Page 34 of Dallas

“Do you want to play a game?” Lucy asks.

And that’s how we find ourselves embroiled in a cutthroat game of Chutes and Ladders, which Sarah has never played before, but catches on too quickly.

As her game piece gets launched down the slide for the third time in a round, my sisters screech with delight at her fate.

“This is not a fun game,” Sarah says, pushing her fingers through her hair. I reach up, grab her wrist, and try to unbury them. “Don’t tear your hair out,” I say.

She looks up, and suddenly I’m very aware that I’m holding onto her.

I let go, and I press my hand down to the top of my thigh, letting the heat from her touch bleed away.

We go straight into another round, and this time Sarah wins, and she puts her arms up, laughing in victory, while the girls swarm her.

Their instant comfort with her makes my chest ache, and I catch her eye again, then my mom and my dad’s. They both smile at me, and I look away. Because I don’t want them to get any untoward ideas about this. Aboutus.

Though, I guess it doesn’t really matter what they think. She’s family. I can see it now.

She just is.

We finish about the time the girls need to head up for their bathtime, and Sarah thanks my parents profusely again for the meal.

“Of course,” Kaylee says. This time, she doesn’t touch Sarah. I noticed that she didn’t seem to react negatively when the girls grabbed onto her. Which I mentioned as soon as we are out of the house, walking back down the road.

“It was okay, the kids grabbing you like that?”

“Oh. Yeah. Kids are fine,” she says. There’s a brief pause. “I guess I didn’t know that until tonight. But they are.”

“You haven’t spent very much time around kids, have you?”

She shakes her head. “No. Which is maybe not a great thing since I want to be a social worker. But somehow in my head that feels like a different thing. Because I already know those kids. Those kids are me. What I don’t know are kids like your sisters. Who just have a lovely house, and wonderful parents. Who just have this beautiful, sweet life. It’s really… It’s really great.”

“Yeah, sometimes I envy them too,” I say.

She laughs. “No. That’s not it. You can’t be jealous of children.”

“Sure you can,” I say. “I feel it all the time. Every time I feel like I’m part of this family, but also not quite.” I growl, because I really didn’t intend to get into this. This is the kind of thing I never say out loud. It’s not fair. That’s the thing. “Don’t listen to me. It’s dumb.”

“Not dumb. It’s how you feel.”

“But I know my dad feels bad about it, and it’s not his fault. Yeah, I didn’t spend the first fifteenyears of my life with my family, but I have them now. Sometimes… Sometimes I feel it. Sometimes I feel it in the way the girls just feel so safe and secure. That a family dinner is normal for them.”

“I kind of brought the room down with my comment.”

“You didn’t bring the room down. One thing about my parents is that they’re used to grappling with my past. It’s not like we ignore it. But there are certain things that I just tend to keep inside myself, because I don’t think it’s fair to project onto other people. Least of all my dad, who already feels bad enough about the way everything went down.”

“You can still feel wounded without blaming him. You can still feel like it’s unfair without being mad at him. Hell, you can still love him and be mad at him.”

“I can’t be mad at him,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not fair. I already said that.”

“Remember the whole conversation we had earlier today about life not being fair. Cuts both ways. You know, I am kind of mean sometimes. Because I’m traumatized. I’m going to do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, and feel a whole lot of sharp, difficult feelings, and a lot of times the people around me aren’t responsible for it. They didn’t ask for it. A lot of the time they didn’t earn it. But that’s the same way my abuse is. Sometimes I’m what’s not fair about life. I guess I’ve kind of accepted that in some ways.”

I’ve never thought about it that way before, and I stop walking for a second, considering that. “Well. I think there’s something to be said for not wanting to make anyone else’s life needlessly difficult.”

“Sure.” She shrugs. “I’m not saying go out of your way to be a jerk about everything. I’m just saying, as much aswe’ve had to flex to survive, other people can flex around us sometimes. You don’t have to suppress everything.”

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