“Why don’t you give it to me with your ring, and I’ll take it to a jeweler and get it fixed.”
“I don’t know...” Aunt Suzy says, looking down at her stoneless ring. “I don’t ever take it off.”
“I know, but we gotta get it fixed. We can’t crazy glue it back in. I promise I’ll take care of it, and I’ll get it back to you right away.”
“Let him get it fixed, Suzy. You don’t want to lose it again,” Uncle Al says.
“There’s a great jewelry store right down the street from where I work,” Skylar adds. “We’ll make sure they’ll take extra good care of it. They can check all the prongs to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Reluctantly, my aunt pulls off her gold ring and hands it to me. I carefully place the ring and stone in a small Ziploc sandwich bag.
“I’ll have it back soon, good as new,” I promise.
My uncle leans over and presses a soft kiss to my aunt’s forehead, whispering something that I can’t hear. On the other side of the room, Skylar is watching them with a small, dreamy smile on her face, then shifts her gaze to meet mine.
There’s a brief glimmer of longing in her eyes, chased away by a flash of sadness.
I quickly look away.
Nope. No way in hell am I gonna let myself think what my aunt and uncle have is in the cards for me. They got lucky. Despite my nickname, I’m not that lucky.
Later, when we’re home, we take Cassie in the backyard to run around, and Skylar puts Gus in a cat stroller and pushes her around the perimeter of the property. I stand on the back patio smoking, wondering how I ended up with a teen bride pushing a cat in a baby stroller across my yard.
And yet somehow, I can’t imagine my life any other way right now.
“How ’bout I make us some grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner,” I say when we get back inside.
“Like you made last time?” she asks. “With the same kind of white cheese and bread? And butter?”
“Exactly like last time.”
She tugs on loose threads at the edge of her scarf. “And it’s all new?”
“Yup. Got it at the grocery store yesterday.” I open the refrigerator and pull out the new package of thin-sliced deli cheese. “See?” I say, holding it up.
“Okay. I’d like one.”
As I start making the sandwiches, she opens one of the cabinets and takes out her bottle of digestive enzymes.
“How’ve you been feeling?” I ask. “Does all that stuff help?” She has a row of medication and supplements she takes several times a day.
“I think so. My stomach doesn’t hurt like it used to, and my throat isn’t sore anymore.”
I flip the sandwiches over in the pan. “That’s great.”
Seeing her world slowly get better makes this odd arrangement worth it. Sure, she’s costing me a few hundred dollars a month, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.
Even though Skylar eats slower than a snail moves, I always sit at the table with her when we eat together and wait until she’s done before I get up. This act is a double-edged sword. While she likes that I sit with her, it also makes her anxious, because she feels like I’m watching her eat. She’s not wrong. At first, I did sit there and watch her cut her food up into tiny pieces, inspecting each bite before she put it in her mouth. A few times, she froze under the pressure, stopped chewing, and completely forgot how to swallow. She ran to the bathroom and spit her food out into the toilet, then came back to the kitchen, sniffling, hanging her head in shame.
These are things I don’t ever want her to go through again.
So now I flip through a magazine while she eats. Keeping her company, but not watching her. It works.
“I can’t believe your aunt gave me that shirt,” she says between bites as she scratches off today’s lottery ticket while she eats. “I legit had to hold back from freaking out and jumping up and down.”
“She has a lot of old stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has five of those shirts lying around.”
“I seriously love it.” She frowns at her ticket. “I didn’t win. Did you really tell her I like the older bands?”
“Yeah.” I turn the page of my motorcycle magazine and lust over a picture of black-matte rims. Someday, I’ll get a new set for my Harley.
“She said you talk about me a lot.”
My aunt has a big mouth.
“I wouldn’t say a lot. Just casually about everyday shit.”
“I see,” she says, with that teasing hint in her voice that tells me she’s not buying a word I’m saying. “I think she really wants to ship us.”
I look up from my magazine. “Ship us? Where?”