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I couldn't stop a snicker. "No. You're confusing."

"It's because I got the soul of a forty-five-year-old in a tiny li'l body." She said it like she'd heard it from someone else, frequently.

I hoped that was the case, at least.

"Swing!" She kicked her feet back and forth. "Swing! Swing!"

"Ahhh, yeah, okay." I pushed us into motion. "Good?"

"Mmm." She craned her little neck to look up at me. "Story!"

"About the bear?"

"Yep."

"I don't know that a story of a bear attack is appropriate for me to tell you. You might have nightmares."

"Nah. I got Lamby and Bear-Bear. And I can get into Mommy and Daddy's bed. As long as the blankets aren't moving."

I bit my lip. Did she mean what I thought she meant? I had to assume so. Not many other meanings there could be.

The woman who'd scanned the yard was finally heading this way, and I found myself praying for rescue as fervently as I had back in the bush. When she arrived at the swing, the woman turned out to be stunningly, shockingly beautiful. She had two or three inches at minimum over my five-five, and probably twenty pounds on me, most of that in her tits and ass. Her eyes were blue, her hair a natural dark copper.

"Harry, baby girl, are you bothering Miss Tea?"

"No, Mama. She just gonna tell me about the bear who ated Jax."

"Ate, sweetheart, not ated or eated. Ate. And no one was eaten.”

"Uh-huh." She couldn't care less, that said.

"Did you ask if you could sit on her lap?"

Harry just stared at her mother. "No. I don't ask no one else."

"But Miss Tea isn't your family. She may not be comfortable with you sitting on her lap."

"Oh, no, it's—" I stopped, because I wasn’t comfortable with this, but then that also seemed like a me-problem; so did I lie or what? "She's fine, really."

"You’re uncomfortable. I could tell from all the way over there." She sat down on the bench next to me and reached for her daughter—who pulled away. “C’mere, you.”

"No, Mama. I not!"

I waited to see what the mom would do—I hadn't caught her name yet.

"Harriet. Listen to me—"

The absurd little creature reached up and put her hand on her mother's mouth. "NO!" It was a shriek. "I NOT!" This was an even more deafening shriek.

"It's not worth the drama," I said. “It’s fine. She's okay."

The mom gave me a hard-to-interpret look. "Well, now it's about the principle of the thing." She plucked the child from my lap, deposited her on her own thighs facing her, clutching her daughter's little hands in one of her own, her other hand cupping the child's chin, gently but firmly. "Listen to me, Harriet Hawkins-Badd—no, you listen." This was firm, intense, even, but not angry. "First, you don't talk to me like that. Or put your hand on my mouth when you don't like what I'm telling you. I'm the mom, you're the child. Got it?”

"Yes, mama." Subdued now, but her eyes still sparkled.

"Second, when there's someone we don’t know, we need to ask before sitting on their lap. When it's one of your cousins or aunts or uncles, cool, you know they all love you. That's no problem. But Miss Tea is new. She's still learning how our whole huge crazy family operates." She put her face closer to her daughter’s, nose to nose. "So just ask first, ’kay?"

"Okay—fine." Harry pulled away from her mother and twisted to look up at me. "Can I sit on your lap, please?"