Chapter Six Milo
Six
Milo
I woke up to the sounds of screaming children, flat-footed footsteps running on the floorboards above my head, and the booming call of my brother’s voice to slow down!
I lay in my darkened bedroom, falling back asleep and waking and falling and waking over and over between sounds of my nieces and nephews yelling, breaking things, or crying.
There are so many kids in this house.
“Mi?” Sef’s sweet voice calls through my bedroom door before she knocks twice. “Are you decent?”
“Never, you know that,” I say back, my voice groggier than I’d expected. I sit up in bed and run two hands down my face. “But yeah, I’m dressed.”
With that, Sef opens the door but doesn’t step all the way inside. “Your brother is insisting I should let you sleep in, but we both know he’ll give you a hard time later if you don’t go with him to—”
“I’m up,” I interrupt, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and blinking them until they can open wider. “Has he left yet?”
“No, he’s just loading the truck now. You’ve got about fifteen, maybe twenty.”
“Hey, Sef?” I say, tossing the blanket off my lap, locking tired eyes with her somehow perky ones. “Is it like this every day?” I point up to the ceiling as a well-timed child yells, “ GIVE IT BACK! ”
“Pretty much.” She shrugs, adjusting the laundry basket on her hip.
“You are an actual saint.” I turn and plant my feet on the floor then bend over to stretch my neck.
“I’m a mom,” she says, correcting me.
I turn my face toward her before straightening. “The way you do it? It’s the same thing,” I say, groaning as I stand.
“It’s chaotic, sure, but then the bus comes.
And once it’s just me and Quinn…” She opens the door wider, stepping farther inside, and picks up yesterday’s bundle of clothes from beside my dresser and drops them into the hamper.
“Would you believe me if I told you I miss them when they’re at school? ”
“Believe you? Yes. Anyone else? No,” I say, reaching into the hamper to take back my clothes and drop them onto the floor once more. “I will do my own laundry, Sef.”
“Sorry, force of habit.” Her gaze moves to the sketchbook that’s lying open on my bedside table and a teasing grin forms, creasing the skin beside her moss-colored eyes. “Who’s that?”
“Someone.” I tug open my second dresser drawer.
“Well, everyone is.” She smiles at my side profile knowingly. “This wouldn’t happen to be the mystery girl your brother was telling me about, would it? Welch’s daughter?”
I take off my shirt, drop it into the pile of clothes at my feet, and reach in the drawer for a white tank, giving it a quick sniff before I throw it on. “You and Nik gossiping about me again?”
“You know, I do need some things for the house…” Sef says, spinning to face the door after I gesture for her to do so with one rotating finger out in front of me.
I drop trow as she continues rambling. “We need, uh, eggs, flour, apples, pickles…” I pull my boxers on, rolling my eyes up at the ceiling.
“Nik already told me to go over there to apologize,” I tell her, sliding into my dark blue jeans and tucking my shirt into them. “You don’t have to make a fake list.”
“I know he did. But…Do you really want to go over there after a few hours of lugging kegs and crates, smelling like sweat and hoppy beer, or would you rather go to the store first thing for your oh-so-tired, heavily pregnant sister-in-law who your brother dares not argue with?”
I fasten my belt into place, smiling at the back of Sef’s head. “You were always my favorite,” I tell her. I grab a dark gray button-down shirt from the drawer and put it on, leaving it unfastened.
“I know,” she says, her fingertips tapping rhythmically on the door before she waddles away. “The list will be on the counter upstairs!” she shouts exaggeratedly as if maybe my brother will hear her. “Thank you, Milo!”
I wouldn’t dare drive Bertha after the promise I’d made to her for a two-week rest. Instead, I take my brother’s minivan full of discarded toys and half-chewed snacks, which Sef insisted she wouldn’t need today, over to Welch’s Gas and Grocer.
Pulling up out front, there’s already two other cars in the small parking lot and one at the gas pump. It’s surprisingly busy for a Monday in September, but this is the time of year when early birds begin coming up to close their cottages for the season.
The bell above the door chimes as I walk in. A bald man behind the counter greets me with a polite nod and smile as he continues to attentively listen to the three small children at his till, purchasing ten-cent pieces of candy and listing off their favorite flavors.
I wander over to the refrigerated section, ducking below a low-hanging sign on my way. I grab three sticks of butter, then a carton of eggs, and then a gallon of milk before I realize I might need a basket after all.
“Need any help, son?” the man calls, circling around the L-shaped checkout counter. He fetches me a wire grocery basket on his way over and holds it out to me. “Pop it all in here,” he says kindly.
“Thank you,” I tell him, placing each item inside before taking it from him.
“I’m Milo,” I say, sticking out my hand.
I wait to see if my name raises any sort of reaction from him, following yesterday’s events, but see none.
“I’m Nik’s younger brother,” I add as he moves to shake my hand. “I’m here to help with the brewery.”
“Ah! Yes!” The man pats me on the arm, his smile ever widening. “I’ll tell you what, your brother and his friend make a good beer.”
“I, uh, brought you some more of it actually. It’s in the van out front.”
“Oh, no need—”
“It’s sort of a…an apology,” I interrupt, then swallow, looking out the front windows to the parking lot where I’d met his daughter.
“Yesterday, I stopped by and, well, I think I maybe caused some upset?” I see the realization wash across his face.
So she did tell him about me. That’s good.
No…wait…It’s bad? Well… “So, yeah…Apology beer.”
“Milo, right, sorry, yesterday, of course. My wife, Julia, Mrs. Welch, as you knew her…Well, she’s…” The door chimes as another customer enters, cutting him off.
“Morning, Doreen.”
The elderly woman smiles over at us, stopping to assess me with a careful, wry grin. “Morning!” she replies in an almost skeptical yet cheery tone. “I see we have some fresh meat in the store today!” She points at the fridges, but I cannot help but think she means me when she continues to stare.
Tom chuckles. “Help yourself, Dee.”
“You know I will,” she replies, winking unabashedly at me.
I raise a hand in greeting before turning my attention back to Tom. “I understand, sir.” I dip down to his height in an effort to keep my voice low. “And, I’m deeply sorry to hear she’s unwell. Mrs. Welch was, well, is, incredibly important to me.”
“Maybe you could tell me about that sometime,” he says, in a request more than a suggestion. “It’s not often I get to meet one of her students, especially one who she spoke so fondly of.”
My back straightens and I blink down at him as I take in his words. “Sh-she did?”
“Yes.” He nods, nearly laughing as if it’s obvious. “You were probably in, what would that be now, the graduating class of twenty-fourteen?”
“Yes.” I scoff in disbelief. “How did you—”
“Sorry, one moment.” He darts away to meet another customer at the counter who’s ready to check out. I turn around and search for the rest of the items on Sef’s list in disbelief.
A few minutes later, I’m lined up to check out behind a man so old that the items from his basket take near lifetimes to reach the counter.
Just as I think he couldn’t hold up the line any longer, the old man begins lifting each item to his eyeline to read its label before placing it on the counter for Mr. Welch to type in.
I’m about to offer to help him—or chuck the basket across the room—when the door behind the register opens.
Then, she walks in. With her hair somehow even more unruly than the day before, wearing loose-fitting, half-buttoned denim overalls covered in dirt and droplets of paint, and carrying a mop in hand like a sword ready for battle.
I should not find it so endearing. I should not want to put the rest of my day on hold, damn my brother and his bar, to help her with whatever mess she’s found herself in.
I should not want to rile her up again. But I do. I really, really do.
“Dad?” she calls out, fighting to close the door with her left foot. “Have you seen the mop bucket? I—” We lock eyes and, for whatever reason, I immediately avert my gaze when her stare hardens. That doesn’t usually happen.
“Hi, darling,” Mr. Welch replies, without so much as looking over his shoulder. “Yes, just give me two shakes.”
“Hello, Prudence,” the old man ahead of me greets my mystery-girl-no-more.
Prudence, yes…of course it is.
The name suits her. Her coy yet deadly stare. Her simmering, curious interest, in defiance of such a name. It’s perfect. It’s right .
“Morning, Clyde.” She grants him a smile, and I’m instantly jealous of a man who is undoubtedly on death’s doorstep. “Need some help?” she offers sweetly.
Clyde, I take it, shakes his head no. I notice that he’s picked up speed too, unloading the items from his basket haphazardly as Mr. Welch struggles to catch up. Was Clyde stalling for the chance of seeing her? I’d understand that.
“Good morning, Prudence.” I can’t help but use her name, smirking as the faintest hint of annoyance creeps over her features in response, her eyes rolling in my direction.
“Milo,” she replies curtly.
“Oh, you two have met?” Mr. Welch looks between his daughter and me. Which begs the question: How did he know about yesterday’s incident with Mrs. Welch if Prudence didn’t tell him?
“Yes, yesterday, but, actually…Sorry, Mr. Welch, I don’t think I got your name earlier.”