Page 34 of You've Got Hate Mail
“I came here initially because I was mortified that I busted out my front teeth while trying to stop a wedding and went viral for it, but I stayed because Mabel and Pip are the family I’ve been looking for my entire life. I needed this place regardless of how the internet reacted.”
Fluffy glares at me.
It’s like the cat’s judging me for not chiming in.
I’m here too because I needed this family.
My parents are fantastic, but they’re also retired and travel a lot and deserve to enjoy their lives. And I always feel like I’m not doing as good of a job as they did too.
“My family’s pretty good,” Cricket says. “So long as I don’t play Monopoly with them or disappoint them too much by not being a doctor or a lawyer or arealjournalist or get so into playing hide-and-seek with my nieces and nephews that we miss the call for dinnertime.”
It’s like she’s trying to be funny, but the desperation is too strong for me to feel anything but pity.
And anger.
And then more anger that my calm morning is ruined with anger that she thinks her family’s pretty good when clearly, they aren’t.
Not my business.
Except it is my business.
I live here.
These women are my family.
Mabel might not have explicitly asked me to watch over Cricket, but the woman’s living in my home.
She’s my responsibility now too.
Goddammit.
Fluffy grunts, then leaps off my lap and strolls to the cat door. “Don’t—” I start, but she ignores me and tries to fit through it.
“Don’t listen to the haters?” Ginny calls up to me.
“Sorry. Talking to the cat. Fluffy’s being Fluffy.”
“Ah.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, grimace at the dull pain in my right eye, and then stifle a sigh. “Don’t let other people’s expectations and world view define you, Cricket. Family or strangers on the internet. Any of them.”
“I’m…working on that strangers on the internet part.”
“It’s a process,” Ginny tells her. “It won’t happen overnight. But we’re here for you while you work through it. Right, Heath?”
“What this place is about,” I reply. “Excuse me, ladies. My cat’s stuck. Enjoy your morning.”
“I’m making muffins at the main house,” Cricket says hesitantly.
“Muffins?” Lavender shrieks from the open sliding door behind me.
Yeah.
The open door that Fluffy could’ve gone through instead of her cat door.
“Wow, you’re an early bird today,” Ginny says. “Want to come help if it’s okay with your dad?”
I cringe.
