Page 75 of Yes No Maybe

Gnawing my inner lip, I consider my answer.I’m fine. Please stop texting.My finger hesitates over send.

A knock on the glass breaks my concentration. I look up to find Sara waving me back inside. My finger falls on the screen, sending my message. I give up my phone to return to the main room.

When I approach, Sara huffs and leaves.

“Is she okay?” I ask Eddie.

He nods, motioning for me to take a seat. “Ms. Mackey, I apologize on behalf of my daughter for her terrible behavior toward you.”

“Oh, that’s unnecessary. She’s apologized, and I understand she’s in a tough situation.”

He gives me the same serious look he gave his daughter. “No, it’s unacceptable. She’s headstrong, yes, but being in a tough spot is no excuse for meanness and unkind words.”

“She told you about that?”

His long head bobs again. “I pressed her about it, and she’s not one to lie.”

“I appreciate the apology, but we’re past that now. She’s warming up to me… slowly.”

A light smirk corners his thin lips. “It’s not you, understand? It’s me she’s angry at. She likes you a helluva lot more than she lets on.”

“Really?” The word comes out in a high-pitched gasp like a doe-eyed child permitted to have my pick at a toy store. “Are you sure?”

“Definitely. You came to her rescue with the house. Thanks for that.”

“No problem. I’d do anything for Sara.” The realization strikes me funny. Sure, it’s true. It’s also true for my hundreds of students.

But Sara’s different. I feel innately drawn to her. Maybe it’s my long-dormant maternal instincts kicking in or that I see so much of my childhood in hers—that stubborn and independent spirit, most of all.

“Yeah, I can see that. It’s much appreciated. She’s a good kid, and she needs someone like you in her life. Though I’d advise against tangling with my cousins in the future,” he says. “They ain’t running on all cylinders. It’s not worth putting yourselves in danger.”

“Understood. No more stakeouts. Any other advice for me? Sometimes, she sees me as the enemy, I think.”

He leans his sinewy arms on the table, linking them in front of me. “She’s not quick to trust anyone. Her mom left when she was little, and she’s never had great role models—”

“Except you—I mean, one stint in jail excluded.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, stupid mistakes kinda run in the family. Sara’s like a crepe myrtle. She doesn’t need much and will do fine on her own, but things will go a lot better for her with cultivating and the occasional pruning. You’re a nice person—I can tell. But don’t be too forgiving. Don’t let her get away with bad behavior.”

His words kick up the dust of my entire summer, scattering annoying particles into the air.Have I been too nice? Too forgiving?The longer my text to Dean goes unanswered, the more I wonder if he always meant to spend the summer away, and messing up his proposal gave him an easy out with less guilt for leaving. Was his spontaneous wedding proposal his way of ensuring I’d be here, waiting with open arms, after he left?

Focusing on Eddie, I sit up. “I won’t.”

“She likes space…”

I think I hate that word.

“—And horror movies, though, they scare the bejesus out of me.”

I chuckle lightly. “Me, too.”

“She’s an artist. Paints, ceramics, pencil drawings—there’s nothing she can’t do. If you show an interest in that, she’ll warm up to you right quick.”

A lightbulb goes off in my head, remembering their art-filled living room and Sara hovering over a sketch pad at the beach. “Ah,thatI can work with. Thanks.”

Sara rejoins us, and we chat casually about her awful taste in movies before the guards tell us that visiting hours are over. Our conversation ends with a long embrace for Sara and a handshake for me, but I promise to make it a weekly thing.

Driving home, the first ten minutes go by in a windy silence. With the top down, the late afternoon sun kisses us goodbye as the coastal breezes sweep the day away.

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