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“Mommy’s a princess,” she tells me.
I nod, agreeing wholeheartedly. “She is.” I crouch down and pet Syd’s head, then give a tug to the dress Junie’s wearing on top of her clothes. “Are you a princess, too?”
She twists from side to side then sits on the ground, her hands caressing Sydney’s tummy. “Uh-huh.”
Glancing around, I take in the stack of particle board and box of screws in the corner that I’m assuming is going to become a bookshelf or small table. I’m not completely surprised that Busy doesn’t have a lot of furniture. She did just graduate from college and had to pick up her entire life to move home, after all.
Still, though…I’m sure it would be nice to come home and be able to sit on a couch or turn on a TV. My brain scrambles over the pieces I have in the shop, wondering if I might be able to help out in some way.
“Where’s your mom?” I finally ask Junie when it seems like Busy isn’t going to appear any time soon.
Junie shrugs.
“Will you take care of Sydney for me while I go talk to her?”
She nods her head dramatically then reaches out and wraps her arms around Sydney. “Yeah.”
I grin. “Thanks, kiddo.”
I walk through the house and over to where I assume Busy’s room is, knocking twice on the door jamb as I come to a stop outside.
She looks up at me from where she’s sitting on the floor, her eyes red. It’s like a punch in the gut, seeing that, but I don’t want to bring attention to something if she doesn’t want to talk about it. Busy seems like the type to keep things close to the vest, something I understand.
I glance around, taking in the pieces of metal scattered around her, the mattress and base leaning up against the wall, and the white folded paper she’s reading that looks like directions.
“I was just going to say I’m grabbing Sydney, but…do you want some help?”
She looks back down at her instructions, and for a minute, I assume she’s going to tell me no. I’ve offered to help her severaltimes since she arrived, and she’s always turned me down with a very clear, “I can do it by myself.”
But then she surprises me when she nods. “I bought this thing online and the instructions seem easy enough but, I don’t know, maybe I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
“Hey, not a problem. Just gimme a second to grab my tools.”
I make quick work of heading outside, grabbing the smaller of my kits from the toolbox that sits in the bed of my truck, and going back in.
Busy snorts when she sees it in my hand. “I don’t think you need that. It’s supposed to all be able to fit together with just this thing.” She holds up an Allen wrench.
“We’ll see.”
Twenty minutes later, we’re still both sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor as I re-read the directions again.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I finally say out loud, not wanting to look like I have no clue what I’m doing, but also not wanting to just sit in silence anymore staring at the worst instructions I’ve ever seen.
Busy sighs and leans back against the wall. “Thank god. I thought it was just me.”
“It’s like they sent only half the partsandthe wrong instructions. I would recommend sending this back and just getting something completely different,” I offer, scratching at the back of my head. “There are probably tons of similar bed frames that will be way easier to put together than this.”
She groans and then begins crawling around on her hands and knees, collecting the pieces and shoving them back into the long cardboard box they came in.
“At least I’m off the air mattress,” she says, though part of me thinks she’s actually saying it out loud to herself more than she’s saying anything to me. “Even if itison the floor for a little longer.”
I studiously look away from where she’s bent over, instead reaching out and grabbing a few pieces myself. Once I pass them over, I push up off the floor, wincing at the way my right knee pinches. That’s new.
“Thanks for trying,” Busy says, standing as well. “I appreciate it.”
“Seriously, any time. I’mnormallya lot more competent than this.”
She smirks. “I’ll believe that when I see it. So far you can’t put furniture togetherorfigure out how your dog is sneaking out.”
