Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“How’s your missing appendix?”
“Fine.” He came to stand beside us, eyes going straight for the notebook I’d been in the middle of writing in.
I angled it toward him so he could see what I’d written. “I meant to tell you that you could play . . . music . . . in the garage any time you want. It won’t bother me at all,” I said.
The teenager’s gaze flicked toward the man sitting there. “I’m grounded,” the teenager admitted. “Dad said I can start going into the garage again soon if it’s okay with you.”
“It’s totally okay.” I smiled. “I brought some muffins if you want one.” I gestured to the container in the center of the table.
“You got five minutes left,” Mr. Rhodes interjected suddenly.
Shit. He was right. “Well . . . just finish telling me what you don’t recommend then.”
He did.
And I wrote down just about everything he said. Only when he’d stopped talking did I set my pen down, close my notebook, and smile at both of them. “Well, thank you for helping me. I really appreciate it.” I pushed back from the chair and stood up.
Both of them just kept on watching me silently. Like father, like son, I guess. Except Mr. Rhodes didn’t seem shy—just grumpy or guarded, I couldn’t tell yet—and Amos did.
“Bye, Amos. Hope you keep feeling better,” I said as I backed away from the table. “Thank you again, Mr. Rhodes.”
The stern man undid his arms, and I was pretty positive he sighed again before muttering, sounding so reluctant his next words surprised the shit out of me. “Tomorrow, same time. Thirty minutes.”
What!
“You’ll answer more questions?”
He dipped his chin, but his mouth was pressed down on the sides in a way that said he was already second-guessing himself.
I backed up some more, ready to run before he changed his mind. “You’re the best, thank you! I don’t want to wear out my welcome but thank you, thank you! Have a good night! Bye!” I shouted before basically running toward the door and closing it behind me.
Well, I wasn’t going to be any kind of expert at anything any time soon, but I was learning.
I should call my uncle and dazzle him with everything I’d learned. Hopefully tomorrow someone would come in and ask something about fishing so I could answer them correctly. How great would that be?
Chapter Seven
It was during one of our rare slow moments at the store that Clara finally sidled up next to me and said, “So . . .”
I tipped my chin up at her. “So?”
“How do you like Pagosa so far?” was what she decided to ask.
“It’s good,” I answered carefully.
“You gotten around? Seen some of the sights again?”
“I’ve driven around a little.”
“You been to Mesa Verde?”
“Not since that field trip half a century ago.”
She rattled off the names of a couple more tourist activities that we had pamphlets for in the corner of the shop. “Been to the casino?”
“Not yet.”
She frowned and leaned a hip against the counter. “What have you been up to on your days off then?”
“Not going anywhere fun, apparently. I’ve done a little hiking”—not enough—“but that’s about it.”
Her face went a little pale at my mention of the H-word, and I knew her mind had gone to the same place mine had. My mom. Once we’d reconnected online, we had never actually brought up . . . what happened. It was the elephant in the room in most conversations that could be turned around and tied into her disappearance. It always had been. When I’d lived with my aunt and uncle, they had purposely avoided any movie or show about missing persons. When that movie about the man who had gotten his arm stuck had come out, they had changed the channel so fast, it had taken me a couple days to figure out what they’d been doing.
I appreciated it, of course. Especially for probably the first decade afterward. And every time I’d had a bad day in the time after that.
But I didn’t want the people I cared for having to walk on eggshells because of me. I was doing better dealing with it all, for the most part. I could talk about it without the world falling out beneath my feet at least. My therapist had helped me get there.
But she seemed to realize she’d reacted because her expression lasted about a second before she said, “I’m not much of a hiker or a camper anymore, but Jackie is when she’s in the mood. You need to get out while the weather is good and see some things.”
“I just started hiking again, and I haven’t gone camping in twenty years.”
Her expression changed once more, and I knew she was thinking about my mom again, but just as quickly, she recovered. “We should do something. What are you doing on Monday? I haven’t been to Ouray in a while.”