Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Luke is cool,” Cooper was saying.
“How do you know? We just met him,” Chloe whispered.
“He has a bunch of tattoos,” Cooper said. “He has to be cool.”
“Obviously cooler than Dad,” Chloe said, and all three of them giggled.
I couldn’t help but smile as I walked back over to the deck. Cam and I started cleaning up lunch, bringing all of the food inside and putting it into plastic containers.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked.
“Your kids apparently think I’m cooler than you,” I said.
“Oh, no doubt about it,” Cam said. “You are cooler than me.”
“Please,” I said, shutting the fridge behind me. “They have the best dad in the world, they just don’t know it yet. But watch out. Apparently they like tattoos.”
“Great,” Cam said. “Dayna’s going to come back from school one day with a full sleeve of tats, isn’t she?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “She might.”
Right as we were taking the last tray of food inside, I heard a piercing scream from the yard.
Cam was off like a rocket, taking off toward the greenhouse. The kids emerged, and Dayna was storming toward the opposite side of the yard, crying.
“What happened here?” Cam said.
“Why don’t you ask Cooper?” Dayna shouted, walking over to the tent and crawling inside.
Cam looked over as Cooper and Chloe stood, rolling their eyes, arms crossed. “She’s a baby,” Chloe said.
“Chloe, what is the problem?” Cam asked, his voice clearly sterner.
“She tried to pick one of the roses and we told her not to,” Chloe said, glancing my way as I walked back out into the yard. “Then she got mad, tried to pick it anyway, a thorn scraped her finger.”
“And so I called her an idiot.”
“Coop,” Cam said, glaring at him.
“What? She is,” Cooper said, throwing his hands up.
“Is she bleeding?” Cam asked.
“Not at all,” Chloe said. “She’s obviously fine.”
Cooper looked at me. “I’m sorry, Luke. Our little sister is too dumb to realize she can’t pick roses with her bare hands, and that it would be stealing from you.”
“You know she had a rough week at day camp,” Cam said quietly to them.
“Was everything okay?” I asked.
“She’s just mad because some idiot kid made fun of her backpack,” Chloe said. “She makes such a big deal about everything.”
“Go easy on her, please,” Cam said, clearly trying hard to keep from being frustrated.
I could hear Dayna let out a dramatic, exasperated groan from the tent.
It was in some ways adorable. The drama of a nine-year-old always was. But it also made my heart ache to hear it.
These kids were going through a lot. Even if they seemed well-adjusted to the divorce, I knew it couldn’t be easy for them. I moved around from city to city as a kid, always needing to start over. It was different from divorce, but I still remembered how bad it felt to have an unstable life.
Suddenly memories flashed back to me, memories I hadn’t thought of in years.
At that age, things really did feel that dramatic. I remembered kids making fun of me on playgrounds when I got fascinated by something as simple as a dandelion. Saying it was girly to like plants, even though I was one of the biggest kids on the playground. Me, walking off on my own, not crying but absolutely feeling alone, deep in my bones.
“Go apologize to your sister, please,” Cam said to the kids.
Cooper and Chloe marched over, giving a half-hearted apology before returning to the other side of the yard and sitting under my Japanese maple tree.
“I’m so sorry,” Cam said, giving me an apologetic look. “I didn’t even think about her trying to take one of the flowers.”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I feel terrible.”
I walked into the greenhouse and found the half-bent stem of the rose Dayna had clearly been trying to pick off. I grabbed my cutters and took three of the flowers off the plant, making sure to strip off the thorns.
I gathered the three flowers and went back outside. Cam was just outside of the tent, crouching and looking in.
When I peeked inside, Dayna was in there, lying flat on her back. She wasn’t crying, but tears still left streaks down her cheeks. She had picked up one of my mystery novels by the mattress and had cracked it open, reading under the gauzy window above.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” she said feebly. “I tried to steal a rose.”
“Hey,” I said, holding out the three roses to her. “These are yours.”
She sat up, brushing a lock of her hair out of her face. “Is that okay?”
“Of course,” I said. “I don’t mind you taking some flowers. It’s just easier to cut them with tools.”
“Thank you,” she said, taking the roses.
“If you want, after a few days, you can press the flowers into a big, heavy book,” I said. “Then leave them there for a long time. At least a week. Then you’ll have beautiful pressed flowers forever.”