Page 115 of Kylo
“In with me. One, two, three, four, five, six. Hold, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And out, one, two, three, four, five, six.”
He followed with me, his little face stern and focused.
“What are five things you can see right now?” I asked.
“You,” he said, holding up a finger. “The flowers. Ernest. The pool. Bee.”
“Good. What are five things you can hear?”
“Bee. You. Music. Bangs,” he said when we both heard the sound of gunshots off in our makeshift shooting range. “And… the pool thing.”
“Filter.”
“The pool filter.”
His cheeks weren’t so red. The tears had dried up.
Rue and I weren’t sure how much of what he was exhibiting was just the normal kid tantrum, just the common inability for small brains to process big feelings, and how much might be a hint of actual anxiety issues.
We knew that things like that could run in families. So we were keeping an eye on it, and had the names of several reputable child psychologists saved, just in case.
Our younger child was the opposite in every way. She was easy-going, carefree. When she wasn’t around, we called her Teflon. Because nothing stuck to her. True, she was younger. Maybe by the time she was five, she would have tantrums and big feelings too. But we were enjoying her ability to just keep on keeping on even when nothing was going her way.
“Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to come with me?”
“Where?”
“Go see Grammy?” I asked.
To that, he lit right up.
Much like how Claudia indulged Ernest, she did the same for her great-grandchildren. Any toy or sweet or task, she was all too happy to do for the kids.
“Yeah!” my son said, throwing an arm up in the air. “How about you go find your sister and bring her out too?”
Mission in mind, he ran off inside the clubhouse.
They came out just a moment later, my boy still perfectly pressed and neat; his sister mismatched, stained, her reddish-brown hair she’d inherited from her mother tangled and going off in different directions.
We walked across the street as a unit, pausing to get cooed over by all the older ladies we passed on the way.
We could hear the voices of Claudia and her friends as we approached the door.
“Come on in,” Claudia called when I knocked.
“Oh, my babies!” Claudia cheered, getting to her feet and rushing over to accept the hugs the kids offered her.
I barely noticed that, though.
Because my gaze was on the woman currently sitting at the table, a book sitting in front of her with a half-naked man on the cover.
“You little liar, you,” I said as I walked over to her.
“Okay. It wasn’t a full lie. I was going to go to the bookstore after this.”
“To get next week’s book club book?”
“Maybe,” she admitted, wincing.
