Chapter 5
On the way home, Annelise said suddenly, “Once I saw Caitlynn Pennington’s dad carry her on his shoulders. At a picnic.”
They were all the way down River Road now and just about to head down Main Street. Back home to finish the Aztec report.
“Yeah?” Eden said brightly. Instantly guarded and alert again.
Thiscouldbe about picnics, or shoulders, or about a rivalry with Caitlynn. Not another little delicate sideways attempt to find out about her dad.
“If I had a dad, we could go on a picnic, and maybe he’d carry me on his shoulders.”
Annelise took notions as she tried to figure out the world. Once Eden had asked her why all but one of her Barbies were arrayed in a circle in front of a TV Annelise had made from the lid of an earring box.
The last Barbie was standing in a tall old necklace box, naked.
“I’m playing grown-ups,” she’d explained. “They’re drinking coffee and watching CNN and Winter is taking a shower.”
Apparently, Annelise had decided grown-ups didn’t take baths. Grown-ups didn’t have the time.
And here she was, trying to piece together what a dad was, what a dad did, what she might be missing. Ironically, one of the things she’d learned from Annelise’s real dad that night was that he’d never known his own dad.
Eden’s breathing went a little shallow. She’d done triple time as a mom since Annelise was born. And yet, she was beginning to feel cornered by the encroaching sense that it still might not be enough.
She turned onto Main Street now, where the familiar Gold Rush–era buildings painted muted shades of yellow, pink, and blue snuggled side by side like a little family. Over the flower store was their own beloved, cozy old apartment. It did indeed have a little backyard, not much bigger than a couple of tablecloths. Pretty and precious and theirs. Well, mostly theirs. The bank had the mortgage.
“I bet Mr. Caldera can carry evenyouon his shoulders,” Annelise said, when they were a block from home.
Wow.
Just his name caused one of those thrilling jabs in the area of Eden’s heart. Her mind’s eye filled with huge gleaming shoulders, tree trunks cleaving in a spray of bark shrapnel—
She reached over to turn on the car’s air conditioner, even though it was March.
That instantaneous weakness that swept through her was both delicious and unnerving. And she wondered if that softening, that helpless fascination was some sort of programming built into the species designed to prepare a female for surrender in the face of brute male beauty.
Or if it was just that his strength reminded her that maybe she wasn’t a fortress after all. That maybe doing it all, all by herself, all the time, wasn’t a sustainable model for life.
That was a hell of a notion to attempt to accommodate right before they had to finish a report on the Aztecs.
“Wait—what do you mean he can carryevenme?” she teased Annelise finally. “Because I’m as big as an elephant?”
“No, you’re only as big as a yak!”
“No, I’m as big as awallaby,”Eden countered.
“No, you’re as big as a pickle!”
“A pickle’s not ananimal!” Eden’s outrage made Annelise roar with laughter. “What sound do you think a yak makes, Leesy?”
“Owwwwoooooga!”
“Hey—that’s the same sound Lloyd Sunnergren’s old truck horn makes.” Lloyd Sunnergren had a 1940s Ford in pristine condition, and Annelise was fascinated by it and by his big furry dog, Hamburger, who could soak her entire face with one giant slurp of his tongue.
“It’s the sound a yak makes, too,” Annelise insisted.
“Okay, I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, since I don’t know much about yaks.”
“That’s okay, Mom. We can Google them when we get home.”