Page 125 of Townshipped
“Hi, Em!” Ty shouts like he needs to try to make her hear him from here to Boston without the use of technology.
Paisley turns to her brother. “Not so loud.”
Ty changes his voice to an animated whisper. “I hab a pitchure for you!”
Paisley stares at the screen while Ty clambers off his stool to grab the drawing he made. We wait until he comes back, climbing up the stool to hold the picture up toward the tablet. I study Em while we wait. Her soft face, kind eyes, the smattering of freckles on her cheeks. I want to see her in person—to kiss each of those freckles and work my way down to those full peach lips. I need to see her.
She’s the one.
I don’t know what to do about it. But she’s mine. There will never be another woman for me, and if I didn’t know it before she left, I know with gut-level certainty now.
“Oh, Ty!” Em exclaims. “I love it! Tell me what it is.”
I chuckle. The picture has every color in the rainbow on it. Indecipherable shapes and squiggles fill the page.
Ty almost rolls his eyes, as if anyone should clearly be able to tell what this picture so obviously portrays. He obliges her and describes in detail what he drew—the baby goats, Granger, Paisley, him, me, and Em all at the farm.
And that’s when it hits me. I have to get her back. I don’t know how. But there’s no doubt she belongs here.
42
MALLORY (EM)
Ty holds up the drawing. I feel the pressure building behind my eyes. He points to each doodle, saying, “Dis is me. Dis is Pay Pay. Dis is Uncle Aiden. And dis is you, Em. You da one wit the orange hair.”
I chuckle. This boy. The whole time Ty has been rambling on, Aiden hasn’t taken his eyes off the screen—off me. What does it mean? Is he missing me the way I miss him?
“That’s a beautiful drawing,” I tell Ty.
“Tank you.”
“I drew something at school,” Paisley says.
It’s huge that she offers this personal piece of information. Usually she lets us fawn over Ty. She gathers up crumbs of attention vicariously, never wanting to move the spotlight directly onto herself. Aiden and I share a glance and knowing smiles.
“May I see it?” I ask. “It’s up to you. You don’t have to share it.”
Ty pushes her, as he always does. “You show it, Pay Pay.”
She looks at him and nods as she disappears from the screen to go retrieve her artwork.
“When you come see the baby goats?” Ty asks innocently.
“Ummm.” I look to Aiden for help.
“She lives far away now, Ty. It takes flying on a plane to go where she is. She can’t just come visit easily even though we miss her.”
We. Aiden didn’t sayyou. He saidwe. He already told me he missed me. Hearing it again, the way he so easily confesses his feelings to Ty, tugs at me. Why can’t I come visit? I could. I have five more days until I start work.
But would a visit from me only stir things up for them? Nothing in me wants to stay here in Boston. Gabriela is the only thing holding me here and I don’t even see her daily.
Paisley shows me a beautiful drawing she did of a bird in a tree. We all gush over it. And we laugh when Ty asks me, “You know it’s a bird, wite?”
“I can tell.”
He nods like he’s satisfied I’m not a complete moron. I want to scoop him up and hold him, to kiss his forehead at night, to smell his after-bath baby-boy smell while I read him a story. Aiden stares at me with a soft smile on his lips as if he can read my mind.
We talk a little more while the kids finish their snacks. When the conversation hits a lull, I tell them I have to go.
