It killed me that she was so fixated on my niece. I understood it, to a degree, but I worried about how it would all play out once she’d met Etta. The sweet baby girl wasn’t her father, and treating her as a stand-in wasn’t right. It wasn’t that I thought my mom was doing it on purpose—I didn’t even think she realized what she was doing—but it still worried me.
“I’ll let her know after everyone leaves,” my dad said, giving me a small nod. “If you don’t want the interrogation, you might have to leave the rest of your dinner.”
I chuckled a little, but nodded back. If I went back inside, I’d never be able to leave without telling everyone at the table exactly what my phone call had entailed. Unfortunately, I’d only gotten halfway through my dinner, but the rest of it wasn’t worth the headache.
I gave my dad a hug, holding him for an extra few seconds as I remembered the first time I’d willingly touched him—nearly two years after I’d moved in—and left. The man had been watching out for me in small ways and big ways since before I’d even acknowledged his presence, and as I rode home through the woods, I wondered if I’d ever get to step into that role for someone else.
* * *
A few hours later, after eating half a package of Oreos and ignoring calls from pretty much everyone in my family, I got a picture message from Morgan. It was kind of dark, but I could still see Etta curled up on her side, with her thumb in her mouth, halfway inside a moving box that was tipped on its side. The caption read, “Finally figured out a way to keep her occupied…then she fell asleep ten minutes later. Fail or win? You decide.”
I laughed out loud and saved the photo on my phone, making it my screen saver before I texted back.
She was occupied for ten minutes AND put herself to sleep for the night. Definite WIN.
I swear to God, she unpacked half of the stuff I packed today. LOL. I need to start taping the boxes right away instead of waiting until I have the tape handy.
I smiled and muted my TV so that I wasn’t distracted.
Still don’t need my help?
Nope! I’ll pack more while she’s sleeping. I’ll be done with everything by the time she wakes up in the morning.
Damn. Pulling an all-nighter huh? You’re going to be tired tomorrow.
I’ll be okay. It should only take a few more hours.
I glanced at the clock and grimaced. It was almost eleven o’clock already.
When are you getting the moving truck? And what are you going to do with your car?
Tomorrow, and pull it behind me. LOL. I can’t leave her behind, she’s been a loyal transporter. Plus, I’ll need wheels when we get to Sac. My dad rides a Harley—no room for a car seat on one of those.
Keep me posted on the move? I knew that the question sounded like a good-bye, and I didn’t text anything more. I didn’t want to stop talking to her, but hell if I was going to interrupt her packing when she was already going to have to be up all night.
Sure. We should be there by late tomorrow night…and then I’m going to have a drink. A big one. LOL
I didn’t text back, but I didn’t turn up the volume on my TV, either. I hated the idea of her driving a moving truck all the way to Sacramento on only a few hours of sleep. I believed her when she said she was fully capable—it didn’t have anything to do with that—it just went against every instinct I had to watch her do it alone. The women in my family were as strong and capable as the men in every way that mattered. I’d known that from the beginning, and had been reminded of that fact my entire life. But the men in my family would never sit idly by while the women moved/hauled/unpacked their house alone. Hell, Ani was one of the most independent people I’d ever met—man or woman—and we still went over to her house to help her fix it up. I’d painted and sanded more things in her place than in my own.
For about an hour I sat there, wondering if there was any way that I could get Morgan to change her mind and wait one more day so that I could fly down and help her. An entire hour.
When I finally realized what an idiot I was being, I stood up and stretched as if that would make the rationalizations in my head disappear. I was being an idiot. A nosy, pushy, idiot—even if it was only in my own head. Acting like that worked for some men, my cousins and brother in particular, but that wasn’t me. I stepped in when I was needed, but I didn’t try to make decisions for other people or convince them that I was right. Besides, I’d barely talked to Morgan since I’d left California. She wasn’t my responsibility by any stretch of the imagination.