Little Rich Boy

28

I grab the last plate out of Hadley's hands. "Hadley will you sit down, work for you today is to be a minimum." I start to scrub down the plate and run it under the water.

"Dustin you can't do it all." She huffs crossing her arms and pouting.

"And neither can you." I say putting the plate on the drying rack beside the sink. I turn to Hadley and see her face with a hint of a frown her eyes lost in thought.

"Hey," I said, "it's okay to admit you can't do it on your own. It's alright to ask for help."

Hadley sighs loudly. "It's the least I can do, I mean after.." her words get lost in the air.

I know exactly what her words mean. I can see the lost in her eyes and the hurt and guilt in her voice. I glance over to Hadley's dad and he looks focused whatever is playing on the screen. I get closer to Hadley and hold her face in the palms of my hands. "Hadley you are not responsible for anything that happened with your mom."

She can't meet my eyes. I know she thinks she needs to be the mother of the house. "It's just not fair for Oliver to not have a mother." Her voice is shaky.

"It's not exactly fair to you either, it's not fair that you skipped the whole teenager thing and jump right to being an adult."

"I had to..." I bush a pice of loose hair behind her ear.

"Well it's never to late to be a teen, even a mature one. But one condition, you gotta let me help."

She takes a second, as though processing the words before nodding her head. I kiss her gently on the forehead.

"Alrighty, now what do you say to a little grocery outing?" She smiles and nods her head again.

               *                     *                  *

"Okay first item in the list?" I ask pushing the cart in through the market doors.

Hadley unfolds a pice of paper and stares at it. "Oh you know the usual, bread, milk, cereal." She says, in much higher spirits then before we left.

I push the cart through the isles Hadley stoping me every so often to look at some stuff and placing things in the cart. A loaf of bread, some apples. Then we stop on the cereal and cookies isle. Hadley takes two boxes and is trying to decide between the two.

"Which one do you think Oliver would like more?"  She presents me with two choices, frosted flakes or cinnamon toast crunch.

"Does he like them both?" I ask resting my arms on the cart handle. She nodes. "Frosted flakes." I say to her. "I'm surprised you're not getting like shredded wheat or something healthier." I laugh out.

"Hey." She says playfully hitting my arm and placing the box in the cart. "He's been doing well in school so I though he could have a treat."

I look at her with amazement. "That's how you reward him? A box of sugary cereal?"

"Actually yes. It's better then a chocolate bar in my opinion, because then he gets a small sugary reward each day. Longer reward."

That's actually a really good idea. She always knows how to celebrate even in the simplest of ways.

"Plus it's better for the bank." She smiles.

"You make the most out of simple." I tell her as we pass a variety of crackers and rice cakes.

"I try to." She smiles placing some rice cakes in the cart. "Alright that's all we need."

The two of us continue pushing along to the cash. I help put the items on the conveyor belt. Frosted flakes, milk, bread, granola bars, rice cakes among other items.