Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 24935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
“I like it,” he says with a shrug. “My dad was stationed in really hot places quite a bit, so I like the cooler weather.”
“Your dad was military?”
I have a plate of meats and cheeses, along with olives, pickled veggies, crackers, and spreads, and we begin digging into the food.
“Army,” Zeke confirms around a bite of salami. “Career Army. He was a lieutenant colonel when he retired and was well-liked and respected.”
“Was he strict?”
“Oh, yeah. But not in a mean or heavy-handed way. I just always knew what he expected of me and didn’t really put up much of a fight because he was gone a lot, and it was just me and my mom. My mom is kick-ass, so doing my share around the house never bothered me.”
“Are you still close to them?” I love hearing about Zeke’s childhood and his relationship with his parents.
“Sure. We talk about once a week. I’m trying to convince them to come here for the holidays, but we’ll see. Mom’s afraid to fly, and they’ve been living in Virginia since Dad retired.”
“That would be a long drive,” I agree with a nod.
“What about you?”
“I don’t mind flying.”
He grins and reaches out to playfully tug on a piece of my hair.
“Are you close to your parents?”
I pop a sprig of pickled asparagus into my mouth, thinking about my answer. “I love them, sure. Am I close to them? Not really. Though not in a bad way. I just don’t see them often.”
“Where do they live?”
“Here in town.” He lifts an eyebrow, and I shrug in response. “It was a…different kind of childhood.”
“In what way?”
I blow out a breath and watch the water roll and churn with the waves beating on the sand. When I was young, I sometimes thought I was the sand, and life was those waves, because it always felt like I could never catch a break.
“Okay, so, I’m not looking for sympathy here. This is just how it was.”
“Got it.” He nods, listening.
“My family was really poor. Like, really poor. My parents were never going to send me to college, buy me my first car, or help me get my first house. They couldn’t pay for their own life, let alone even think about helping me with mine. Which is totally fine. I don’t need the help, I’m just explaining.”
“I understand,” he says, still nodding and chewing.
“They never tried to hide the fact that they were broke to me. I knew when the electricity went out, it likely wasn’t because of a storm, it was because they couldn’t pay the bill. We used food banks and pantries, and I never had new clothes. In fact, shopping for new school clothes meant making a trip to the thrift store. But my mom always tried to sew what we bought in different ways so that it was new for me. Does that make sense?”
“Sure.”
There’s no judgment at all on his face, no censure or disgust, and I feel perfectly safe confiding in him.
“One time, when I was in the fifth grade, I went to school, and a little girl who doesn’t live here anymore pointed at my new-to-me shirt and said, ‘That was mine!’ I was so fucking embarrassed. I went home crying, and my mom swore she’d do better to make the clothes look different. She was great with a sewing machine. Anyway, we depended on the goodwill of others a lot.”
“Were your parents unable to work?”
“They worked, but I think they were in this horrible cycle of not making much money, and something always came up. The car would break down, or taxes would come due. Always something. I can’t even tell you how many times we had to move in the middle of the night because they couldn’t pay the rent, and we had to skip out on the landlords.”
“That must be hard to do in Huckleberry Bay. It’s a tiny town.”
“For sure. I think people knew their circumstances and didn’t try very hard to get their money out of them. Maybe because they had me, I don’t know. And I also have to say, my parents are good people. They never hurt me, neglected me, or abused me. I felt loved, and we laughed a lot. But it also instilled in me some anxiety about being poor. I will not live like that ever again, so I’m pretty frugal. Montana says I’m an old lady about a lot of things, but—”
“But you had to be the adult,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah. I got a job when I was fourteen, and I’ve worked ever since. That helped my parents a lot because I was able to pay some of the bills.”
Now, his jaw hardens. “You paid the bills as a teenager?”
“Some of them. We didn’t lose electricity again or have to move in the middle of the night. So, I was happy to do it.”