Hate You Not

Chapter One

June

What do they say about kids and candy? No candy because it makes them wild…or is it all the candy because of the blood sugar crash afterward? Lots of sugar makes you crash, right? When I get those iced shortbread cookies from Miss Dora’s Bakery, I’m falling asleep after.

Is it good for them to sleep right now? Or should they stay awake so they can process? Do they seem more sleepy or more hyper?

I glance into the back of the truck’s cab just in time to see my niece and nephew click their giant lollipops together in a refined sugar high-five.

Someone giggles—Oliver or Margot?

“What are you kids doing back there?” I ask in my best teacher voice.

There’s that giggle. “Margot? Is it you that giggles like a little church mouse?”

She does it again.

“That’s adorable, darlin’.”

“Darlin’!” Oliver’s laugh is more snorty. “You’re such a darlin’,” he caws at his sister.

Give it time and you’ll be drawlin’ just like me. I want to say that—but it doesn’t seem wise. Now is not the time to draw attention to the cultural shift my sister’s kids are about to undergo. Are undergoing already…from the time they stepped off the airplane in Atlanta five and a half hours ago; Oliver wrinkled his little freckled nose and said, “The air is…sticky. Sticky icky wicky!”

Just you wait till summertime.

We made our way across the airport to my truck, hauling ninety-seven bags and both of their booster seats. It took for-freaking-ever to get out of city traffic. They were needing dinner, so I took them by the Steak ‘n Shake for shakes and burgers—I don’t care what vile lies my sister told her rich-boy husband, she got burgers for them last time they were home, two years ago—and that’s when Margot asked for candy.

“What were you hoping for?” I asked with caution.

“Maybe…a giant lollipop?”

So of course I found a place—a very overpriced place off the interstate—and when Margot pointed to a sucker bigger than her little pig-tailed head, I got it. Got them both one. Eight bucks each. Say what you will about a bunch of sugar, but it always makes me feel better.

“How’s those lollipops coming?” I ask, trying to emphasize the “g.”

“Mine’s comin’ real well.” Oliver pops his lips together.

“Make that ‘real good’ and you got yourself a deal.”

He laughs, and Margot pops her lips together, too. “I love candy.”

She sounds so much like Sutton just then. That weird feeling presses on my chest—the lead-heavy, maybe-I’m-about-to-wake-up, nope-I’m-not-and-I’m-all-filled-with-existential-dread feeling. I have to breathe out of my open mouth to make it ease up.

“What’s your house like?” Oliver asks.

I glance in the rear-view. Mostly dark, so all I see is trees on each side of the interstate and a bunch of head and tail lights behind us.

“I thought you remembered.”

“Well I don’t.” His voice is petulant, and I’ve spent enough time with them by now to know he might break out in tears at any second.

I shift into Fun Farm Aunt mode. “There are chickens. Roosters, chickens, all of them. All cock-a-doodling and strutting around.”

“Struttin’,” he mimics, and I hear the smile in his little voice.

“Well that’s what they’re doing. Standing out there in the mud, picking at grass.” I try again to add the “g” onto the end of “picking,” but I guess I don’t do it all the way because Margot giggles.

“Pickin’,”she echoes.

“There’s some cows. A couple of big, fat milk cows. They lie down when the rain comes…sometimes, anyway.”

“Do they stick their feet up in the air like this?” I see Margot’s feet stick up behind the truck’s front seat.

“Nope. They just sort of curl up so the lightning doesn’t strike them.”

“What else?” Oliver asks.

“Well, I have a horse, remember?”

“Can he be mine?” Margot asks, and I smirk.

“He’s a she. And you already have a horse that’s coming to live here.”

“Oh yeah!”

“I want to ride your horse when we get there, Aunt June.” Oliver yawns after he says it.

“I think it might be too late at night for that.”

“It won’t be!”

“I think he’ll be sleeping.”

“Will you put my Batman covers on my bed?” he asks.

“They won’t be washed yet, but—”

“That doesn’t bother me!”

“So then…yeah.” I nod slowly. Pushover. “I’ll put it on, and Mar, your Frozen stuff, too.”

“No one ever calls me Mar.”

Well, shit. “Margot.” Pronounced Mar-goh. Surefire way to confuse every teacher from Heat Springs Primary all the way on up through the tiny local high school. “My bad, little lady.”

She giggles. “No one ever calls me little lady either.”

“I want to hear that music again,” Oliver says.

I turn up the country. We’re winning with some vintage Garth Brooks. As he drawls about having friends in low places, I can sort of sense them lying down. When I stop for a gas refill outside Albany, I find them slumped in their seats, their poor little heads hanging, begging for some neck pillows. I make a mental note to try to find some—somewhere cheap. Maybe the dollar store.