H is for Hawk (Men of ALPHAbet Mountain)

“Desiree?” I asked.

“She’s the county’s CPS agent.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, how does spaghetti sound?”

“Sure. That would be nice.”

Grinning at the stroke of good luck, I nodded and headed for the kitchen. Rose was lying on the giant rug in the living room on her back, happily kicking and wiggling with Dee beside her. She would occasionally tickle her, and Rose made a sound much like a giggle, and I let those sounds be my soundtrack as I cooked.

I tried not to feel it too much, but there was something so right about the current situation. Me in the kitchen cooking up something fast for dinner and Dee in the living room playing with a baby just felt like an alternate reality where our split hadn’t happened. This was where we were supposed to be. This was what we were supposed to be doing with our lives.

Shaking it off as best I could, I made the pasta, cooking up some ground pork and using canned sauce and some dried seasonings to make the sauce. As I filled plates and set them at the table, Dee brought Rose over in her bouncy seat and sat her just beside the head of the table, meaning we would face each other as we ate.

“Wine?” I asked, pulling down the bottle that I still hadn’t opened after buying it the day I bought the cabin.

“No, thank you,” she said. “Have to drive.”

I nodded. I refrained from mentioning that the last time we were together, she wasn’t old enough to drink.

“So, Desiree?” I asked as I sat across from her.

“Yes,” she said. “She’s actually a friend of mine. Her family is one of the ones who do these big bonfires every week. Like a third of the town goes to them, it seems like.”

“I don’t think I know her.”

“Well, she’s very sweet,” she said. “She cares more about making sure the children are safe and cared for than she does the technical letter of the law, right? So, I spoke to her and kind of explained what was going on. It’s why it took me a bit longer to get here.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” I said. “I thought it was just because I’m at the top of a damn mountain.”

“That too,” she said, smiling. I felt like there was a spark there, a bit of a teasing look about living in the sticks that wouldn’t have been possible a few hours before. “She said she will do what she can to help you, but there are some hoops you will have to jump through first.”

“Legal stuff?” I asked. She nodded. “I’m fine with all that. If I can legally take custody of her then I will. My sister can’t take care of her, and if there is any way at all to keep her from going into the system, I’ll do it.”

Dee nodded again, seeming to have already assumed my position but still glad to hear it.

“Then we will go through all that,” she said. “I’ll give you her number so you can call her directly, but if you would prefer to go through me for right now, that’s fine too. I’ll see her this weekend anyway.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” she replied.

There was a somewhat awkward pause while we both took a few bites of the pasta. It wasn’t bad.

It almost felt like an awkward date. The lights had been out because of the daylight coming in through the windows, and only the overhead light of the dining room and the ceiling lights in the kitchen were on, giving our dinner a restaurant-like glow. We were both also dancing around talking about the last time we had spoken before the hospital, and it sat on us like a heavy blanket. I tried to get out from under it by utilizing small talk, which wasn’t exactly my forte.

“So, how is your sister?” I asked. “She should be in her twenties now, right?”

She nodded, an expression crossing her face somewhere between happiness and something else. Jealousy maybe?

“She is,” she said. “Getting married very soon. Great guy too. They have a baby together, who is the sweetest thing in the world. It’s one of the reasons I am so up-to-date on baby care.” She laughed. “I’ve had a crash course recently.”

“Wow. Little Malia has a baby?”

“She does,” she said. “Oh, you don’t know about her accident, do you?”

“No?”

She went over what happened with Malia and her losing her leg. It was a terrible thing, but she seemed to recover well. Her meeting Gerry so soon after seemed to help, and now they were off living their new lives. I got the sense that Dee was trying hard to focus on how happy she was for her sister and not how disappointed she was that she wasn’t moving on like Malia.