“Luna,” I said quietly before she could make her escape. “We’re not done with this conversation.”
She gave me a curt nod, her expression less than happy as she turned to walk out, and as she moved through the doorway, I could have sworn her knees were shaking.
* * *
She’d gotten lucky,either that or she’d packed my schedule so tight I barely had time to take a piss the rest of the day. Before I knew it, five o’clock had come and gone, and she’d snuck off like a goddamn coward so she could avoid the conversation. It pissed me off to no end, and I had to work hard to get that under control as I locked up the office by myself and headed to the general store to pick up my daughter.
Having spotted me through the windows, my mom scuttled out from behind the register as I pulled open the door and met me at the door.
“Everything okay?” I asked as I took in the harried expression her face. “What’s the matter? Is it Evan?”
“No.” She shook her head, looking flustered. “Well, I mean yes, but not how you think. Something happened not long after she got here.” She held up her hand to silence me when I started to ask. “I don’t know what, and I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to push, but something happened to change her disposition. She went from cheerful and on top of the world to sad and droopy. Poor girl’s hardly said more than a handful of words in the past few hours. We gave her work to do in the back so she didn’t have to deal with customers, and your dad’s been keeping an eye on her.”
My heart sank. Things had been so good for Evan the past couple weeks; I hated that something could have happened to change that. “I’ll talk to her,” I reassured my mom. “I’ll figure out what’s wrong and get her sorted out.”
She wrung her hands in front of her and blew out a relieved sigh. “Okay, good. Because I don’t want to see her go back to how it was. She’s an amazing kid. She deserves to be happy.”
I couldn’t have agreed more, and I intended to make sure that was exactly what happened. “I’ll take care of it,” I promised. “In the meantime, how about you run back and get her while I pick up a few things I need to make dinner tonight?”
Mom reached up and cupped my check affectionately. “You’re such a good dad. I’m proud of you, son.”
That worked wonders to lessen the anger I’d been holding since leaving work. Now I had to get my daughter back to rights.
As I gathered ingredients for dinner, I wondered if there would ever come a time when I could go at least a day without something going wrong.