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“Heyo!” A voice called from inside, and I peeked around to see Sicily in the kitchen, music blaring faintly from her headphones as she stood in front of the stove. “Hi, Mama! Howdy, Sheriff!”
Dean grinned as I closed the door behind us and walked over to help. “You know, you don’t have to say ‘howdy’ every time we meet, Sicily,” he said.
Sicily wiggled a toothpick in her mouth. “‘Course I do. You’re the Sheriff and that sounds old west-y.”
“We’re not in the old west,” I smirked and bumped my daughter with my hip. “Although in dealing with the boys, sometimes it feels like we are.”
Dean laughed and shook his head. “Whatever you say,partner.”He took off his coat and laid it on the back of the kitchen chair. I started gathering dishes, electing for the proper ceramic instead of paper, and Dean moved to help me place them on the table before each seat.
“What’s cooking?” I glanced over my shoulder at the boiling pot Sicily had placed on the stove top.
“Hot dogs,” she said simply. She grabbed a stool and started glancing through the top cabinets. “I’m sure we can find something else, too, if you’re hungry, Sheriff.”
“Grab some of the Mac-and-cheese from the shelf,” I answered, then turned to Dean with a guilty smile. “I hope you don’t mind. I don’t have a lot of time to cook nowadays.”
“You kidding? I’m just grateful to have a home-cooked meal at all. Mason and I are pretty hopeless in the kitchen.” Dean grinned. “I appreciate you two cooking at all, considering…”
“That Mama doesn’t eat?” Sicily interrupted. I bumped her again, this time with a sharp look, but Dean just laughed and nodded.
“Can’t expect her to eat if the end result makes her sick, of course.”
“Eating doesn’t make mesick,”I countered. “It just doesn’tdomuch for me. That, and the texture of food doesn’t feel right anymore. Kind of like chewing on rubber erasers all the time.”
“Speaking of, there’s some fresh bottles out back for you, Mama.” Sicily nodded to the back door. “Ol’ Ned just dropped them off right before you got here.”
I excused myself to go retrieve my blood rations for the week.
***
The three of us sat around the kitchen table, the humans with their food and me shyly sipping on a mug of warm crimson. We chatted about Sicily’s school day, about how she and Bud scoured Dagwood’s outer parts and quickly fell into a good partnership, but there was an energy to her that made her brush off questions after a while. Eventually, I stopped asking and put down my cup, raising a brow at her.
“Alright, what is it? What do you want to ask?”
Sicily blinked at me as if she was surprised by my question, and I made a motion towards her face and constantly twitching fingers in response.
“You’ve got something on your mind and you’re waiting for the opportunity to ask. So, I’m givin’ you that opportunity. Go on, what did someone tell you that I, naturally, didn’t necessarily want you to know yet?”
Sicily looked as though she was about to argue, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, she pushed her bowl of Kraft aside and rested her chin on her hands, looking at the two of us intently.
“Bud told me you guys found a burned down house. What happened?”
I sighed heavily.
Ofcourse,the boys would tell Sicily every little piece of information they could. Actually, it was more like she’d interrogated them and they’d answered. But still. Point was—she was privy to information I hadn’t necessarily wanted to tell her. Furthermore, the boys and I were going to have to have us another little talk about my daughter. To them, she wasn’t just a highschooler, but a fully grown member of the team. They didn’t quite get the memo that, as her mother, I didn’t want my overly curious daughter in the know about all the dangerous things we got into on a regular basis. Once something caught her interest, there wasnothingI could do to get her focus back on track.
I glanced at Dean who shrugged, eyes concerned but generally hopeful.
“We don’t know what happened yet.” I downed the rest of my cup
“Well, what do you think happened?”
“We don’t know,” Dean answered on a shrug.
But realizing my daughter wouldn’t let it go so easily, I continued to explain. “We couldn’t find anything inside the house that gave us any hints as to how the fire started or why. Everything was too charred to get any details, but thankfully, that also meant we didn’t find anyonein there, either.”
“No bodies?” she asked.
I nodded. “No bodies.”
