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“Everyone is finding their person,” she mumbles against me. “Even that harlot found her guy.”
Tuesday gasps and looks around for someone to soothe her ego. Bullet Train gestures for her to come over for a hug. He gives her a snuggle, complete with an ass pat.
West and Val shake their heads while Uncle Emmett looks ready to throw a punch.
“Easy now, hoss,” Bullet Train tells his father-in-law. “I put a ring on it, remember?”
While the men frown at each other, I comfort my sniffling sister.
“Oana makes me happy,” I tell Edith. “We just clicked. That’s gonna happen for you with a guy. You just have to be patient.”
As Edith’s fair blue eyes study my face, I sense she might swing her hammer again. Anger isn’t as scary of an emotion as loneliness and jealousy. My sister’s gotten extra bitchy since Rie ran off with the hippie biker. West and Tuesday finding love just added more shit frosting to her bitter cake.
“Maybe your special guy is in Arcadia?” I suggest while she wipes her eyes. “We’ll look around for him the next time we visit Rie.”
“I don’t want to live there. He’ll need to transfer his life here.”
“Sure. No doubt any man who falls for you will know his place in the pecking order.”
Frowning, Edith whacks me in the head with the hammer. “Who wears the pants in your relationship? Oh, that’s right. It can’t be the fundie since they’re not allowed to wear pants.”
“She’s wearing pants right this second!” Tuesday declares and points at Oana watching us from Felix’s porch. “Edith’s bitterness has made her blind!”
My sister pushes off me and runs after our cousin. I assume that means I’m free to walk over to Oana. Unfortunately, Edith isn’t the only Mooney woman looking to give me shit today.
“Ike, get your ass over here,” Ma-Journey demands.
“Round two, bucko,” Val says from his spot in the grass next to West.
“Are you planning to get back up?”
West shakes his head. “I think I pulled a groin muscle.”
“This is on you!” Auntie Poppy hollers and flips off her older sister while rushing over to check on West and Val. “You and your rowdy kids have injured my boys.”
“I’m fine, Ma,” Val says as he stretches out in the warm day. “Just chilling until I’m needed again.”
I wave at Oana, who steps off the porch, seeming ready to run over and help me. I love how protective she can be.
Gesturing for her to stay put, I figure she’s safer with the newbies—Alexis and Roxie—than over here with the troublemakers.
“I’m sorry I ran off with Oana,” I tell my ma as she glares at me through narrowed eyes. “But you saw how her family was hassling us. Also, Edith wouldn’t get out of my way. I couldn’t lose my dream girl again.”
“No excuses. You ran off, and the restaurant was chaos. Her idiot family kept screaming and threatening to call the police. We could barely finish our meal with all their ruckus. We assumed you went home. Then, we couldn’t find you. You should have called us.”
“But you’d have told me to come home, so you could hassle me about Oana. Basically, what you’re doing today would have happened then.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“We could have talked things out. Instead, you ran off and married a stranger,” she says, emphasizing the final word.
“I love that stranger. She and I plan to grow old together,” I explain before noticing how Pa-Donovan and Ma-Journey shake their heads.
They’re dismissing me in a way they never would Edith. My bruised ego demands that I stick up for myself.
“That stranger is the mother of my future children,” I say, puffing out my chest and raising my voice. “So, if you don’t like her, visiting us will prove difficult.”
