Page 32 of Justice & Liberty

The woman met my eye as she snatched up my chicken, and then turned and marched back up toward her house.

Did...did she know she’d stolen my chicken? Was she convinced, like the other woman of the house had been, that if she left Laverne in my clutches, that the poor bird would be sacrificed for some kind of bizarre ritual to see the future? I could hardly blame her if that were the case, though the hostility was unwarranted.

Ryan was standing in the yard nearby, watching the woman I assumed was his mother as she marched right up to their chicken coop and shoved my chicken inside, closing and latching the doors behind her. He turned to look at me, confused, turning toward the coop, then me.

I headed over to the edge of my yard, so I wouldn’t have to yell to have him hear me. “I’m going to buy a chicken coopand put it together this weekend. You up for helping with some manual labor? I’ll pay you in food and cash, obviously.”

He beamed at me. “Sweet, I’m in. Need me to bring tools?”

“Um...maybe. I think Mom had some stuff in the garage, but it couldn’t hurt, to be certain.”

He laughed, but gave me a nod as he turned to head back up the hill toward his house. “I guess we’ll just keep the one in our coop till then?”

“Sounds perfect to me,” I agreed.

“Sorry about Mom, by the way. She’s just . . . really opinionated about . . . everything.”

I waved him off, because while I was pretty sure his mother was a jerk, there was no reason he needed to apologize for it. He wasn’t the one stealing chickens and glaring at near-strangers like they were the ones in the wrong as they did it. “Nothing you need to worry about. See you Saturday.”

“Saturday!” he called back, smiling as he did so.

Wasit weird that the best friend I’d made in town so far was a kid?

Well, and then there was Hunter. I wasn’t quite sure how to classify her yet, other than that she was someone I had to do a lot more thinking about.

Thinking about a gorgeous woman. What a trial.

17

Gabbyand I met in the parking lot of the Indian restaurant, hugging and smiling like a couple of weirdos before heading inside.

I was once again annoyed with myself for not coming home sooner. Gabby was awesome, and I had missed her terribly. She’d always been a better friend than Tanya had been a girlfriend. We could have gone to grad school at Iowa together, and...well, no point in obsessing over what was finished and couldn’t be changed now.

We sat and ordered, chatting about nothing in particular, as we’d always done. The state of the world, local issues, random new songs we both liked. It was like being back in college, but somehow better than that.

“How’s your mom?” I asked, as the specter of my own mother’s loss leaped up in my mind, reminding me of its existence.

Seeming to understand where I was coming from, she winced. “She’s good. You know how she is. Calling all the time, demanding to know when I’m going to give her grandchildren. Like she’ll ever see them if I do. She still hasn’t setfoot in Iowa once, just expects me to drop everything and go back to California three times a year.”

I cocked my head, considering. “Thanksgiving, Christmas, and . . .”

That elicited an eye roll. “Mother’s day, of course. What kind of daughter doesn’t visit her mother on the very day invented for mothers?”

I cringed at the idea of the attached guilt trip, and while I now wished I had visited my mother three times a year every year—or even more—I could see Gabby’s point. Travel was expensive, and most of us didn’t get much time off for those holidays. I was glad Mom had never given me those guilt trips. “Maybe you should buy her a ticket here for the next one. Seems like something she might do to you, if she wanted to you visit.”

“Hm. You’re not wrong. Maybe I should. It’s the best chance I have of seeing her ever again. And she’s alone in that big old house since Papa died, so she ought to come visit.” She paused and gave a sharp, decisive now. “Good thinking. This is why I always liked having you around. You know how to deal with Mom better than I do.”

I ducked my head, and found myself looking forward to seeing Maria again. She was a wonderful woman, who had always wanted a huge family, but she simply hadn’t been blessed with a hundred children the way she had wanted. Instead, she’d practically taken in every friend Gabby had brought home. I’d visited her occasionally after Gabby had left LA, but as in most things, I’d let Tanya’s opinions lead me, and she hadn’t liked Maria, so I’d rarely gone.

“How’s Bee?” Gabby asked as our food came, grinning over at me.

I scoffed. “Opinionated as ever.” I almost mentioned Bee’s plans for revenge on Tanya and Lucy, but well...explaining to my friend that I was having full conversations with my catrequired more than just my word. Should I tell her? September had believed Mom, and she was a doctor, while Gabby’s vocation was a good deal softer, if no less serious.

Still, if I was going to tell her, I wanted to do it at home, where maybe I could prove what I was saying, not just sound like a person who needed to be checked into the local mental hospital.

So instead we talked about what we’d been doing for the last few years. I lamented about how I had done nothing with my degree, and she sighed and told me that honestly, I wasn’t missing out on much. Sure, some students were a delight, but that was rather rare. We discussed my lack of interest in following through on a law degree, which she understood, and she admitted that she’d considered getting her doctorate, not because she wanted to take more school, but because the earning potential was quite a bit more.

I did get some kheer to go when we were finished, since I’d promised Bee I would. Just, like I’d also said, I wasn’t going to give her a lot of it.

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