Tanner sniffs and wipes the back of his hand across his nose. He looks to his brother. Elijah, being ten to Tanner’s nine, is the leader. With his okay, Tanner nods.
“Cause…See…I was testing out my robotic arm egg collectin’ system, the eggs came down the chute, and the arm, it’s like that claw in the toy machine, ’cept it actually grabs the eggs, it doesn’t rip you off, and then the pulley was supposed to open the gate just enough to drop the egg in the basket, but Billy snuck through the opening cause he doesn’t have bones, he’s liquid, and he knocked the basket over, and all the eggs got cracked, so Elijah and I were getting the eggs, and Billy ran past, and Shay was pushing the front door open with her head to see what the noise was about, because she’s curious since she’s a cat, and Billy ran past her, and then…” He stops talking when Elijah elbows him.
I’m beginning to see exactly what happened. Tanner looks exceptionally proud, even though there’s a rooster on our breakfast table and all our fresh eggs are cracked, so I expect his pulley robot thingy worked. Granny Allwright keeps giving him metal scraps from the junk yard, and he keeps building more and more contraptions.
“Good job on the robotic arm.”
Tanner and Elijah grin.
Billy clucks. I lunge forward, swipe him off the table in one quick grasp. He pecks me, a quick, hard hit against the bare skin of my arm and I bite my tongue at the painful sting. That’s gonna bruise. He flaps and squawks and wriggles, like he’s in a fight to the death. I hold his wings down at his sides and press him against my body, trying to limit his movements.
“Settle down. I’m not gonna eat you. Today. Ornery old coot.”
“She got him!”
Tanner and Elijah let out a loud cheer and Shay meows her approval, hopping up on a chair to have a look. The boys lead the way, Shay follows on all fours, and in the backyard, we close Billy back in the coop with the hens.
Down the mountain, I hear the rumble of the school bus. Sound travels here—you can hear Granny Allwright singing in her garden in the mornings even though she lives two miles up the mountain—but by the sound, I know the bus is only a few minutes down the road.
“The bus! Shovel that breakfast in, get your backpacks, and your shoes, and—”
The kids take off, even Shay forgets to be a cat and runs after her brothers. When I make it to the kitchen, breakfast is already gone. Oatmeal is smeared on Shay’s face. I wipe her red cheeks and kiss her on the nose.
Tanner and Elijah race through the kitchen, hopping into their shoes. There’s a hole in Elijah’s left shoe, right at the tip, and I see his white sock poking through. The bus honks. It’s at the end of the drive.
“Bye Mom!”
“Bye!”
“Love you!”
They run out the door, Elijah the fastest, Tanner right after him, and Shay’s little legs spinning wildly to keep up, her hand-me-down blue camo backpack thumping against her back. I glance around the kitchen, at the dirty dishes, the spilled oatmeal and milk, and the feathers and dust motes still floating in the breeze from the opening and slamming front door. The kitchen may smell comforting, and you might be tempted to relax, but it’s an illusion. This place is the eye of the hurricane, the deceptive quiet between the chaos of the past and the chaos of the future.
I sigh at the mess and think, someday, someday I’ll have a moment to give it a good clean. I’ll have a minute to fix the faucet that shoots jets of water every which way when you turn it too far to the left. I’ll tighten the loose knobs on the cupboards. I’ll get a stove that doesn’t need me to light the pilot light every time I cook. I’ll mend the torn screen in the windows. Then I’ll move on to the rest of the house. Fix all the things. Someday.
But not today.
The whooshing of the airbrakes on the bus hisses and the door closes. I wave from the kitchen window, as the yellow bus pulls down the road. I can barely make out Shay’s pigtails, or as she calls them, cat ears, as she climbs into the front seat. Tanner and Elijah run toward the back.
I rub a hand down my face and consider a shower.
But the kitchen clock reminds me that I don’t have time. I have to get the sculpture over to Gavin Williams’ cabin before his fiancée or wife or whatever she is arrives. His directions were clear in his email. Deliver the sculpture this morning before ten a.m.
Leave without disturbing the house or the occupants.
Payment upon delivery.
For that kind of money, I’ll follow his directions to the letter. Even if it means I’m dressed in dirty overalls, covered in chicken feathers, and I smell like chicken poop, scratch seeds, smoke, and oats.
I shrug. Bobby would’ve told me chicken poop is nature’s finest beauty treatment. I’ll go with that.
Besides, today is the first day of the rest of my life. And from here on out, it’s going to be a good one.