Page 11 of Mistletoe & Magic
“I won't let us get burned again,” I say adamantly.
She sighs. “You always were a stubborn old goat.”
I grunt.
“Let her stay,” she says. “You don’t have to marry her. Just let her keep you from drowning.”
"Fine," I grunt. "But if she does anything out of line, she's gone."
My mom laughs, "Yeah, like Ivy would. She's a saint."
"I gotta get to bed. Talk to you tomorrow, Mom."
"Go easy on her!" she calls before ending the call.
Inside, the house is quiet again. Peaceful and lonely. The usual.
I shower, hot water sluicing down my back until the tension finally breaks and my body feels like jelly. I scrub off the sawdust and sweat, the pine sap, and the guilt. I dry off and crawl into bed without checking my phone again.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like the weight of the world is going to crush me in my sleep.
I just feel…tired.But not alone. I drift off to sleep, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what Ivy must think of me. An older single dad who can't get his act together, whose wife left him. Yeah, I’m a real winner here.
The phone rings while I’m wrapping a pallet of trees to send to Boston. I glance at the display, and my stomach tightens when I see that it's Junie’s school.
I was wide awake at four a.m. So I got up and out the door extra early, getting ahead of the day so I could get home earlier to Junie tonight. Plus, I didn’t want to run into Chaos, aka Ivy, who kept me wondering about her down the hall from my room.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what she said about me not liking her. Why would she think that? I’ve always thought Ivy was easily one of the most beautiful and special people I’ve ever met. Way out of my league, but a great person. She’s always been great to my kid, and she’s like a ray of sunshine to my pitch black. We’re just opposites.
“This is Remy Bennett.” I answer, worry filling me that something might have happened to Junie.
“Hi, Mr. Bennett, it’s Ms. Clarke from Wisteria Cove Elementary.”
Junie’s teacher. My gut tightens more. “Everything okay?” I ask hesitantly.
There’s a pause. “Junie's fine. But…”
I brace myself. “But?”
“There was an incident at recess. Junie was, uh…baiting seagulls.”
I blink. “What?”
“With gummy worms,” Ms. Clarke says, her voice a mix of disbelief and resignation. “And…she caught one with her bare hands.”
I pull the phone away from my ear for a second, stare at it, then bring it back. Surely I didn’t hear that right.
“It did bite her, but not hard. She’s fine. The bird is fine. We’re…mostly fine.” She clears her throat. “But we had to file an incident report, and we wanted to let you know.”
My hand comes up to cover my face, but I can’t stop the laugh that escapes.
“She also named it Sully,” Ms. Clarke adds, like that’s an important piece of evidence in the story. “We were hoping you could talk to her about this again.”
I put my head in my hand, chuckling into my palm, trying to keep it together. “Thank you for calling and letting me know. I’ll talk to her.”
When I hang up, I let the phone drop onto the counter and scrub my face with both hands, shaking with laughter. My kid is never boring, that’s for sure.
“Something funny?”
