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“That depends. Have you been a good girl?”
“Uh huh.”
“A really good girl?” I asked.
“Yes, Uncle Bwian!”
“A really, really, really good—”
“Chocolate, please?”
I laughed at her insistence before I pushed the cart down the ice cream aisle. I grabbed a pint of her favorite chocolate ice cream and tossed it into the cart, then I made my way to the cash register. Just like I’d promised, I rubbed Lanie’s stomach while we waited. Her eyes were already beginning to droop shut with exhaustion as her nap time approached, and I shook my head as she laid her forehe
ad against my chest.
She looked so peaceful whenever she was sleeping. A far cry from the shrieking, crying child I’d inherited a year ago.
The ride back to the cabin was quiet. Tanya came running out to scoop up Lanie so she could tuck her in as I unloaded the groceries. I put everything away and stuffed the groceries into their places just as Tanya came into the kitchen, and I could feel the questions she wanted to bombard me with.
“Something on your mind?” I asked.
“I was just thinking about that nice new lady up the road,” Tanya said.
“What about her?”
“You think she’s doing okay?”
“Don’t know,” I said, shrugging.
“I didn’t know if you’d been checking in on her since she hurt herself.”
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“Because she’s a pretty young woman who happened to inherit the cabin next to yours.”
“How did you know she inherited it?” I asked.
“So she did inherit it.”
I could hear Tanya’s grin as I turned around and studied the woman. She was older, with a head full of salt and peppered hair. It was the only thing that gave away her age because her skin sure as hell didn’t. It sagged and drooped a bit here and there, but there were no wrinkles in it. No bags underneath her eyes and no scars to weigh her skin down. She was plump with the many children she’d raised on her own, and the war-torn life she had led being married to a military man was reflected in the brown of her eyes.
I had a great deal of respect for her, but it still didn’t give her the right to meddle in my affairs.
“She did, yes,” I said.
“Did you have a nice conversation with her?” Tanya asked.
“What are you getting at?”
“What I’m getting at is maybe you should take her some food. She was hobbling around pretty badly, and her car has been coming and going. I think she’s living off fast food.”
“She better. Turning on a stove in that cabin might set it on fire,” I said.
“All the more reason for you to take her something.”
“Why the hell would I do that?” I asked again.
“Because there’s no one else around here to do it.”
