Page 33 of No Place Like Home
I cleared my throat and willed the emotions to disappear. “You better not get me sick,” I said as I put her down in her chair. “How’s school going this year?”
“Hold that thought, sweet girl,” my mom said as she placed a plate of pancakes and a plate of bacon on the table. “Sit and we can talk. She has so much to say about school, but we need to get eating first. She will talk our ears off.”
“School’s fun, but I forgot I’m not supposed to be talking to you. I’m mad at you, Uncle Rowan.”
I froze as I reached for the syrup. “Why?”
“My daddy said you were home, but you haven’t come by and said hi to us yet. Uncle Bryson said it’s because you were ashamed of your family and didn’t want to be around us, but I don’t think that’s true. Is it true? Did you not want to see me?”
Bryson, seriously? I sat up tall, anger bubbling up in my gut, but my mother’s glare calmed me down.
“Sweet girl,” my mother said, “Uncle Bryson did not mean that. Uncle Rowan loves us and had a very important job. That’s why he couldn’t come home.”
“Yeah, I know he was in the Army and keeping us safe from enemies foreign and domesticate.”
I laughed and almost blew some pancake crumbs across the table. How could I not? Darcie was five years old going on fifteen and talked a mile a minute, butdomesticate?
“Darce, who told you that?” I asked as I poured syrup on my pancakes.
“Lance. He said that’s what you did. You took an oaf.”
Mom and I laughed. “I took an oath,” I corrected her, enunciating theth. “And part of my oath was to protect us from enemies foreign anddomestic. Do you know what that means?”
She shook her head as she shoved pancakes into her mouth.
“Foreignmeans people from other countries, anddomesticmeans people here.” Should I even explain to her that we had enemies here in our own country? Would that scare her? I had no clue what to tell kids and what not to.
“Oh.” She looked past me for a beat, like she was deep in thought. Then she shrugged. “Okay. That makes more sense than what James told me and Madeline.”
“What did James tell you?” asked mom.
“He said that domestic was like stray dogs and cats. They got dangerous so we had to have people make sure they didn’t hurt anyone.”
I chuckled. “What?” Wow, this conversation was off the rails. I had to change the subject. “Okay, well, Mom,” I said, turning to her, “what are the plans today?”
“Uncle Rowan, I want to hang out with you today. We can go somewhere fun, go out for lunch, then you can come to my house and see my daddy.”
“You’re sick,” I told her. “You shouldn’t go out when you can’t go to school.”
She whispered and put her hand to her mouth, “I’m not really sick. I just have a bad cough and contesten.”
I narrowed my eyes and glanced at my mother for translation.
“Congestion, honey,” Mom corrected her. “She didn’t sleep well because of her cough. She’s been on antibiotics for twenty-four hours, so she technically isn’t contagious anymore.Your call.”
“Yay. A day of fun with Uncle Rowan.”
“I’d say your day’s planned,” my mother said to me with a cackle.
I chuckled and took a sip of my orange juice. “Okay, as long as you don’t get me in trouble. Where do you want to go that’s fun?” I asked.
“To Shear Perfection and get our nails done.”
I choked on my orange juice and my mother’s cackle rang out. That damn laugh.
“Sweety, your uncle doesn’t get his nails done.”
“Why not? It’ll make his hands look nice and we can talk with Summer. Daddy said you and Summer are friends from high school.”
