“Have your parents talked about this with you?”
“A little,” she admitted. “They haven’t told any of the other kids, but I think—well, honestly, Uncle Dawson, I think they think I’m going to be this rebellious heathen, and they’re trying anything they can to show me that’s not the path I want to go down.”
He gave her a genuine smile and pulled her into his chest. “I love you, April Rivers. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Her arms came around him and gripped him tightly, telling him how much she needed to hear that. “Is that the second thing?” she asked, her voice high and tinny.
“Not quite.” He hugged her tight too. “It’s just a universal truth you have to remember, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Deal?”
She nodded and stepped back, her hand coming up to wipe her eyes. She focused on the owls and wouldn’t look away. Her waiting game.
“Okay,” he said. “I wasn’t close to your daddy when everything happened, but I could see he wasn’t happy. He never was, no matter where he went or what he did. Not until he came back and set things right here in town. With Grandpa, with everyone involved.”
He didn’t want to say too much, as this wasn’t his story to tell. “And I can tell you this, missy, I’ve never seen him more broken, and then I’ve never seen a man change more powerfully than your daddy. He knows the bad and the ugly, and he is trying to save you from it.”
She nodded and sniffled again. Dawson had felt the power of his own words, and he figured he didn’t need to say any more.
“Second thing.” He pulled out the end of the tape measure and handed it to her. “Get on down on the other end. We gotta see if this is expanding.”
She moved that way without a word, but April wore everything out for everyone to see. They moved into position, but Dawson didn’t bend to put the tape measure on the ground. He stood there, the long, yellow, metal tape measuring the distance between them and looked her right in the eye.
“You do not need to be Shiloh, ever. I see you, missy, and you are exactly who you’re meant to be.”
Her face crumpled, and she started to cry right in front of him. And April did not cry, hardly ever. He’d seen her take a hammer to the thumb and only yell out and then whimper when he put ice on it.
“God knows who you are,” he said. “He gave you all this fire and all this passion, and He’s expecting you to figure out how to mold it, and tame it, and turn it into something that can be used for something amazing.”
She nodded and wiped her face with her free hand.
“God gave you exactlyyourmomma andyourdaddy. Not someone else’s. They know how to be Shiloh’s parents, but they’re still learning how to be yours. The Lord wants that for them, and He figured because you’re so amazing and so strong and so perfectlyyou, that you could bear with them whiletheylearn and grow and change and learn how to be your momma and daddy.”
Dawson couldn’t remember when he’d spoken so many words out loud, and he bent down and put the tape on the ground. April did the same, and he snapped a picture of the measurement with his phone in his free hand.
As he straightened, she did too, and they lifted the tape over the fence as she walked toward him. She gave it back to him and moved in to hug him again. “I just feel so…wired all the time.”
“Yeah,” he whispered as he stroked her hair. “That’s because you’ve got some ADHD in your blood, baby. I know, because I do too.”
She pulled back and searched his face. “Momma said the doctor said?—”
“Yeah, I know,” Dawson said quietly. “And I’m not ADHD, but OCD. It’s a lot of the same nervous energy, but it manifests itself in different ways. And I’m no doctor—I don’t know exactly what your momma has taken you in for.”
He took a big breath and faced the western sky. Rocks and Nugget had flown off at some point, and Ruffin waited in the shade of the truck, back several paces. “Mine’s diagnosed, missy. I cope with some meds and a long run in the morning, a meticulous calendar, and sticky notes.”
“I love your sticky notes,” she said. “That’s how I knew you’d be out here this morning.”
Horror washed through his embarrassment as he sliced a look at her. “You went in my office this morning?”
“For like, two seconds.”
Which meant yes, and that she’d seen the copious number of pink sticky notes.
April faced the western sky too, and asked, “Would you listen to me on one thing?”
Dawson’s heartbeat hadn’t settled back to its normal rhythm yet, but he said, “Yeah, I’ll try.”
“I saw all your pink notes about Caroline.”
“Mm hm.”