Page 6

“Show up on time, be honest with her, and treat her well,” Oliver explained. “She really is a good person. If you behave like a rational adult, which I know you can, the two of you will be fine.”

I sighed and fell backward onto the bed, my back bouncing softly against the mattress. “Why does she even want to work with me? I don’t get it. It’s been four years.”

Oliver shrugged. “Maybe it’s a last-chance kind of thing.”

I looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re serious?”

He laughed. “No. But you really need to get over this idea that she’s evil and has it out for you.”

“What can she teach me, anyway? I know she edits and manages the articles, but she’s not a journalist,” I argued. Okay, I was pouting, which was immature, but it felt right in the moment.

Oliver’s lighthearted expression grew serious. “Don’t discount her, man. She’s smart. Smarter than all of us, and I have a literal doctorate.”

I sighed deeply. “Sorry, I’m just… I’m so fucking overwhelmed. River is in a phase where he needs a lot of attention from me, and then having work on top of it and having to work directly with Goldie every day feels like a nightmare right now.”

Oliver was quiet for a moment, and I heard him take a sip of beer.

“Have I ever told you how I met her?” he asked, finally breaking the short burst of contemplative silence.

I shook my head.

“She was living on the local reservation with an uncle. She had been with him for about ten years. Most people on the reservation wouldn’t talk to me. I was so fucking stressed because it was my first article for the first issue of the journal and everyone I wanted to interview had turned me away. I wanted nothing more than to impress Fai, who was running the joint at the time. But I was about to come home with jack squat. Right when I was leaving, pouting up a storm, Goldie called out to me. She didn’t know a lot, but told me everything she could. She saw me struggling and wanted to help,” he explained. “I don’t even remember what the article was about or what she had shared. It became inconsequential with time. But I could never forget the kindness she gave me, going out of her way to help a stranger.”

“Did you know how young she was?”

What few details I’d gathered about Goldie all pointed to the same truth: she had lied to get her foot in the door at the journal, claiming to be eighteen when she was actually only fifteen.

Oliver shook his head. “Not for sure. I suspected it, but I didn't push. Her setup with her uncle wasn't ideal—not terrible, but definitely not how a kid should grow up. Honestly, I think moving out here saved her.”

I rubbed a hand over my face. Hearing about her struggles made my own self-sabotage look pathetic. “So, what's the play? If I’m just straight with her, she’ll start despising me a little less?”

Oliver nodded. “Just be you, man. Talk to her when you’re struggling, ask her questions, and don’t question her intellect again. You’re lucky to learn from her—act like it.”

I grinned up at him. “Look at you getting all ‘big brother’ on me.”

He rolled his eyes and sipped at his beer, but the humor sizzled in his brown eyes. Oliver and I had never looked like brothers. His deep brown skin and close-cropped, coiled hair were the opposite of me. While my mother’s skin tone matched Oliver’s, my dad was as white as his Scottish roots would suggest. His blond hair and green eyes were the opposite of my mother’s dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. I was the perfect mix of the two, getting green eyes from my dad, brown hair from my mom, and my skin tone somewhere in the middle.

The differences were striking when Oliver and I were compared. No one would be able to guess we were brothers from our looks alone, but he was my brother in every way that mattered. It had never bothered him that we didn’t look alike, even when kids in school picked on us when we were kids. He ignored them and never let me feel anything but loved.

I glanced at the wall where our family picture hung. It was taken at my college graduation. Oliver stood with his family. Theo, with her pale skin, dark hair, and blue eyes, held a small Violet. They were wrapped in Oliver’s arms, all smiling from ear to ear. My mom was crying, tears running down her face, and my dad’s head was thrown back in laughter. It was a joyous family. We were a melting pot in every regard, but skin color didn’t make us family, nor did blood. The love we had for each other did.

“Now tell me, what’s going on with River?” Oliver asked, growing concerned. He loved his nephew with his entire heart.

I sighed deeply and sat up. “I have no idea. It’s been just the past few weeks that he doesn’t want to leave me, or me him. He hates it when I go to work, hates going to your house without me, and crawls into bed with me most nights. I know it’s a phase right now and I know it will pass, but it’s making me feel like a real shitty father at the moment.”

Oliver looked at me with nothing but compassion. “You’re a good dad, Lex. River is so lucky to have you.”

“Maybe, but I still wish I knew what had him so… clingy? I hate that word because it sounds like I’m judging it, which I’m not. I just worry about him.”

Oliver clasped my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, okay? You’re not alone in this.”

I smiled gratefully, but in so many ways I was. I had not just a village supporting me and River, but an army. Yet I was alone when River cried as I drove him to Theo’s every workday. I was alone when he crawled into my bed every night in his footy pajamas with his stuffed alligator in tow. I was alone when making the choices that would forever affect River.

No matter how big my village was, I was bound to be alone at times as a single father. But I would always make sure River never would be.

Goldie

“Ireally don’t think it was necessary for you to make me dinner,” I explained as I watched Fai putter about my kitchen. He had shown up out of the blue twenty minutes ago and headed straight past me into the kitchen.