Page 28 of Well Aware

She spoke.

Quite a bit as long as she wasn’t addressing someone directly.

But it was still a stunning feeling to hear her speak to you directly.

“You ready to go, Worm?”

“Yes,” she answered instead of signing.

Magnolia and my eyes met over the top of Iris’s as she stood and started walking to her things.

Her backpack and coat had been brought to my office after I’d helped her and another one of the little girls off the bus around mid-afternoon. As part of the compensation for the Cowgirls, we had a car service that would run and do pick-up and bring the kids to the stadium.

Usually, the daycare worker would get them off, but I’d already been in the parking lot when the bus had arrived early.

I’d gotten them off and grabbed both of their backpacks and lunch boxes.

The other little girl’s father picked her up before I’d even gotten them inside, leaving me alone with Iris. When I’d dropped her off in the daycare, I’d kept her stuff with me, knowing where she’d end up at the end of the day.

“What are y’all having for dinner tonight?” I asked.

Magnolia and Iris had a full-on four-course meal on the last day of the week that they didn’t have a game that Iris told me all about on Mondays.

She started signing away, and I watched her rapid hand movements with a small smile on my face.

“What did she say?” Magnolia asked.

“Something about chicken stuffed with ham and breaded,” I answered.

She shook her head. “I thought we were doing million-dollar spaghetti and bread.”

“Looks like you have a change of heart on your hands,” I teased as I too got up to gather my stuff.

Tonight, I was going home to my empty house with my sad, never-cooked-in-the-kitchen, and heating up a microwave dinner.

Maybe I’d make some ramen…

I walked out with them, wondering how someone could ever say, “I don’t want this.”

At forty-two years old as of last week, Magnolia and Iris were exactly what I wanted out of life.

We spilled out into the parking lot and my heart sank.

Not because I didn’t want them to go—because that was obviously the case.

But because my sister and father were standing beside my car, obviously waiting on me.

Magnolia, sensing the tension in me now, looked up and around, stopping when she spotted the two figures at the back of the lot.

“Your family?” she asked, squinting.

“My dad and sister,” I confirmed.

I’d started parking in the back of the lot after I realized how unsafe it was for women to be parking in the back where my sister had wanted them to park.

“Sorry your night just went to shit.” She wrinkled her nose. “Have a good one, Beau.”

It was nice that she was able to kind of sort of keep an open mind.