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Two
Bennett
Even the devil is sweating today.
Just breathing in the unconditioned outside air is like sucking on a ripe jalapeno.
It’s fucking hot out.
Two-and-three-quarter-year-old Rynn, her wispy auburn curls bouncing as she skips toward the goats to say hello, seems unfazed. It’s crazy, the things that don’t faze tiny humans. This morning I put the butter on her bread before I put the bread in the toaster and she rebelled so animatedly I felt glad our closest neighbor is over five miles away or they might’ve called up protective services.
But prance around like a woodland fairy-princess in hundred-and-seven-degree heat? It’s like it’s nothing.
A warm chuckle rolls from my chest. I am grateful Rynn loves being in the mountains so much. And I love seeing her smile and play with the animals. At her core she’s tender and kindhearted, in such a way that it makes me feel certain she always will be. She’s helpful, too. Even though she’s not even three yet. She kneels down when I do and starts helping me plop ice blocks into our two goats’ drinking water to try and keep them cool.
“Hi Bim!” Rynn greets with a little chirp. “Hi Ben!”
We named them after the cats in her favorite Dr. Seuss book, Fox in Socks. It’s her favorite because she likes to hear her big, strong uncle Bennett, ‘Beebs’ as she calls me, get my tongue all twisted up whenever I try to read it too fast.
And that’s exactly why I always read it too fast.
Bim and Ben position themselves to win pets from the both of us, and then they eagerly lap up the cool water I’m actually tempted to dive into as I stand up wiping the sweat off my forehead.
That water trough is also due for a deep cleaning, though. Tomorrow, I silently promise them, adding it to my mental list of never-ending tasks around here. Like mowing, which takes almost two full days even with my tractor.
Almost four years ago I traded convenience for all of this—ten secluded acres of land in the mountains of the Wylder Bluffs—and I wouldn’t change any part it for the world.
“Beebs?” Rynn asks in her sweet, small voice, as we make our way back up toward the house. “Beebs?” she says it again before I even have the chance to exhale my last breath. She’ll keep saying it until I reply.
“Yes, honey?”
“There is weally such thing as tweetle beetles?” She’s thinking about the fighting bugs in Fox in Socks. The tweetle beetle battles. And when they battle in a puddle, it’s called a— “What a puddle muddle?” Rynn adds, like she’s boarded the same train of thought as me.
“They’re not real, they’re just characters. And a muddle is like a fight. A puddle is water. They’re fighting in the water,” I explain.
“S’that a puddle?” Rynn points toward the two-acre pond situated just north of our cabin. I can tell even from here, it’s so dry and shallow, in desperate need of rain. Makes me feel a little better though, it being not so deep. That pond is a hazard until Rynn can swim. When I was digging it out, the furthest thought from my mind was a little, vulnerable human running around here, at least not so soon, to love fiercely and worry about in equal measure.
Need to teach Rynn to swim—I tell myself, moving it up to the top of my list as my chest constricts from the what-if scenario that races into my head.
“Beebs? Beebs? Bee—”
“That’s a pond,” I answer with a soft chuckle, “it’s smaller than a lake, but bigger than a puddle.” I look down at Rynn after a moment when she doesn’t say anything. Typically there’s a follow-up question or fifty. I press my hand to her pallid face. It’s clammy, and a bit too cold. She’s not in the danger zone yet but I can tell as she starts to lean her body, limply, against my leg, she’s running out of steam.
“Let’s get you indoors,” I say as I lift her into my arms.
There’s lots of shade, we’re not in the direct sun and it’s late in the day, almost the golden hour—our favorite—but the heat is still extreme. “Water,” I gently say, making her sip from the bottle of water on the end table next to our sofa I just set her on. The color quickly returns to her cheeks.
“Mmm.” She smacks her lips, and smiling, her hazel eyes go wide as they brighten. “I can has juice?”
“No more sugar tonight, lovebug.”
She pouts, quickly angling her bony miniature arm to chuck the bottle of water at my head or across the room, but I snatch it out of her grasp before that can happen. “No ma’am,” I say sternly, and I set it down.
“Juice! Pweeease, Beebs. Pwease!”
I grieve out a sigh as I stand up. How am I supposed to keep telling her no? And I do tell her no. A lot. But it’s hard sometimes, when all of me is wrapped so entirely around that itty-bitty sticky finger she currently has trapped inside of a tiny, irate fist.
Sometimes I have to just take a step away. Breathe. Think. Give us both a moment to recover from those other moments. It’s crazy, being almost three. Having no filter and no restraint and all the energy.
