Nash sees me and his whole face goes up. "Mornin', Rogue! I went and let Diesel out so he could have breakfast with me and Mama."
"Mornin', partner, and I see that."
If dogs could smile, I’d say Diesel’s doing it right now.
I sit down at the table and Nash slides the box of Cheerios toward me without being asked.
Hadley sets a coffee mug down in front of me without asking how I take it.
My grip on the Cheerios box loosens. I didn't know I was holding it that tight.
I pour Cheerios into the bowl Hadley sets in front of me and eat slowly. There’s a lot on my mind so I let Nash do most of the talking.
He tells me about the ice cream yesterday.
He had strawberry, Waylon had chocolate, Aunt Grace had something called butter pecan that Nash thinks sounds disgusting but ate a bite anyway to be polite.
He tells me Diesel sniffed his hand when he got home like Diesel could smell the strawberry, and about how he thinks he might want to be a bull rider when he grows up.
"That a fact?"
Nash nods, mouth half full. "Yeah. But Mama says I gotta wait until I'm big."
"She's right about that."
He spoons up another bite. Thinks about it while he chews. "Do you think Spur would teach me to rope?"
I take a sip of my coffee and set the mug down. "I think he would, partner. You ask him this summer, he'll set you up with a dummy steer and a short rope. That's how you start."
He pauses with the spoon halfway to his mouth. "What's adummysteer?"
"It's a fake one. Plastic head, sawhorses for legs. You learn the throw on a thing that doesn't move before you try it on a thing that does."
His whole face lights up. "Cool."
He goes back to his Cheerios.
I look up at Hadley over the rim of my coffee.
She's leaning against the counter with her own mug in both hands.
She's wearing one of my t-shirts—gray, worn soft, the one I keep folded on the chair in my front room.
She must have grabbed that one before she left yesterday too.
Her hair is up in a messy bun.
There's no sign on her face of the woman who walked across the gravel yesterday with a voicemail in her hand and her stomach in her boots.
The woman in front of me right now is a woman who slept well, having her morning cup of Joe, and is watching her son eat cereal next to a man she's chosen to be in their lives.
The look she gives me from across the kitchen hits me right in the chest.
Nash finishes his Cheerios and puts his bowl in the sink himself.
He tells Hadley he's going to go get dressed and then he and Diesel are going to go check the kennel because Diesel likes to say hi to the other dogs in the mornings.
This kid cracks me up.
