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It only took a few minutes, and he had served up a couple bowls of steaming hot... Well, it reminded her a little bit of puppy chow. But she wasn’t going to complain. It actually smelled decent, anyway.
And he was being scratchy but it was because...
She couldn’t figure out why.
She had to...lead by example, she supposed. Because she didn’t know why this was hard for him, but she knew it was. And that was all that mattered.
“On my thirteenth birthday,” she said, “I started my period. And I was really embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell my dad. He had made me a cake and got me a stuffed animal and I thought it was really sad, because it was all stuff that looked like it was for a little girl, and I felt like maybe I was betraying him by growing up. But he was very matter-of-fact about it all. He said it was just biology, and I didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about. He also didn’t know how to tell me how to use pads. He ended up looking everything up on the internet. What to buy and all of that. He took me over to Mapleton, and we went to the grocery store and bought about five different types. Since he said apparently a lot of it came down to preference. Then we went to get pizza and I wanted to cry, and I didn’t know why. I wondered about my mom, and how it would’ve been different if she were there. I’ve always done my best not to wonder about her, but it really is hard.”
“Wow,” he said. “That’s pretty intense.”
“Now tell me about yours.”
“Gus stole a pie cooling on the windowsill at Sullivan’s Point. I’m not kidding. He took it out to the woods, where we used to play. We built forts. We ate the pie out of the tin with plastic forks that he lifted from John’s. He paid it back later. When he actually started making his own money. He kept a running tally of all the things that us boys used to take. So that we could pay them back someday. We were desperate sometimes.”
His throat bobbed up and down. “John knew. You know. He told Gus that later. He said...that we didn’t owe him anything. That he knew that our parents didn’t take care of us. And he knew that we only took things when we were desperate. We weren’t in there stealing beer or anything like that. Not causing trouble like some of the local kids did. No. We were in there taking food, or bait. Little things for each other. Forks, so we could eat a pie. And you know what I liked about my thirteenth birthday? There was only five years left of being a kid. I hated being a kid. It wasn’t fun. You see all this shit in movies. About the magic of childhood. And about how when you grow up you quit believing. I believe in more miraculous things now that I’m an adult. When I was a kid, I didn’t believe in anything. How could I? I only believed in what I could see. What I can feel. I knew what it felt like to take a punch from a grown man. I knew that I could see my own blood running down my face. I knew what it tasted like. All metallic can like shame. So yeah, thirteen marked getting closer. Freedom. To the end of it all.
“But then Gus ended it. Gus ended it good. He just beat the shit out of him. Not very many people know what happened. But I do. Gus finally had enough, and he told him to leave. And when he said he didn’t have to go, Gus beat him within an inch of his life. I saw it.”
“You did?”
“I watched. Hidden. And it felt so good. It felt so good to watch him take hits, like he’d been dishing out all of our lives. It turned out I didn’t have to wait till I was eighteen to be rid of him. We got the ranch. We weren’t the ones that had to go. The monster had to go. That was a whole thing. A whole hell of a thing. I just... Yeah.”
“What about your sixteenth birthday?”
“We didn’t steal pie. But I seem to recall going to the woods and meeting a beautiful girl. I seem to recall that she stitched me up.”
“He hit you on your birthday?”
“Yes. Because he didn’t care. I bet he didn’t know. He would’ve liked to have known, but he didn’t know. He didn’t care. But you did. And that made all the difference in the world. It always has to me.”
“You were there for my sixteenth birthday,” she said. “Remember. Dad made a chocolate cake, and he got me a stuffed animal. Just like he always did. And you were there. And I felt like a princess. I think because of you.”
“There. How’s that for conversation?”
“Pretty good.”
The momentary tension between them eased. And she didn’t mind that it was a date with cheap stew rather than a fancy gourmet dinner. It didn’t really seem to matter.
“You’ve never been tempted to get in touch with your mother?”
Charity shook her head. “I don’t know where she is. And you know she’ll never use one of those DNA sites, not if she doesn’t want me to find her.”
“Fair point.”
“She’s the woman who gave birth to me. She isn’t my mother. I’m not saying that to be cruel. But she made the choice to not have to carry that. And I can’t... I can’t make a relationship out of something just because of genetics. My dad was the one that was there for me. He’s the one that raised me. He’s the important person in my life. Yeah, it’s kind of tempting...to search around wildly for her now that he’s gone, but she’s not a replacement for him. She couldn’t be. He... Well, he bought me stuffed animals every year for my birthday like I was still a kid. And he bought me pads. With or without wings. And bras. With and without underwire. Sports bras, front clip, back hook. Because it came down to preference, and he couldn’t dictate what mine would be, of course. He was practical like that. He’s the one who raised me. He was both. Because he had to be. Except he didn’t have to be either. He didn’t have to keep me. He didn’t have to want me. He didn’t have to raise me. And he did.”
“It must be nice,” Lachlan said.
“It is. I’m grateful for him, and I don’t take it for granted. Especially given what I know about your life. Especially.”
“Always good to be the cautionary tale,” he said.
“You’re not really a cautionary tale.”
“Kind of.”
By the time they finished their bowl of stew, she did feel like maybe they had gotten a little bit closer to each other. Like maybe they were closer to that all-elusive concept of intimacy.
