“It wasn’t okay for him to say it and it’s not okay for you to say it,” I tell her, shooting a glare at my oldest brother. He at least has the grace to look ashamed.
“Sorry, Rusty,” Levi says. “That was rude of me.”
Rusty sighs, dramatically rests her chin on her hand, and stabs at a piece of eggplant. She’s not that much taller than the tabletop, so the effect is more funny than anything else.
“Please don’t use language like that,” I tell her.
She sighs again, and I silently pray that we’re not about to get into our but why can’t I say those words, they’re just words conversation. Frankly, I agree with her, but I also can’t have another meeting with a teacher about her teaching her classmates the word asshole. Or clusterfuck. Or shitshow.
“Okay,” she finally says. “Sorry, Dad.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Walter Eighton,” Caleb says, reminding us where we all were.
“Right,” Levi says. “He’s been petitioning for mineral rights in Cumberland National Forest, and the first step in the convoluted process of getting them is to show that there’s actually something there to mine…”
I stop listening to them discuss the finer points of land use legislation and federal protection levels, because right now, I couldn’t care less.
Instead I feel like a travel commercial I saw once: rocky cliffs overlooking a deep blue ocean, a color so rich it seems unreal. There was a man standing on top of the cliffs, and I’m sure the announcer was saying something like come on this great vacation and conquer your fears, after this you’ll be the billionaire CEO of your own company but all I remember is the guy suddenly leaping off the cliff, flailing on the way down, landing with a huge splash.
I feel like I just leaped off the cliff. I feel like I’ve stood there for years, looking out at the ocean, not even knowing there was a cliff. I’m pretty sure I’m flailing now. I think there might be rocks at the bottom. I have no idea what’s in store.
Casually, I lean back in my chair, take a sip of water, wipe my hands on my napkin. Then I put one hand on Charlie’s leg. My heart kicks and next to me, she takes a deep breath, her shoulders moving.
Then her hand settles on mine.I don’t get her alone again that night. When there are nine people in a house, four of whom are the world’s most interfering brothers and one of whom is your own seven-year-old daughter, secret alone time is hard to come by.
I do the dishes with a blissfully ignorant Silas while Violet and Charlie plan a day of cake tasting. Seth keeps wandering in and out of the kitchen, shooting me more and more significant looks each time until he’s practically a caricature of himself, and I do my best to ignore him.
Silas ends up telling me about his sister, June, who just moved back to town. Because I’m a good brother, I just nod along, mention that we were in the same high school class, and don’t bring up how Levi called her ma’am yesterday.
Call it pre-payment for Levi not telling anyone what he saw before dinner.
After that, Rusty wants to play Chutes and Ladders, so we do. I try to let her beat me, but the game is pure luck, so I win by accident but she’s a good sport about it. Then she ropes Charlie and Violet into playing, then Caleb, then Candyland comes out, and before I know it, she’s playing a version of that with Caleb and Eli that seems to involve bribery and negotiation.
I think she wins both games. I’d be tempted to say that they let her win, except I’m not sure Eli’s ever let anyone win anything in his life.
We have dessert: blackberry cobbler that Levi made from the bramble near his cabin. Silas leaves. Levi and Seth both go home. Rusty tries to negotiate her way out of bedtime, and I let her get away with ten more minutes, but then it’s lights out.
We don’t even get through a full chapter of Apprenticed to Dragons before she’s nodding off, heavy eyelids fluttering on her pillow. I leave her room and close her door, then stand on the second-floor hallway of my mom’s house and have my first alone time of the day.
Rusty’s room is right across the hall from mine, and as I stand there, mind jumbled, trying to make sense of everything, I’m looking into my own bedroom. I’m trying to clear my head, trying to get just a few seconds of clarity on today before I go back downstairs, but I find myself mostly wondering why there’s a single pink shoe on my desk, when the last time I read the book on my nightstand was, why I’ve still got a picture that Rusty drew four years ago taped to my mirror when she’s got much more recent artwork I could be admiring while I got ready.