Page 75 of Moonshine Lullabies

“Okay,” I said crossing my arms and leaning a hip against the counter. “You watched me enough, you know what to do so go on, now.”

My son cooked us a good dinner, Cor and I helping out by cutting up a fine salad of mixed greens and makin’ up some dressing. Alina came out and traded spaces with us in the kitchen as my boy an’ I set the dinner table. Alina made a fresh pot of tea and we had a fine supper.

“I think this is gonna work,” Alina said. “All we have to do is seal it and set your stone. You wanna list it in your shop and see how fast it goes?”

“I nodded and said, “Yeah, I can do that. Wanna split it 60/40? You did most of the work so I’d say sixty for you not me.”

Alina smiled and nodded happily and whew! We put that sucker up and it was gone in minutes!

“Think you priced it too low?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Make another one tomorrow an’ see?” I asked. “I mean, it went at fifty-five whole dollars like it was nothin’.”

“It didn’t take any time at all to do, really. I mean, it was only an hour’s worth of work – but fifty-five dollars? That had to be a fluke.”

“Let’s do it again,” I said with a shrug. “I just priced it like I would a regular ol’ carved skull that size.”

“How many you have with you?” Alina asked.

“I brought five,” I said.

We looked outside, the light was too poor to carve, now – but that didn’t stop her from drawing in here tonight so I could carve them tomorrow.

So that’s what we did. We sat around the table and talked and crafted and talked while Tate was a good kid and brought my stuff inside the front door and set up my batteries to charge.

It was a good day, and I felt pretty good that we were on to something.

“It’d be kind of nice to be self sufficient in case something ever happened to the boys,” I said and caught Cor shifting uncomfortably in front of her laptop at the thought.

She sighed and said, “Ain’t that the whole point of getting the distillery up and running for legal income and all of that?”

Alina nodded, and I said, “I didn’t mean anything by it. I guess I just learned I can only ever really depend on myself for some things.”

“Oh, no, I get it,” Cor said swiftly. “I’m pretty hyper-independent myself.”

“We all are,” Alina said raising her golden red eyebrows, her eyes wide and her mouth drawn down as she kept her eyes fixed on her drawing. “Thanks, trauma,” she said, and we laughed at that; because fucked up? Yeah. But the God’s honest truth just the same.

“I have to say, the idea of a store is pretty cool, but how would it work?” I asked. “I mean, for real.”

“Well, nowthat, I think, is my strength here…” Corliss declared. “You guys focus on the art and keeping us in stock and mailing orders out. While me? I’ll have the fun of keeping the books, and managing inventory on the things like candles and stones, and other things that aren’t your art pieces. Things like letting you know when we need more of what type of paint etc., Alina – and I think we can all magic make this work if we really wanted to go for it. I mean, start-up funds and things would be interesting but that won’t take much to figure out, either.”

“I mean, you’re already going to fund the distillery out of your settlement – how could we do this too?” Alina asked.

“If we do this, we should do it our damn selves with sweat equity,” I said. “No offense, Cor but you been through it an’ that money is yours an’ I wouldn’t feel right, y’know?”

“Are we doing this?” Alina asked.

“Let’s talk about it,” Cor said. “Like for really real talk about it.”

We all three looked at each other and I was feeling it.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s talk about it…”

And so, we did.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

Collier…

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