Hidden Valley (D. SWING)

X. Monroe and Kennedy

We moved in sync, with ease and grace making the union way stronger, way tighter, than anyone could've expected. I never played house with a girl before but I doubt it would've been this easy with anyone else.

"You stupid," Paulette gleefully squeals. Kitty laughed into her bowl as Evelyn failed to conceal her chuckle. All I did was explain how I almost burned down the Hailey's house the day Papa Cliff tried to teach me to grill. "Oh!" Clarity hits my best friend. "I meant to ask if you're still going to Lucy's engagement party," she asks, picking up her glass of Kool-Aid.

"I forgot about that until I bumped into somebody today." She skeptically eyes me, her drink to her lips. "I actually gotta' talk to you about that one later." We slide past it in attempt to avoid killing the dinner for the entire table.

Kitty asks, "Ev, you been in your room yet? There's a surprise for you."

"No," mumbles Evelyn. "May I be excused?" Pleading eyes wander up to Paulette as she begs to be freed from the shackles of sitting at the dinner table. Paulette's nod grants her release. "Excuse me." Evelyn lifts from the table and makes a swift exit.

After thirty minutes, a knowing mental exchange between the women of the house clears myself as well. I follow after Evelyn in delay as the two older sisters wrap up everything in the kitchen. It evens things out because I'd cleaned it before they started cooking. Upstairs, Evelyn's door is open. The only source of light in her bedroom rests on her nightstand. In her night gown, she crawls underneath the baby blue comforter on her bed, hugging the brand new Care Bear I bought her hours ago. Hesitantly approaching her four walls of refuge, I stop at her door frame to lean against it. I want to give her space.

"Do you like it?"

Evelyn glances up at me. "Yes." I take my time as I slowly enter the room step by step. I don't want my presence to be overwhelming. "Thank you, Don," she meekly mumbles.

"I didn't leave you behind on purpose, Ev. I wanted to say bye but I really had to go. I was going to call you when I got settled in New York," I tell her. "I really wanted to say goodbye to you and that's why I came. Letty told me you weren't hea' so I had to just go."

"She told me," says Evelyn, my gift clutched to her chest. I take her indulgence in the conversation as a safety cue that allows me to sit at the far right edge of her bed, my legs facing the door though my torso rotates to face her. Evelyn sits up, saying, "I don't want you to go to New York, Don."

Out of everyone I've talked to, Evelyn is the first one to tell me she doesn't want me to while everybody else encouraged me to go for it and if someone else has spoken against it, it must've not mattered to me the way Evelyn's statement does. I can't repeat it enough but we are tied together forever. That's what happens when a tragic event occurs and leads to you and the same little girl you should have been carefully watching both sitting in the hospital with matching gowns. If you don't go insane, your protectiveness of them would shoot through the roof too. It should, shouldn't it? If Evelyn says she wants me to jump then all I want to know is how high. Scream. Well, how loud? I know I'm not the only one whose experienced something like this before.

The world is her's if I can give it to her... But I can't do that yet. How the hell am I supposed to tell her that?

"I have to, Evelyn. I signed a contract. I'm going to New York at the end of the month." I hate disappointing people. It makes me feel like a failure, like I'm unreliable and a failure... Like I'm not a man of my word. "But I won't be gone forever and I'm staying here until I go."

"Promise?"

Nodding, I take my oath. "I promise."

With nothing left to say, I see my way out. Kitty finishes up her workings around the main floor of the home until she kisses Paulette a good night as her farewell. Left alone with only the two of us, we settle down on the couch. I don't know what's playing on the television, it's only noise as the two of us sketch out the grocery list, balancing to fit the budget her parents gave when they left the money behind in a small white envelope prior to leaving town.