Page 130 of The Goat Next Door

Brooks stays perfectly still, but his jaw tics. “I’m just delivering her coffee, Bernice.”

“We have perfectly good coffee right by the kitchen urn, Chief, and it doesn’t come with a side of emotional negligence,” Hazel says, stepping forward to partially block him from me.

She reaches out, patting my arm. “Emmy, sweetheart, you don’t have to tolerate his hovering. If he’s bothering you, we can have Fred and the boys relocate his bench out to the rainy parking lot where he belongs.”

“He’s like a giant bad habit,” Dotty chimes in, poking the tip of her cane right against the toe of Brooks’s heavy leather boot. “You spent all week looking like a kicked dog in the bakery window, Brooks, and now you think you can just slide onto the church benches because there’s gravy involved? You leave her be. She’s trying to eat her dinner in peace.”

Brooks lets out a long, slow breath through his nose, looking up at the three matriarchs with a mixture of profound exhaustion and total defeat.

“It’s okay, ladies,” I say, a small, breathless laugh escaping my lips as I look at the trio. “He’s fine. He can sit here.”

Bernice narrows her eyes. “Are you sure, Ember?”

“I’m sure, Bernice,” I smile. “He’s actually being remarkably well-behaved tonight. And honestly, I suppose I can try to forgive you, Chief. Mostly because I was getting incredibly bored watching you eat donuts on that bench every morning. You have terrible posture when you think no one is looking.”

Brooks’s breath leaves him in a sharp, startled laugh, his whole face opening up with a sudden, brilliant look of pure relief. “My posture is excellent, Ember.”

“It’s tragic, Brooks. Truly.” I lean across the table. “And let’s be entirely honest here—I am only doing this for Sophie’s sake. The town’s artistic community was severely suffering without my input on her glitter selection. Your ladder truck drawings were looking remarkably clinical.”

“Hey!” Sophie shouts from behind her purple glasses, hearing her name. “My fire truck is beautiful!”

“It is beautiful, sweetie,” I say, reaching across the table to give one of her pigtails a gentle, playful tug. “But your dad needs a lot of supervision before we let him handle the silver paper again.”

“He’s a dummy,” Sophie agrees, shoving a potato into her mouth with a grin.

The grandmas exchange a long, knowing look. The kind women get when they’ve successfully bullied two idiots back into love.

Bernice lowers the ladle, a small, triumphant grin spreading across her wrinkled face.

“Well,” she mutters, turning back toward the kitchen. “At least he’s finally listening to his elders. Eat your potatoes, Brooks. You look thin.”

As the trio drifts away to tend to the stew, the basement volume swells back to normal.

Brooks looks from his daughter’s messy face to mine, his eyes dark, warm, and so full of something real it makes my heart feel entirely too big for my chest.

He reaches his hand across the table, his long fingers sliding over the wood until they brush against mine, open and waiting.

I slide my fingers into his, letting his palm close over my hand.

The basement is still loud, the grandmas are still clattering their bowls in the kitchen, and the rain is still ticking against the high windows near the ceiling.

The world is still messy, dangerous, and entirely out of our control.

But as Brooks’s thumb traces the back of my hand, his eyes holding mine with that quiet, permanent certainty, I know the fifty yards between our houses are finally gone.

The door is open, the kitchen is getting warm again, and we’re both finally on the right side of the grass.

34

Brooks

“Once pride stops being useful, all that’s left is honesty.”

— Brooks

The drive back from the church basement is immensely quiet.

Sophie is asleep before we even start moving, her head tilted at an impossible angle against her car seat, the green glitter bows in her hair catching the weak, rhythmic pulse of the dashboard lights.