More Than Neighbors. Janice Kay Johnson

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      Her blood pressure rose just thinking about it. She found herself not folding fabrics as carefully as she should before piling them onto shelves.

      New start. Who cared what those teachers had implied?

      Once she felt calmer, she took a break to see how Mark was coming along, and found that he had chosen, big surprise, to get his animal figurines and books displayed rather than the rocks and minerals and his few precious fossils. The figurines had to be anatomically correct to join his collection, of course. He could and did pick any one up and talk endlessly about it. Only a few days ago, while he was carefully wrapping each before setting it in a box, he’d lectured her about what made an emu different from an ostrich.

      Answer: emus were native to Australia, ostriches to Africa, the coloring was different, an ostrich was larger and faster. In fact, it was the world’s fastest two-legged animal, clocking in at forty miles an hour while emus trailed at only thirty miles an hour. And, he had added earnestly, just as he had the last time she heard the same lecture, ostriches only have two toes on each foot, while emus have three.

      “Ostriches are the only members of the ratite family with two toes, Mom,” he had informed her, as if this was a fact that should make her shake her head in wonderment.

      And yes, she already knew that kiwis, rheas and cassowaries also belonged to the family.

      Ciara knew, God help her, a whole lot she wished she could forget.

      And so what if he was fascinated by two-toed birds instead of who the current NBA leading scorer was? She couldn’t believe the mothers of most twelve-year-old boys shared their sons’ enthusiasms, whatever they were.

      “Groceries,” she announced, after admiring the ranks of creatures displayed by species and family on the shelves of a tall bookcase.

      “Yeah! But we can stop next door first, right?”

      Ciara ruffled his hair. “Right.”

      Which meant that, ten minutes later, she turned into the driveway just past the next mailbox on their rural road. Weirdly, it was paved, a blacktop smoother than the road. Hers, two dusty strips separated by a hillock of sturdy wild grasses, was more typical, from what she’d seen. This made for a nice change, though, and didn’t raise a plume of dust behind her Dodge Caravan.

      She braked beside the farmhouse, which was in considerably better shape than the one she had just bought. Personally, Ciara thought it could be improved by a more imaginative use of color. Once she got around to having their house painted, it wouldn’t be white, that was for sure.

      “We should ring the doorbell,” Mark said.

      “It doesn’t look like anyone ever uses the front door,” Ciara said doubtfully.

      “I’ll go ring it anyway.” Without waiting for an answer, he loped across the neatly mowed lawn and bounded onto the porch. A minute later, he came back. “No one is here.”

      There weren’t any visible vehicles, it was true. The doors on both barns as well as a couple of outbuildings were closed.

      “We’ll try again on our way home from town,” she suggested. “Maybe they’re at work.”

      “Do you think they have kids?”

      She glanced at him, trying to decide whether he sounded wary or hopeful. Given how much trouble he had making friends, she’d expect wary. She hadn’t said to him, Let’s move somewhere so isolated, you won’t have to interact with other kids your age at all, but that had been her goal. At least, until she could introduce him to others in a controlled way.

      “No idea,” she said. “Mr. Garson didn’t say.” Mr. Garson was the Realtor she’d dealt with. She wished now she’d asked more about the nearest neighbors, but it was a little late. “Come on, let’s go do our shopping.”

      Goodwater had a dusty charm and an old-fashioned Main Street with the type of independent businesses that had vanished from larger towns, including hardware, appliance and clothing stores, a pharmacy, a sporting-goods store with a large banner in the window promising Uniforms for All Local Teams and a special on soccer shoes. Ciara stole a look at Mark, who was gazing with interest at the sidewalks, stores and cafés. Would he like to play soccer? She couldn’t imagine. His feet had grown even faster than the rest of him. He literally tripped over them. Maybe something this fall...

      The grocery store turned out to be adequate. More expensive than Ciara was used to, but that wasn’t unexpected. It might be smart to plan a trip every few weeks to stock up at a Costco or Sam’s Club or suchlike in Spokane. She could make an outing of it for both of them.

      In the frozen-food aisle, a plump woman about Ciara’s age stopped her cart to smile at them. “You must be visitors. We don’t get many strangers here.”

      “I just bought a house. I’m Ciara Malloy, and this is my son, Mark.”

      “Hello, do you have a horse?” Mark asked.

      The woman laughed. “No, but half the people hereabouts do. I’m Audrey Stevens. I live right in town. My husband is an attorney, if you come to need one.”

      Ciara smiled. “Not yet, fortunately.”

      “Do you have a dog?” Mark asked.

      “Yes, a small one. Since our yard isn’t very big,” she explained, probably in response to his expression. Mark thought dogs ought to be large. He couldn’t understand why anyone had bred a perfectly good animal to be purse-size.

      Since he tended to be literal, Ciara was pleasantly surprised that he’d held off reminding her that she’d promised they would get a dog as soon as they moved. After all, in his mind, the move had probably been complete the minute they drove up to the house last night.

      “Which house did you buy?” the friendly woman asked, reclaiming her attention.

      “It’s on acreage. We dealt with the former owner’s son. Um...something Walker. I think the owner was Ephraim Walker. The name stuck in my head.”

      “So would Ephraim, if you’d known him. He was the original cranky old man. One of my husband’s best clients. Ephraim liked to sue people.”

      Ciara chuckled at that, trying to imagine excuses to file a lawsuit. “He must have been popular.”

      “Oh, he wasn’t so bad when he was younger,” Audrey said tolerantly. “Who wouldn’t get cranky if they lived into their nineties? I’ll bet the place needs work.”

      “Yes. Can you recommend any local contractors?”

      Audrey could. Seeing Mark’s restlessness, Ciara accepted Audrey’s phone number so that she could call later, when she had paper and a pen in hand. Maybe she could find someone to mow the pastures a couple of times a year, too. Or would anyone be interested in renting the pasture? Of course, it would be hard to keep Mark away from any four-footed creature who lived on their own property.

      Pleased by the idea of making a friend, Ciara moved on, buying generously. As skinny as he was, her son had an enormous appetite.

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