Her Best Men

“But ice cream?” she asked.

“You just want everything, don’t you?”

“Yes!”

Chuckling, I placed her in the grocery cart. We needed to stock up on everything. Toilet paper, toothpaste, diapers and wipes. We needed fresh vegetables to go with the deer I’d shot last week, and I was out of all the spices I used for my chili. I walked up and down the aisles as I grabbed things, and Lanie giggled as she tossed random boxes of food into the cart. Crackers and dental floss. Cereal I knew she’d never eat and dried cranberries. She tossed them in and giggled profusely like she was getting away with something she knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?”

I plucked her from the cart and started blowing raspberries into her stomach. She squealed with delight and kicked her legs, begging me to stop as I tickled her underneath her arms. She was giggling and panting for breath, trying to wiggle out of my grasp as I planted my lips on her cheek.

“Beard,” she said breathlessly. “Beard tickles.”

I set her back into the cart and continued up and down the aisles. Loaves of bread and peanut butter made it in as well as gallons of milk and containers of juice. I grabbed fresh and frozen vegetables for quick lunches and dinners, then I threw in a few snacks I knew Lanie loved.

She clapped her hands in delight when she saw them being tossed into the cart.

“Now, what are we missing?” I asked.

“Ice cream!” Lanie said.

“That depends. Have you been a good girl?”

“Uh huh.”

“A really good girl?” I asked.

“Yes, Uncle Bwian!”

“A really, really, really good—”

“Chocolate, please?”

I laughed at her insistence before I pushed the cart down the ice cream aisle. I grabbed a pint of her favorite chocolate ice cream and tossed it into the cart, then I made my way to the cash register. Just like I’d promised, I rubbed Lanie’s stomach while we waited. Her eyes were already beginning to droop shut with exhaustion as her nap time approached, and I shook my head as she laid her forehead against my chest.

She looked so peaceful whenever she was sleeping. A far cry from the shrieking, crying child I’d inherited a year ago.

The ride back to the cabin was quiet. Tanya came running out to scoop up Lanie so she could tuck her in as I unloaded the groceries. I put everything away and stuffed the groceries into their places just as Tanya came into the kitchen, and I could feel the questions she wanted to bombard me with.

“Something on your mind?” I asked.

“I was just thinking about that nice new lady up the road,” Tanya said.

“What about her?”

“You think she’s doing okay?”

“Don’t know,” I said, shrugging.

“I didn’t know if you’d been checking in on her since she hurt herself.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Because she’s a pretty young woman who happened to inherit the cabin next to yours.”

“How did you know she inherited it?” I asked.

“So she did inherit it.”