Page 108 of The Only Seconds that Matter
To his credit, Victor’s only immediate reaction was to swallow and tighten his grip on the steering wheel.He wished Johnny had told him he was going to do that.“Oh?”he forced out, voice breaking.
“Yeah.Like, he didn’t really say much about it.He told me he wanted me to know but that I shouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Oh.Well.Ah.”Single syllables remained the extent of what Victor could say.“That’s—hmm.”
“Does this mean I can come live with you?”
“Taylor.”Victor finally regained control of his voice.“That’s—that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?Can’t you talk to my mom?”
“That’s not how things work.”
“Well, they should!Mike and my mom don’t evenlikeme.They’d be happy if I lived somewhere else.”
“That’s not true and you know that.”
“You don’t live with them.”Taylor scowled and hugged a leg to her chest, glaring out the window.“All they do is yell at me.”
Victor didn’t know what to say, because he didn’t know enough about her home life to confirm or deny her experience.In a way, it didn’t matter what the actual facts were, because most children did not want to leave their parents to go live with a stranger.Victor had hoped that after the spanking incident something might have improved, but corporal punishment wasn’t the only way to make a child feel unloved and unwanted.
“Do you like me?”Taylor suddenly asked, a question so out of the blue that Victor struggled to respond.
“Of course I like you,” were the words he threw together in a panic.
“But you don’t want to live with me.”
“Christ, Taylor, this isn’t aboutme.I have a choice in none of this.I can’t kidnap a child from her family.”
“It’s not kidnapping if you’re married to my uncle.”
“We are not married.”
“But you will be, probably.Right?”
Victor bit back a humorless laugh.“Kid, your uncle and I have been dating amonth.Marriage is not even a consideration right now.”
“But if youdidget married, you’d be my uncle, right?I can live with an uncle.Then it’s not kidnapping.”
To have a child’s understanding of the world… “It’s still up to your mother.”
Taylor frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.“Well, my momhatesme.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”When Taylor’s frown deepened, Victor sighed.“Why don’t you talk to Johnny about this?I barely know your mother.If anyone can talk to her, it’s going to be her brother.”
“Johnny’ll get mad,” Taylor grumbled.“Then he’ll get in a fight with Mike and I’ll be in evenbiggertrouble.”
“I can talk to him, if you want.”
“Yeah.”Taylor’s scowl lasted a few more seconds before her face contorted and tears filled her eyes.
The road was empty, so Victor found a nice stretch of open shoulder to pull over on.Once stopped, he put the truck in park and twisted around to face her fully.Taylor wiped aggressively at her face, hiccupping around a sob.
“Hey, come on.It’s okay.”Victor would have offered her a hug, but there was a seat between them.“What’s wrong?”
“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.
