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“Try again. Last chance.”
He left the threat of punishment unspoken, but she could feel it.
“Daddy,” she said, wringing her hands together in front of her and digging her slipper clad toe into the wood floor.
“Yes, Cricket?”
She twisted her mouth around as if she might find the right words to say by forming them all. Weirdly, it didn’t help.
“Was there something you wanted to ask me?” her Daddy prodded, his dark brows rising.
“Yes.” That she knew for sure. It was just the how and the what she was struggling with. “Um… How are you doing?”
“Can’t complain,” her Daddy said. Which wasn’t helpful because Daddy never complained. “Why do you ask?”
“Because it was the only thing I could think of?”
Lucky for her, Daddy laughed. It also gave her a few more seconds to gather her thoughts. Her humor had the bonus effect of softening her Daddy too. He patted his lap and she went to him, straddling his thighs and looping her arms around his neck.
Now that she was closer and paying more attention, there was something off about his familiar face, but she couldn’t quite say what it was. Maybe something had happened while he was away.
Sometimes he had hard cases, people he couldn’t help, a patient he had to give bad news. He didn’t tell her a lot about those things because he didn’t want to make her worry or be sad but she could at least be more forgiving if he had something weighing on his mind.
“I asked because you seem distracted. I had to tell you about how Gwyneth Poultry and Motherclucker got into a fight on the bridge like they were chicken gladiatorstwice. You usually at least pretend to be interested in everything about the chickens and now you don’t seem like you care very much at all.”
Cricket could hear the whine creeping into her voice and she wanted to make it stop. She didn’t want to be so selfish. But he’d also hurt her feelings and she wasn’t great at dealing with that.
“You’re right, Cricket, and I apologize. It was a long few days being away from you, and there was a ton of work to be done out there. But right now, I should put all that aside and enjoy some time with my Little girl. I missed you so much, love bug.”
The way his mouth slanted hungrily over hers said he wasn’t just blowing smoke. A bunch of her irritation and indignation melted away as he kissed her and held her close. It always felt so good when Daddy kissed her. So good she could almost forget her name.
By the time he let her up for air, she felt starry-eyed.
“I’ll try to be more focused. Promise. Is there any other chicken gossip you wanted to share?”
“Well, it looks like there might be a new pecking order among the Golden Girls. Sophia has been in charge for a long time, but I think Dorothy might be giving her a run for her money. Or her grubs. Or whatever.”
* * *
As he listened to Cricket’s updates about her flock, guilt twisted Owen’s stomach. He wanted to tell Cricket about Monty but…he couldn’t bring himself to do it. There was the matter of her safety, and his own, come to that. But he also didn’t want to put her through a condensed version of the emotional roller coaster ride he’d been on himself.
Alive father, dead father. Surprise, alive father! What the fuck. And he’d hardly begun to process his feelings toward his mother, either. How could she have lied to him like that? And wasn’t that the kind of thing people ought to confess on their deathbeds? And yet. She’d taken that secret to her grave. Yeah, he was going to need some therapy for sure. Maybe he ought to feel more at peace with all this before he told Cricket. God knew her emotions could be big enough for the both of them.
First things first, he’d sic Taj on Monty Hanson and make sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man he’d met in Silver Sun was in fact his father. The DNA test would prove it too but that would probably take weeks, whereas if Taj put one of his bloodhounds on the scent, he could probably sniff out a fraud within days if not sooner.
The thing was though, Owen knew what all that was going to say. In his gut, he knew the Monty Hanson he’d met yesterday was his father. If anyone saw the two of them side-by-side, the resemblance was impossible to deny. That didn’t make the man not a grifter—but the odds were low that Monty had sought him out. That didn’t make any sense at all. Then again, Owen had never had a head for crime so what did he know.
The old salt could still ask him for money. He couldn’t imagine the guy had a hefty retirement fund socked away. Most of these fishermen didn’t figure on growing all that old. If they got too old to hunt and fish and trap their living, fell and limb and chop enough firewood then… Well, you just didn’t see many really old people living a subsistence lifestyle, outside of indigenous communities of course. They took care of their elders.
Owen had to yank his mind back from the abyss of wondering whether his resurrected father would expect to be provided for in his old age and all the other questions that were swarming his thoughts like spawning salmon. He’d promised Cricket his attention, and she deserved it. He really had missed her while he was out in Silver Sun, and her dramatic recounting of chicken goings on was better than a telenovela. Who knew in addition to giving them eggs that the chickens would provide so much entertainment too?
* * *
A couple days later, the guys were working on an outdoor brick oven for Gwennie to make bread in, and maybe pizza too. Some of the other guys had salvaged some bricks from an old building elsewhere on Enclave and had been hauling the materials overland in sleds and wagons behind ATVs. Cheaper than hauling in new stuff for sure, and way more character but damn was living this way a lot of work. Owen wasn’t sorry he was only here for the construction part of the project.
Taj ambled up while Owen was stacking up bricks for adding the next layer to the structure. “Hey doc, you got a minute?”
“Sure thing,” he told the boss man. “What’s up?”
