Page 40 of But For You

“It only beeps if you have any dog hair on you,” I said, using the last trick in my arsenal.

That quickly, I had all her attention.

“I have a cat.”

“I know, so you’ll be okay.”

“I want to call Chilly at Auntie Dylan’s house when we get our shoes back.”

“Okay.”

And with that, she walked through.

I followed her and got picked for the routine search thing and taken to the side and wanded. The woman swiping me for metal told me how cute my kids were. I thanked her, and then she thanked me, and I was back to my family, pulling on my harness boots. I had to get water to put in the kids’ bottles, plus more snacks for the plane. Sam thought that the feast I had schlepped with us was enough, but I explained that it couldn’t possibly be.

“Daddy, we only have Goldfish and pretzels and grapes and apples and graham crackers and yogurt, cheese and crackers, and pudding.”

Sam gave me a look.

“We don’t have any gum, and Pa said we have to chew it or our ears will explode.”

“Does blood come out when your ears blow up?” Hannah asked her all-knowing big brother.

Kola nodded.

“Eww.” Hannah’s face scrunched up as she covered her ears.

“That was a good idea to tell them?” Sam asked me.

“Well, they’re gonna chew the gum now, right?”

“I want the mint Trident.”

“I like the fruit one,” Hannah told her brother. “The mint one is hot.”

“Not the cinnamon one, stupid.”

“Don’t call your sister stupid,” I told him. “That’s a bad word.”

“But Riley says it about Pete.”

“Well, they’re stupid for saying that,” I stated.

“Does earwax come out of your ears before the blood?”

“I dunno.” Kola thought about that. “Probably.”

She nodded.

“Can we go?” Sam asked me irritably. He was already grouchy.

At the store to buy the water, Hannah wanted a stuffed animal, Kola wanted a key chain, and Sam bought three different kinds of gum, water, and magazines for me. I had given both kids Dramamine before we left home and had it in my laptop bag for the return trip. I grabbed some antacids for Sam’s dad, in case he forgot, and a deck of playing cards because, sometimes, you just wanted to do something mindless and talk to someone else.

Once we were at the gate, I called Dylan so Hannah could talk to Chilly. Afterward, I thanked her again for keeping the snow demon since I hadn’t wanted to put him in a kennel and Dane and Aja’s two Dalmatians didn’t much like cats.

By the time the airline personnel called for people with small children to go on after the first-class passengers, the rest of the family still wasn’t there. I wasn’t worried, but I was surprised since Regina was normally right on time.

We had nothing to go in any of the overhead bins, and it was nice because we had space in front of both kids’ seats for stuff as well. By the time everyone else started showing up around us—Michael and Beverly, Rachel and her kids, Jen and Doug and their kids—it was getting close to departure time. When Regina and Thomas finally showed up, I saw how flustered she was.