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All that made him a little guilty, but he pushed it aside. Hopefully what he said would be true, and he wouldn’t have to worry about it.
“Think about it, Kendrick. Wouldn’t you rather have both a mom and dad? Plus a brother? And...” He hesitated because he wasn’t sure about this himself. “Maybe we would end up with another little brother or sister or a couple of them. Wouldn’t you like that?”
He didn’t think his mom was too old to have more babies. She was in her thirties, which was pretty old. But hopefully she could still have more kids, so what he was saying would be true. He didn’t like skating on the edge of what was acceptable and right. And he didn’t want to do anything wrong.
He could convince Kendrick with lies, but when she found out they were lies, she might never trust him again. And he really did want to be a great big brother. Great big brothers didn’t lie. Even about little things that might make someone feel good for a bit but would just make them feel worse when they found out he wasn’t being honest.
He’d learned that the hard way from his dad.
“A baby brother. A baby sister!” Kendrick lifted excited eyes to him.
Owen made a mental note to ask his mom how old was too old for a woman to have a baby. That might be an awkward question, but he owed it to Kendrick.
“What do we need to do?” she asked, and there was a dreamy quality to her voice. He figured she’d probably been just as lonely as an only child as he. He’d wanted a brother so bad he could taste it most of the time. But he quit asking his mother for one years ago. She’d told him she needed to have a husband before he could have a brother.
Once he got a little older, he figured out that wasn’t quite true, although it was probably very true for his mother.
“We need to get them together. We need to give them time to get to know each other and to realize they like each other, because of course they’re going to like each other.”
“My dad is the best dad in the entire world. Your mom would be crazy not to like him,” Kendrick said decisively, but then her eyes fell. “At least... I think he would be the best dad in the world.”
“You’re going to find out. We’re going to get them together, and then wherever we live, we’re going to be together.”
“So...how do we push them together? I get behind your mom and you get behind my dad and we push?”
“No. I mean, if we get desperate, we might have to do that.” Owen didn’t want to rule anything out. It was quite possible they might have to physically tie them up. After all, if they refused to spend time together, that would call for drastic measures. “I think they already really like each other. What we need to do now is talk my mom into staying tonight and let them sit together beside the fire. We’ll let them spend as much time as they want to together. You and I can hang out, be out of their way, until they decide to get married. Then we’ll work on getting attention from our parents.”
“Do you think that will work? Will my dad give me attention once he’s married?” Kendrick didn’t sound like she believed it.
“I think your dad’s going to give you more attention even before he gets married. I think he thought that you would be ashamed of him because of his scars.”
“Don’t you say anything about my dad’s scars!” Kendrick said angrily, stomping her foot and stopping.
“I’m just being honest with you. Isn’t that what you want? You don’t want me to lie and tell you things that aren’t true.”
Kendrick’s belligerent look faded, and she bit her lip. “No. I don’t want you to lie to me.”
“And I won’t. You can trust me.” Owen paused. “I’m saying that, but I have to admit, I’m not sure how old is too old for a woman to have a baby. My mom is already thirty. And that’s pretty old.”
“Aunt Carol said she had a baby when she was forty. So... I think it’s possible.”
“All right. We’ll work on that assumption. Although, if you want to ask to make sure, before you agree to help, you can. But I don’t want to waste time, and we could have them together tonight. After all, the sooner they get married, the sooner we’ll be happy.”
“Aunt Carol says that it’s your job to make yourself happy. Not to look around and expect others to do it for you or expect things to happen to you to make you happy.”
“Okay. You’re right. But every kid wants two parents. So the sooner we get our parents together, the sooner we’ll both have a mom and dad, and that will be good for us, because everyone knows that kids do better in two-parent homes.” He’d heard the statistics over the radio not that long ago. It had made him panic a little and wonder if the reason that he wasn’t good at baseball was because he only had a mom and not a dad too. He didn’t want to be behind everyone else just because he didn’t have a dad.
Plus, it wasn’t just about him, but Kendrick deserved to have the best start in life that she could, and that meant having a dad and a mom. He was willing to share his mom, because he knew his mom had plenty of love for lots of people.
Some people seemed to be limited in the amount that they had, but not his mom.
“So we’re good?” he asked, starting toward the shed and opening the door so they could put their equipment away.
“Yep. When I go back out, I’ll act all disappointed that you guys are leaving, and beg your mom to stay, and ask my dad to ask her to. That’s right?”
“That’s right. And if we can get them to stay, or if Mom won’t stay, we’ll start tomorrow when she comes back. We have to make sure they have plenty of time together and that they’re as close to each other as possible.”
“All right. And I’ll practice pushing so that if I have to push her to him, I can.”
