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“My new art supplies.”
Bending, Jecca looked inside the box. She had texted Tris a short list of supplies to get for Nell, a watercolor set of eight colors, three brushes, a pad of paper, and some colored pencils. What was in the big box were four of those big, expensive sets encased in beautiful wooden boxes—the kind given out at Christmas and rarely used. Half the supplies in them were unneeded.
“This isn’t what I told him to get,” Jecca said in frustration as she opened the kits and looked inside. “These must have cost a fortune.”
Nell reached into the side of the cardboard box and withdrew the sales receipt. It was for over four hundred dollars.
“Wow!” Jecca said as she removed the sets and put them on thputohn Loce dining table. “Why did he get these?”
“I thought they were pretty,” Nell said.
Jecca knew her annoyance was with Tris, not with the child. “And they are pretty.” She smiled at Nell. “But if we’re going to go hiking we can’t take them all, can we? I bet Uncle Roan has a plate we could use. Preferably white.”
Roan was sitting at the counter, watching them. “The lower cabinet,” he said.
Nell pulled an old white plate from a tall stack and took it to Jecca. She had removed a few tubes of basic colors from the art sets, some pencils, the spiral-bound pad of paper, and two brushes.
“There,” Jecca said. “That’s all we need to create masterpieces. Didn’t I see that you have a backpack with you? Let’s put these things in it.”
Nell ran into the bedroom just as Tris’s door flew open.
“I can’t find my fishing gear,” he yelled from inside the room.
“Look under the bed,” Jecca called back.
“Thanks,” he answered.
Jecca went back to the kitchen to get fruit and muffins out of the fridge and she began putting it all on the dining table.
Roan was still sitting at the counter, watching Jecca as she lifted the chainsaw off and put it in the corner, out of the way. Within minutes the table was set.
“Breakfast is ready,” she called, and Nell came out and took a seat. Tris was next, his hair uncombed and wearing the old, worn clothes he always put on at the cabin, his shirt misbuttoned.
Jecca went to him, kissed him good morning, then said, “You spent too much on the art supplies. I sent you a list. Why didn’t you just get what I told you to?” She was rebuttoning his shirt.
“You’re cute when you’re fussing,” he said as he kissed her again, then looked over her head. “Are those crepes? I love those things!”
“Mrs. Wingate said you did and she made the batter.”
“Great. She puts Grand Marnier in it.” He put his arm around her shoulders and they went to the table. Tris held Jecca’s chair out for her.
“Come on, Roan,” Jecca said. “Have some breakfast.”
He got off his stool and stood for a moment looking at the three of them. They were a perfect picture of domesticity—and he felt totally unneeded. “I think I’ll—That I’ll—See you guys later,” he said as he went out the front door.
They watched as he got into his beat-up old pickup and drove away.
“It’s me, isn’t it?” Jecca said. “I know he doesn’t like me and—”
“Are you kidding?” Tris asked. “He woke up when I came in last night and saw that you’d put the chainsaw together. He kept me awake for an hour and a half talking about how great you are.”
“Really?” Jecca said. “An hour and a half? Talking about me?”
“Well maybe he did say he was having a bit of trouble with his book and wanted to talk about it.”
Jecca looked down at her plate.
Nell looked from one silent adult to the other. “Uncle Tris said Uncle Roan’s book is the most boring thing he’s ever heard in his life but I’m not to tell him that.”
