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He respected her, at least. Honestly, he admired her. The way she fought for Geneva? That was badass. Sure, she fought battles that were only going on in her head, but considering the shit she was dealing with, he understood why she’d feel like life itself was the war.
Why the fuck was he thinking so much about her, though? Friendliness was his only goal, right? A good neighbor relationship, so he wouldn’t have cops at his door every time she was having a bad day. Well, he’d achieved that, so her bad days were not his problem, right?
Right. He needed to go in and crash; clearly his brain needed the rest.
Halfway to his front door, he heard Geneva call, “Cooper?”
He stopped and turned. “Hey, Robin. What’s up?”
She was holding a glass jar of jelly or jam. Something red, like strawberry, maybe. “Can you please open this for me? I tried to put it in water and bang on it with a knife, but it won’t open.”
“Sure.” He went to meet her in the gravel strip between their driveways, pulling off his riding gloves as he went. As he took the jar from her, he asked, “Are you home sick today? Alone?”
“I don’t go to school anymore. Now I’m homeschooled.”
She’d banged hard on the lid with that knife; the dents were probably making the job even harder, but he got it open and handed it back to her. “You were just in school last week, weren’t you?”
“Yes. It’s new. I don’t like the kids at school and they don’t like me. I’m too smart for that school, anyway. Siena’s there taking care of it before she goes to work. Where were you all night?”
He laughed. “Well, I’m a grownup, so I get to do what I want when I want without reporting to little girls and their jelly jars.”
“I’m not a little girl. It’s jam. Raspberry. Seedless, because the seeds get in my teeth and I don’t like it.”
“Nobody does, Robin. Nobody does. You okay on your own?”
Geneva huffed in frustration. “I’m almost fifteen. Siena thinks because I don’t think like other people it means I’m like a baby, but I’m not. I promised her I wouldn’t use the stove or stuff like that, but it’s just to make her feel better so she’d let me get out of that place. I could use the stove without starting a fire or burning myself. I’m almost fifteen.”
Over lunch the day before, Siena had talked about Laurie, their sitter, and Cooper had expressed surprise that Geneva still needed one. He’d learned in that conversation that she’d recently been diagnosed with autism and ADD, and that a big reason Siena was stretched so thin financially was the need for two therapists for her sister.
Kids were little assholes as a rule, so that diagnosis—or better said, the way Geneva was that provoked the diagnosis—was probably the reason she was bullied. He understood why she’d want to be away from school. But now Siena was adding homeschooling to the list of things she needed to handle? The shit that woman did for her little sister was fucking heroic.
“Okay. Well, I’m planning to be home most of the day. If you need another jar opened, or anything else, come on over. I’ve been up all night and I’m going to bed now, but I don’t sleep deep. If you ring my doorbell, I’ll hear it.”
“Deeply,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s deeply. Sleep is a verb, so you use an adverb to modify it. You don’t sleepdeeply.”
He laughed. “Okay, teach. I guess you’ve got the grammar lessons handled, huh?”
“I have all the lessons handled.” She peered up at him, her eyes narrow, like she was trying to figure him out.
“I got a booger or somethin’?”
“No, you don’t have a booger. You’re being nice. Siena says you’re a friend now.”
“I was always a friend, kiddo. Just had some shit to work out with your sister.”
“She gets upset and yells.”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“It’s because everybody died. In our family. She’s probably going to die, too. And me. We have BRCA1. It’s a genetic mutation that causes cancer, mostly in women. Well, I don’t know yet if I have it, but everybody else did, so the probability is that I do, too.”
Stunned that Geneva would just spit that out like that, Cooper didn’t know how to respond.
She filled his gap in the conversation. “She’ll probably be mad that I told you, but I thought you should know. She gets upset because she’s worried she’ll get sick before I’m an adult and then I won’t have anybody. She thinks I don’t know that, but that’s because she thinks I’m a baby. I’m almost fifteen. I know things.”
