Page 72 of Jael

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Page 72 of Jael

“Prohibition.”

“Right. When alcohol was illegal. I found a fossil there, once. It was just a fern. Er, a palm frond? I have it in my bedroom and can show you. Did you ever go camping there when you were my age?”

“What age is that? Sometimes I think you’re older than I am,” Logan said.

“Mom says that, too.” Biyen snickered and stuck his hand in hers, definitely still her little boy for a little longer. “Did you?”

“Go camping? No, we didn’t do things like that. Too much work to be done around here.” His voice was even, his profile difficult to read in the light of the half moon.

“Trystan did. He told me,” Biyen said.

“Trystan went camping with his mother and her relatives. I always stayed here with my mom and dad. You know Glenda, don’t you? She’s my mom and she used to be married to our dad, Wilf.”

“Uh-huh. I know.”

Sophie’s heart panged as she had a flashback to those times when Reid and Trystan were absent, visiting their mothers. Logan had always struck her as very lonely at those times, relegated to painting at the lodge or sweeping in the machine shop or filling potholes with gravel, struggling under the weight of a shovel.

“Sometimes I wish my mom and dad lived together,” Biyen said.

Sophie’s breath rushed out as that knife went in.

“You were only joking about not giving Mom a day off for Fun Day, right?”

“I was joking, yes,” Logan confirmed.

“Good. I’ll get the fossil to show you.” He ran into the house as they neared the porch.

“Does he ever wind down?” Logan asked wryly.

“You wanted to stay in that playroom. You’re free to make other choices.”

“I wasn’t complaining, just asking.”

Biyen’s crashing entry had woken Gramps where he had fallen asleep in his recliner.

“You’re back.” He patted a yawn.

“We are. Did you take your blood pressure pill, Gramps?” Sophie checked the pill dispenser marked with the days of the week and found his pill inside the section marked Sunday.

She brought it to him with a glass of water, then interrupted Biyen who was determined to leaf through every page of his fossil book.

“You can show Logan the rest tomorrow, champ. You need to hit the shower. Your feet are filthy enough to grow potatoes between your toes.”

“Peas,” he corrected. “My toes are too little for potatoes.”

“And then the vines would climb all over you!” She came up behind him and attacked with tickling hands down his front, making him wiggle and giggle.

When she released him, he slapped the book closed and went into the bathroom, turning to yell from the door, “Are my shark bajamas clean?”

He still called them bajamas with ab.

“I’ll get them.” She ran down to the basement for the basket of fresh laundry and came back to set his pajamas on the lid of the closed toilet, catching him singing George Ezra’s Shotgun.

When she came back to the kitchen, she overheard Gramps saying, “Hell, no. I’m not climbing into a bilge at my age.”

“I was thinking the hardware store.”

“Sophie said you hired Eunice Houstie’s grandson.”


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