Page 62 of The Last Thing You Said

“But—” Tami starts, then pauses. “I thought you weren’t comfortable taking Emily out on the boat.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

She’s quiet for a minute, and then says, “Thanks for the tip about the rodeo.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Emily saves me. She stops bouncing and tugs on my hand instead. “C’mon, Ben, let’s go!”

She pulls me down the hill to the boat.

I’m wrecked, tired as hell, but I’m going to help Emily catch some fish.

I take us to a quiet, shady spot on the lake, not too weedy, so she won’t get her line tangled. She’s spinning her chair in the bow, watching her bobber.

“Ben,” she says, “why didn’t you go to the rodeo with Lucy?”

“I wasn’t invited,” I tell her. Simple enough. How does she know about the rodeo anyway?

“I’m going to get married,” she says, an abrupt change of topic. I’m used to it by now. She hasn’t stopped talking about weddings and brides and dresses since we got back from Duluth.

“Really?”

“Yes, someday,” she says. “Can I marry you?”

I smile. “Nope. I’m your cousin. You can’t marry someone who is related to you.”

She thinks about this for a minute. “Is Lucy related?”

“You want to marry Lucy?”

She laughs. “No, I don’t want to marry Lucy. You should marry Lucy. If we’re not related to her.”

I’m surprised at how tight my chest feels. “No, we’re not related.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, will you marry her?”

I take a deep breath. I had hoped for an easy day of fishing and instead I get barraged with questions about weddings. And Lucy.

“Well, it’s complicated.”

“Oh, I know what that means. Lucy explained it to me. Complicated is like when all the pieces of the puzzle don’t come together right.”

I nod. “That sounds about right. Lucy’s pretty smart.”

Emily grins. “I know. Which is why you should marry her. Will you tell me a Trixie?”

“What do you mean, Em? What’s a Trixie?” My throat is tight.

“A Trixie. A story about her. Lucy tells them.”

“Oh.” I’m not sure how to respond. “Lucy tells you stories about Trix?”

“Yeah. You can, too. It’s easy. I’ll start for you. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Beatrix, but everyone called her Trixie. She was smart and sweet and nice to everyone. She had a best friend named Lulu and a brother named Ben. One day . . .”