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I wasn’t sure she was joking.
Thelma left and returned to drop off the milk for all of us. I hadn’t grown out of the habit, and hitting the milk made it easier to be a dad than the whiskey neat Barns had been fond of.
I rubbed my face. Why was I thinking of him so much today? He’d been gone for six months, and he’d lingered for too long before that.
The kids colored on pages that had been ripped out of old coloring books. Did I have markers and coloring books at the house?
“Daddy, did Mommy like coloring?”
Her question ignited a burning in my stomach. Meg had liked filling out documents, and she’d thrived on contract negotiations. The more she wrung out from the other party, the better she had felt about life. “Sure, she liked coloring.”
“She could braid hair,” Ivy said solemnly.
“That, she could.” Not a single strand would dare loosen from one of Meg’s braids. “I’ll have to try again. Maybe watch a video.”
Ivy’s grin went straight to my heart. I had to do better.
After several minutes, our meal arrived. I cut Ivy’s steak and ignored Grayson’s groans about the mushy green beans. Before I could dig into my slightly overcooked cod, Grayson knocked his milk over.
White liquid streamed over the top of the table. I scooted out, pulling him with me, but it was too late. My shirt got smeared with milk, and Grayson’s shirt and shorts were wet.
“Dad!” He began uncontrollably sobbing. His emotions were instant and hit hard, and I had little fucking clue how to deal with them. “I’m all wet!” he wailed.
“It’s no problem. We’ll run home—”
“I’m not done eating,” Ivy argued.
“I want to go to the park!” His volume rose.
“Well, we can’t—”
“Park! I wanna go to the park!” Tears streaked down his face.
This behavior was what his teacher had met with me about a month before school was out.
Third graders don’t cry,she’d said, giving me an exasperated but lecturing look.
I wanted to tell her that obviously they did, and there must be a reason, and it might not have to do with the math assignment. But I’d nodded and told her we’d work on it, and I casually reminded her that it hadn’t even been a year since his mom had died. So maybe fuck off a little.
I hadn’t said that last part out loud.
“Buddy, hey. Buddy.” I squatted at the end of the booth to make eye contact, willing him to quit screaming.
“I got the girl,” Thelma said from behind me. “There’s a hand dryer in the bathroom. It’ll dry you both off enough to play. It’s not like the Crocus Valley Garden Club will kick you out of the park because you smell like a sour cow. Half of them fit the description anyway.”
I pressed my lips together. Thelma’s gruff tone quieted Grayson, and Ivy blinked at her.
“You mind?” I asked. Half my struggle with going anywhere with the kids was splitting us between the bathrooms when Ivy was still too young to be set free and too old to be accidentally seeing a guy’s junk.
“Wouldn’t have offered if I did.”
I took Grayson to the bathroom. His little body was shaking while he tried to repress sobs, but I positioned him under the hand dryer and hit the big silver button. The little machine sounded like a jet engine.
He calmed and sniffled. “Sorry.”
“It happens.” The kid was a klutz, though. I thought he’d grow out of his newborn pony stage with the unsteady legs and halting steps. I was riding cutting horses on my own at his age. Helping Barns tag calves. Barns would throw me on the Arabians we raised and trained, call the horse a kid horse, and sell it for more money.
Grayson had fallen off every horse he’d been on. No coordination. No balance. No interest.
