Displaced

Timber - Forty-Seven

The rest of the party was pretty uneventful, thankfully. I met a few of the men, but we didn't get a lot of time to actually chat. They all had something to do, it seemed. Some got food for their families, others were busy regulating the kids, and the rest seemed to want something else to do besides talk to me so they went and found it. What the heck, right? Frustrating, but I got a few of them to give me contact information so we could meet up again later. They probably just didn't know what to think of me, which was fair since I didn't know what to think of them either.

"I'm gonna go shower," Chevelle said, thus leaving me alone with Lara.

How did I bring everything up? I had no experience talking to kids in a parental kind of fashion. So I tried to think of what my dad would do. He was always the most effective when it came to getting me to understand things when I was messing up. Mom just yelled and scolded and teased me. Dad, on the other hand, sat me down and we talked. Lara may have only been six, but she wasn't stupid. If we talked, she'd get it...right?

I sat down on the couch and motioned for her to come over. She did so without any hesitation, sitting right in my lap and hugging me.

"You've got a lot of friends," I said.

She nodded. "It's great! I've never known so many kids before, and the adults are all nice to me too."

"I noticed. Miss Rumor and you were pretty tight."

"She's nice. She volunteers at the school and helps with projects. I like her a lot."

I licked my lips, trying to think of how to word my next question without it coming across as an accusation. "Do you two talk a lot?"

"Yeah."

"Do you tell her things about me and Chevelle?" My tone was as light as I could manage.

Lara smiled up at me like I was some kind of a superhero. "Yeah, I tell her about my new family. How you're both great at being my new parents. She calls you Tim. Do you want me to call you that too?"

"You don't have to. It's just a nickname I use sometimes," I said. "Did you tell her that I have another name?"

She nodded. "She knows. She wasn't mad, if that's what you're wondering. The only thing she wants to know is if we're all happy. I told her we were. Even when you were fighting a lot, it was a lot better than it ever was at home."

"Does she know we were fighting?"

"No." Lara shook her head. "Mommy always told me to not talk about home problems with other adults. She didn't want anyone to take me away from her and Daddy, and she said that's what happens when you talk about those kinds of things to grown-ups. I don't want to leave either you or Chevelle. But is that what's going to happen if we find her other friend?"

"I'm not going to leave you," I said. "You're not going to go live with anyone you don't want to be with. I'm not sure what's going to happen after we get Wicken back, but it won't be bad."

Lara relaxed against me. "Okay, good. Miss Rumor said that I could live with her if something ever changed. You could too."

I squeezed my eyes shut, disgusted, because I was pretty sure Rumor was only getting so close to Lara as a means of getting close to me. What kind of a sick person did that?

"That's not going to be necessary, but it was nice of her to offer," I said stiffly. "You should probably spend more time playing with kids your age."

"Okay."

"And if Miss Rumor asks, Chevelle and I have no plans to separate, regardless of what happens with Wicken."