CHAPTER 30 #2
“I want to be with my horse and ride her every day,” Taylor whimpered. “I want to live with you and Uncle Johnny.”
“Ay, pobre conejita,” Victor said without thinking, because that’s what his father had always called him when he was a kid and ran to him crying about something or another.
He reached for the glove compartment and took out a wad of napkins collected over many years of eating at drive thrus.
He passed these napkins back to Taylor, who used them to dab at her eyes and blow her nose.
“What—what does pobe conehita mean?” Taylor said after she took a moment to compose herself.
“Pobre conejita. It means poor little bunny.”
Taylor smiled despite her swollen eyes and runny nose. “I’m not a bunny.”
“You’re right. You’re more of a jackrabbit.” Victor extended a hand for her napkins, and she gave him a few wadded up and wet with tears and snot. When Taylor’s eyes turned glossy again, Victor sighed. “I’ll talk to Johnny about this, okay? We’ll try to figure something out.”
“Okay.” Taylor gave him the rest of the napkins she hadn’t used. “I just don’t want anyone to get mad at me.”
“I’ll do my best.”
The truck shuddered as someone in the trailer grew uneasy. Probably Midnight. She was always the culprit for troublemaking. There was a reason she and Taylor got along so well.
When Victor pulled back onto the road, Taylor went back to her iPad and the trip ended the same way it had begun—in companionable silence.
However, Victor kept looking at her in the overhead mirror, wondering what the hell he was going to do about this girl when he already had his hands full with her uncle.
* * *
The next time Taylor came by to clean stalls for an hour before her lesson, Victor pulled Johnny into his office and sat him down on the couch. Johnny reached for him, perhaps thinking they were going to make out, but instead Victor stepped away and flopped onto his desk chair backwards.
“Somethin’ wrong?” Johnny asked.
“You told Taylor about us dating.”
Johnny’s expression turned wary. “You mad?”
“No, of course not. I’m glad you trust Taylor enough to tell her. I just…” Victor sighed. “She seems to think we’re going to get married and that she can move in with us.”
Johnny snorted, then laughed. “She just wants an excuse to live here around the horses.”
“She seems to think her mother and Mike don’t like her. She told me all they do is yell at her.”
Johnny sobered, rubbing his hand over his mouth a few times before sighing.
“That don’t shock me. Taylor’s always wanted to hang ‘round me in a way her siblings don’t.
I thought it was just the horse thing for a while, but you can understand why my sister might have a complex relationship with a kid whose father killed ours. ”
“And who molested her.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not Taylor’s fault.”
“No, but my sister never wanted to keep her, and Taylor kinda looks like him, even though she got the Stearns hair. Her siblings are a bit less wild, if you ask me. Taylor’s got her opinions and her way and she’ll fight you to the death about any of them.
My sister’s the same way, and that shit just don’t mix. ”
“That’s no excuse for yelling at her and spanking her until she can’t ride a horse.”
“I ain’t defendin’ my sister. I just understand how she operates.
” Johnny pursed his lips. “She also dates trash, if you ask me. Which… I mean, I can’t even blame her for that either, cuz look at the man who raised us.
I hate Mike more than anythin’, but at least he don’t beat my sister like the last one did. ”
Sometimes it struck Victor how differently he’d lived his life compared to the Stearns family.
That was most likely a result of privilege—he’d never been poor or struggling, though he’d never had the kind of money that Johnny seemed to think he’d come from.
Many of Victor’s relatives in both Mexico and the U.S.
were college educated with steady 9-to-5s and secure marriages.
If Victor weren’t stuck in the middle of nowhere with no other options, would he and Johnny would have found themselves in each other’s orbit?
He and Diego weren’t just different in temperament—Diego’s family had also been solidly middle class.
Johnny’s world of high school dropouts, alcoholics, and meth addicts couldn’t have been further away.
“Do you think…” Victor paused, wondering if he should even say anything.
He didn’t want to get involved in that family’s business because who was he except a dude who’d been dating Johnny for over a month.
But he did really care about Taylor and he thought she had so much potential in the equestrian world.
It would be a shame if it was squandered by family circumstances.
“If you’re sober now, do you think it’d be possible for you to take Taylor for a few days of the week? ”
“What, like adopt her?”
“It wouldn’t have to be formal. But I don’t think it’s great for Taylor to be in an environment where she’s crying to me about how much her mother and stepfather dislike her.”
Johnny went quiet, mouth twisted in thought as he stared at a spot above Victor’s shoulder. After a few seconds, he grunted and shook his head. “I dunno, Vic. I ain’t really cut out for parentin’.”
“You think you’d do a worse job than your sister?”
Johnny pulled his hat off to rub his forehead.
“I work long and irregular hours. I’d have to clean out the other bedroom and keep it clean, which…
you know, I ain’t good at all. I know the house looks better after y’all cleaned it out, but I’m still livin’ like a bachelor in it.
Plus I’d have to cook and all that, and I ain’t very good at it. ”
“Your sister was forced to have a baby at sixteen and babies are way harder to care for than a ten-year-old. You figure it out if you have to. No one’s good at it when they first start out.”
“You would be. You got your shit together. Maybe I should ask my sister if you can adopt Taylor. The girl practically lives here already. My sister would probably not even notice a difference.”
“I’m not Taylor’s uncle. No one’s going to trust a single man in his 30’s with a ten-year-old girl unless he’s related to her by blood.”
“I’ll just tell her you’re gay.”
“Johnny.”
Johnny snickered, then stopped when he saw the look on Victor’s face. “What? I thought you were out.”
“If you want to tell your sister we’re dating, be my guest. That’d probably be the only way she’d trust me, and even then, I doubt it’d be by much. I’m already shocked that she lets me take Taylor to horse shows without you.”
Johnny again spent a few moments of silence to look contemplative. Was he considering it? Victor had to admit that his sister’s politics were hard to read. Johnny certainly wasn’t religious, and Victor doubted she was either.
“Ain’t no way I’m gonna tell Mike,” Johnny finally said. “But my sister is… complicated.”
“Oh?”
“She ain’t enlightened or anythin’ but she ain’t hateful either. She likes you, and I don’t think knowin’ you were gay would change that at all.”
“What about you? Will you come out to her?”
Johnny shrugged, which Victor considered a non-answer. How typical.
“Can you at least talk to your sister about Taylor? Maybe you can arrange a few days a week where she lives with you. I can help you clean your place. I wouldn’t worry about cooking—ten-year-olds only want Kraft mac and cheese and Pop Tarts anyway.”
There was a knock on the office door. When Victor went to open it, there stood a sweaty Taylor with a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow full of dirty shavings. “I’m done!” she said with a gap-toothed grin.
“Wow, lightning fast.” Victor turned and gave Johnny a look. With a sigh, Johnny clapped his hands down on his knees and stood. On his way out the door, he squeezed Victor’s shoulder, but Victor had no clue if that was an answer or not.