.
She looked at the row of sockets she'd laid out on the shop rag beside her. She'd organized them by size — I'd taught her that, back when she first started showing up in the barn while I was working, planting herself on a bucket and asking questions until I either answered them or lost my mind. I'd answered them. Turned out I liked answering them. Turned out the kid who talked more than any human being I'd ever encountered was also the best company I'd had in years.
She picked up the ten-millimeter socket, checked the number stamped on the side the way I'd shown her, and handed it over.
"Good girl."
"I know." She wiped her hands on her jeans. Callie was going to kill me. "Uncle Hunt?"
"Yeah."
"Can I tell you something funny that happened?"
This was how it always went. I'd be elbow-deep in an engine, and Maisie would be beside me, handing me tools and telling me every single thing that had ever happened to her. I'd heard about Oliver and the worm. I'd heard about the peninsula. I'd heard about a girl named Sophie who was apparently Maisie's best friend and also her mortal enemy, depending on the day. I'd heard about the chess tournament she was training for, whichshe described with the intensity of a prizefighter preparing for a title bout.
I heard all of it. Every word. And somewhere along the way, this chattering, fearless, boot-wearing kid had burrowed into the quietest part of me and made herself at home.
"Go ahead," I said.
“Okay, so." She took a breath. The way she always did before a big one. "Last night I heard a noise in Mommy and Daddy's room. Like a really weird noise. Like — " She scrunched her face, trying to replicate it. "Like someone was jumping on the bed but also maybe dying?"
I stopped working on the carburetor.
"So I went to investigate because I'm brave."
"Uh huh."
"And I knocked on the door and Daddy said, ‘Don’t come in,’ really loud and then there was a lot of whispering and then Mommy opened the door and her face was really red and her hair was all crazy."
I put the wrench down. I pressed my knuckle against my mouth.
"And I said, ‘What were you doing,’ and Daddy came out and he was all sweaty and he didn't have a shirt on and he said —" Maisie paused for dramatic effect. "He said he was teaching Mommy how to fight a bear."
I closed my eyes.
"He said there was a bear safety class on the TV, and he was showing Mommy the moves, and she had to practice so she could protect me if a bear came. And I said, ‘Can I learn too,’ and Daddy said, ‘No, it's only for grown-ups,' and Mommy said I should go back to bed and she would teach me bear safety in the morning."
My shoulders were shaking.
"And then this morning I asked Mommy to teach me bear safety and she got really red again and she said it was actually more of a nighttime activity and I should ask Daddy and I asked Daddy and he said Mommy was the expert now and I should ask her and they kept doing that, Uncle Hunt, just going back and forth, and nobody will teach me how to fight a bear."
I lost it.
I sat on the barn floor with my back against the tractor wheel and laughed until my eyes streamed and my stomach ached and I couldn't breathe. Full-body, silent, the kind of laughter that takes you apart from the inside. Every time I almost got control of it, I pictured Clay standing in a doorway without a shirt, telling his daughter about bear safety, and it started again.
Maisie watched me with her arms crossed and her head tilted.
"Why is that funny?" she said. "Bears are serious, Uncle Hunt. They can run thirty miles an hour. I looked it up."
