Page 51 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

She felt like a pinball now.

Worried about her kids. Worried about their relationship with their dad.

Flashbacks to giving a blowjob to the hottest man she knew.

Ping. Ping.

And right into the hole.

“We’re having dinner at Boone’s tonight.”

“I’m not in the mood!” Sadie wailed. “I don’t want to be social. I just want to have a plate of food and go to my room.”

Well, this was wonderful.

“You can have a plate of food at Boone’s and then leave, no one is asking you to stay and chat all night.”

“You can’t just dump this on me.”

“I can’t just dump you eating dinner next door to the house we’re staying in, with someone you like a lot, who has generously given us a place to stay?”

“Yes!” She said that as if it was obvious, and also as if Wendy was an actual monster.

“Fine, Sadie, I’ll leave you a plate at home, then.”

“You’re leaving me by myself?”

She said that tremulously and angrily, and if Wendy weren’t also overwrought, she might have laughed. “Unsolvable problem, Sadie,” she said. She was often reminding her daughter that she loved to present her mother with a problem, then when given solutions, she had a ready spate of reasons they wouldn’t work.

Which was fifteen and fair, she guessed, but why did everything have to be a struggle?

“I just don’t know why we have to go to Boone’s.”

“Because he is my friend and I wanted to spend the evening with him, and he wanted to see you both because he hasn’t.”

“I want to go to Boone’s,” said Mikey. “I haven’t even been inside the house and we’ve been here for four days.”

That earned a growl from Sadie, and Wendy accepted that there would be no consensus. Which was just life and parenting sometimes, but she didn’t like it especially.

She knew she could be a hard-ass about Sadie’s attitude if she wanted to be. But the thing was, Wendy had an attitude about things a lot of the time too. She’d smashed Daniel’s headlights in after all. And yes, it had felt deserved.

But she knew all of this felt real and deserved to Sadie.

Maybe also you feel a lot of guilt over the whole thing.

Maybe.

Which wasn’t fair, it wasn’t her fault.

Not the divorce...you wanting to spend time with Boone.

Yeah. Okay fine.

They got home and Sadie went straight to her room while Wendy started dinner with Mikey sitting at the kitchen table. She could have cooked at Boone’s, but she would rather be here talking to Mikey while she worked, and in close proximity to the melting down teenager.

“I don’t know what her deal is,” Mikey said.

“She’s fifteen.”

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