Page 150 of Her Wicker Guardian

Rachel’s parents arrive just after five. I know their faces from photographs and their voices from calls, but this is the first time we have been in the same place. Her mother hugs Rachel first and holds on long enough that Rachel has to pull back to look at her.

“I had to restrain myself from racing down there for moral support once all those TV trucks pulled up in front of your house,” her mother says.

“I know.”

Then she turns to me. “I’m Rachel’s mother. May I hug you too?”

“Yes.”

She does, briefly and carefully. Rachel’s father offers me his hand instead.

“Good to meet you, Locke.”

“Good to meet you.”

He looks past me at the bear. “You built that?”

“With Tom.”

Tom, close enough to hear, says, “I mostly held things where he told me to.”

Rachel’s father studies the bear for another second, then nods at me. “I’ve heard good things.”

Rachel says, “Do not encourage him before you’ve been here ten minutes.”

Her father smiles. “Too late.”

A woman stops to ask for a picture with me, and I say yes. A teenage boy wants to know whether I can lift a truck, and I tell him probably.

His mother looks horrified. “Do not ask strangers to lift trucks.”

“I’m not a stranger,” I tell her. “He told me his name.”

People are still looking at me, but they do not all look the same way. Some keep their distance. A few stare too long. One man walks past the bear, sees me, and changes direction without pretending otherwise.

Most of them, though, keep walking toward me. That matters.

Rachel appears beside me carrying two paper trays. “Food.”

I look down at them. “What kind?”

“One of them is supposedly barbecue.”

“Supposedly?”

“You’ll understand.”

I take the tray she offers me. She has learned not to explain every new thing before I ask.

We find a place on the edge of a planter where we can still see the bear. Rachel finishes her fried potatoes first, then reaches over and steals one of mine.

“You had your own.”

“I ate mine.”

“That sounds like poor planning.”

“It sounds like relationship taxation.”