Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71246 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71246 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“But a futurist has to think about what if there is wind or rain or snow. That is sort of where Pops trained my mind to go. Like, that was the things my pops taught me as the oldest child, to look ahead. The oldest child has to be the most prepared. The oldest child has to protect everybody. They have to, to the best of their ability, do all that.
“And it is a smart thing to do it that way too; because they are usually stronger and more experienced. I was only a year older than Sebastian, but that was my role. I had to figure out that my role was to figure out what was coming down the pike and figure out how I was going to take care of everybody.”
“Did Seb build a good design?”
“Yeah, surprisingly, he was really good. He was actually super geeky about it. He liked it so much he wanted to go to the library. He wanted to see books about forts and treehouses. He wanted to make a ramp to the top of the fort. He wanted to do stuff that was fun, but also smart. These days, we call it ‘engagement’. He built in activities for engagement–some of which we didn’t even discover until Rem came along.
“Even though it was a ground floor fort, set up against a tree, he decided it still needed a rope swing and a place where we could hide snacks and stuff. That it needed some sort of latch to keep people out. That it needed a weapons armory for big nerf guns, we did not even own yet. Those sorts of things are what he thought of. So, then it was way more fun than just putting a box out in the yard and cutting a hole in it for a window. Like I said, slapping up boards together and putting nails in could have worked, and it would have lasted for two days, a month at best, instead, that fort is still in existence today.”
I shake my head and grin, recalling the last time we were all in it, drinking beers, barely able to fit all three of us. It was when Kayla, Rem’s kid, was born. We always went out there to celebrate when one of them had a new baby.
“It wasn’t, you know, rocket science. But it held up. We played in that fork for years and years, and then Rem did after we were grown and out of the house.”
“What about your mom?”
Jude’s voice was low and quiet. Timid almost. I cut my eyes toward her as my breath caught sharply in my chest. I was not expecting that question. Which side of my mom am I going to tell her about? The sweet side, I grew up with, the mom I loved, or the one who I haven’t talked to in years because she left our family out of nowhere?
“When I was a kid, I thought she was the greatest mom in the world. Her laugh filled the room. She had this way of turning her head so it would not be too loud in your ear, but it stretched full into whatever space we were in, all the way to the walls, and up to the ceiling, no matter how high. I bet it brushed past leaves on trees, too. It was full, powerful–heart filling. If she laughed, you automatically felt loved. And her arms, well, they were always open to me. To all of us.”
“She also smelled good. I remember it was flowers and apple pie. I don’t know what kind of flowers, but sweet ones. Pretty ones. I also remember when I was really little, she sewed my teddy bear back together when it was torn.
Suddenly, Jude leans forward, face in her hands just above her knees, and starts weeping. The kind of lost soul sort of weeping like when someone dies. The impact of it thunders through me, and yet for one brief moment, I can’t do anything but stare at her.
10
Jude
It washes over me out of the blue. I am listening to his fort story, which I love, but then I make the horrible mistake of asking about his mom.
The things he says about her–all so lovely–are deep daggers right into the center of my heart. His mother was all the things mine wasn’t. The mother everyone should get.
It broke me. All I can do is sob and sob and sob. The grief is insurmountable.
I remember too many things, too many dark moments where my mother wasn’t my mother, where my mother was just my father’s beaten-down wife. No protector. Not for me.
What I remember most is not having parents. I remember not being loved. I remember being shown off at church when they had dolled me up into the ugliest dresses imaginable. They were two people who owned me and ruled every area of my life, but they were not parents, and certainly not family.