Page 14 of Where You're Planted

The animal that scrambled up the inside of her skirt was not, in fact, a bobcat, but a fluffy orange kitten. And it had friends—a gray tabby and a tortoiseshell—who marched out for their adorable film debut. Irma captured it all, including Marianne scooping them up and declaring them the new branch pets.

Their second day had been spent solving the puzzle of the tight layout, troubleshooting the Wi-Fi connection, quickly uploading new videos to strike while the algorithm was hot, andlaughing, which was a nice change of pace, even if they’d accomplished less than Tansy had hoped by the end of the day. Plus, she didn’t see Jack at all.

On her way out of the park, she was surprised to find new pavers filling in the section of the walk that had been washed out. Tansy peered around the quiet space, half expecting to catch the younger, nicer guy, Ian, sneaking away before Jack realized he’d done something decent for them. She made a mental note to thank him later.

Now, Tansy was pulling into the gas station parking space beside Charlie’s 4Runner. He tried to open her door for her, but the power locks on the used car she’d bought after her Civic died a watery death in her driveway had a mind of their own and clicked shut twice before he succeeded. As if the sight of her bargain junker right next to his shiny, year-old model wasn’t embarrassing enough.

Charlie pulled her into a hug that she shrank out of. She tried to soften her skittishness by patting his arm and was grateful when Briar saved them from themselves, burying her face in Tansy’s solar plexus. The movement knocked the hatoff her head. Charlie stooped to lift it from the pavement and cast a loaded look at Tansy before tugging it back down over Briar’s dark hair.

Tansy had texted him back late last night, hands blistered and swollen, arms too tired to hold up her phone, asking if they could talk tomorrow. Today.

“I missed you so much,” she murmured, absently straightening Briar’s sweater—new and luxuriously soft, a gift from Charlie, she assumed—and winding one of her chin-length curls around her finger. Voicing the words suddenly made herfeelthem, that raw thing she’d tried to ignore these last few days while throwing herself into the shed cleanup. She’d missed Briar’s smell, her lanky little body, her tangles. Tansy blinked back tears and hugged her more tightly. “Did you have fun?”

Briar shrugged, still not letting go.

“We had a great time. Didn’t we, B?” Charlie scratched the back of his head. “We did,” he said, a hint of insecurity bleeding through.

Tansy knew Briar wasn’t upset or even indifferent. Transitions just overwhelmed her, even more so since the storm. For at least the first month, when they were in temporary housing and Briar’s school had closed due to damage, she retreated into herself, preferring to grunt and gesture instead of talk. It had worried Tansy enough to find a therapist without a six-month wait list. And the therapyhadhelped. She would be withdrawn this evening, and Tansy would give her space, but tomorrow, she’d come out of her shell again.

She should have reassured Charlie of this. But something held her back. The part of her that had missed Briar like a phantom limb these past few days. The part that hadn’twantedto raise their daughter alone eight years ago but hadn’t had achoice. The part that supported Briar’s relationship with him now buthatedthat it meant separating from her.

“We talked about video-calling sometimes,” Charlie said, affectionately palming Briar’s head, squatting down to her level. “On her new tablet.”

Tansy’s gaze cut to him sharply. “Tablet?”

“I want her to be able to call whenever she wants. Or message me, if she doesn’t feel like talking.”

“I wish you would have discussed—” Tansy stopped. She’d vowed to herself not to argue with him in front of Briar. Not that they ever did, really. Charlie deferred to her on most things or asked for her approval before making even small choices regarding Briar, desperate to make up for his past mistakes. But lately, as she’d stopped supervising their visits and given him more time on his own with their daughter, he’d developed more confidence as her parent. He’d begun to take liberties, like buying her expensive toys. It wasn’t necessarilybad. But every once in a while, his new assertiveness woke a bear in her—the part of her that was so used to being Briar’s only protector she sometimes felt any change around them as a threat.

Charlie opened his arms for a hug, which Briar accepted, and then he asked her to wait a minute in Tansy’s car. All the while, Tansy held her tongue.

“So, the hat?” he said when they were alone.

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. Can you explain why she’s so attached to it?”

“Did something happen? When you texted yesterday?”

He sighed. “We went to a park the day before, and it was wet. She got muddy. Her clothes, her hair. The hat, too.”

Tansy closed her eyes, braced for the worst. “She needed a bath?”

“Yeah, but I did what you said. I gave her options, said she could wipe down with a washcloth, wash her hair in the sink, whatever she wanted. She wasn’t thrilled, but she got in there for a few minutes.”

“In the bath? That’s great.” She drifted closer to him, surprised by this positive news and eager for more. “I mean, that’s actually kind of big.”

“Yeah, but then…” He eyed her hand hovering near his own, and she pulled it back. He turned his face up to the cloudy sky, dread crowding into his voice. “While she was getting clean, I threw all her clothes in the wash. The hat was in there. So she comes out of the bath, asks for it, and I tell her it’ll be clean in the morning, and Tansy…”

She didn’t need him to fill in what happened next. She could imagine Briar’s spike of anxiety, her voice threading shrill and high, the tears, the pacing, the bargaining, the blaming. “She flipped,” Tansy supplied.

His eyes were wide, like it was happening now. “It was unreal, Tans. Like…this doesn’t seem…”

Normal, she filled in for him. Although she’d thought it plenty of times herself, an anticipatory swell of protective anger rose against his judgment.

“It just seems extreme,” Charlie finished delicately.

Was it a relief for someone else to see it, for her not to be alone in witnessing Briar’s intensity? Yes, a little. But that relief was quickly washed away by a tidal wave of shame. Tansy worried all the time that the therapy wasn’t doing enough—thatshewasn’t doing enough—but it stung to hear it from someone else.

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