Family Law by Gin Phillips (best fantasy books to read .txt) 📗

“You’re wet,” he said accusingly.

“I don’t like pretzels, either,” Lucia told him.

“They smell like gym floor,” Watson said.

He turned back to his bug, sand-colored hair falling over his face. Soon enough he jerked, toppling backward, catching himself on his elbows. He’d had the same reaction every other time the grasshopper hopped. He hunched over again, his face low to the ground. The grasshopper would probably blind him next time.

Lucia slid down farther in her seat, watching. Watson recoiled again. Paula shifted, her rickety lawn chair squeaking: the plastic bands of the seat were frayed, dipping under her weight. Lucia hoped it held. The martins were in the trees, chattering, and the Chapmans next door were outside. The parents stood by the grill, dickering over some charcoal issue, while the two high school girls batted a volleyball back and forth without a net.

“Sharks can have fifteen rows of teeth,” said Watson. “They lose teeth every week.”

“He has a book,” Paula said. “Where’s Evan? How long does it take to give the dog some food?”

“He probably misplaced his glasses,” Lucia said. “Or his glass of water. Those are the big two.”

“Remoras suck onto sharks like hitchhikers,” Watson said.

The lavender blooms on the Japanese tulip tree were like cupped hands raised to the sky. Elegant geometries. Evan once told her that tulip trees were actually a type of magnolia. That had been back when this house was bare except for cardboard boxes and Hefty bags, and she’d been standing on this same patch of grass swigging ice water from a coffee cup because the glasses weren’t unpacked yet. She hadn’t believed him at first. She was well-acquainted with magnolias—genteel, her mother called them. Don’t they just make you picture those beautiful old plantations? Lucia had grown up loving the density of their branches: they were good climbing trees. Now she looked at the tree in front of her and remembered Evan’s pronouncement. Sometimes your idea of a thing did not match the reality of it. That could be a welcome surprise or not so welcome. At any rate, there was nothing genteel about this magnolia. It was exotic. Unexpected.

The most beautiful tree she had ever seen happened to be in her own yard.

The sun and the breeze and Watson’s ramblings were lovely, too. The azaleas were exploding in pinks and reds all along the back fence. She waved at the girls next door, who had come close, chasing their ball. They waved back, but then they spotted Watson and waved much more enthusiastically. He noticed.

“Why are those girls looking at me?” he asked loudly. It made the girls double their efforts.

“What girls?” asked Paula, turning, nearly tipping over her ancient chair. “Oh. Hey there!”

“They think you’re cute,” Lucia said.

“I am cute,” Watson said.

Paula laughed, but Lucia didn’t. She looked at his wide feet and his smooth curved cheeks—everything on him soft and round, perfectly designed to elicit affection. He knew that he was smart and good and loved, and that was not as common as she once thought it was.

She wished that she could shake the feeling that Evan had an agenda. That he had wanted to bring the child here to sway her.

“Maybe Evan’s started getting the food together,” she said. “I’ll go check.”

She unstuck her thighs from her chair and headed inside, making sure to close the sliding door behind her. The warm weather brought gnats. She heard cabinets opening and closing, and she knew she had been right.

“You think we’re ready to eat?” she called.

“I thought I’d set out the cheese and crackers,” Evan said.

She rounded the corner into the kitchen, and he was at the sink, washing off a cheese knife. “If we’re doing that,” she said, “we might as well do all of it. I’ve got the fruit in the fridge.”

He wiped the knife with a hand towel. She didn’t point out that the dish towel was hanging on the oven door.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “If you’ll tell me where stuff is, I can do it.”

“I don’t mind,” she said.

She opened the refrigerator, pulling out the right bits and pieces of Tupperware.

“Can you believe he knows the word ‘ophthalmoscope’?”

“I know,” Lucia said.

“He’s getting to the fun stage,” Evan said. “Where he’s not just a blob anymore. I don’t like them as blobs as much as when they turn into actual people.”

Lucia dropped bread into the toaster: she’d cut it into triangles to go with the shrimp spread. She spotted the tomatoes still crammed in their wooden basket—she would slice them. She had onions, too, and maybe a cucumber.

“Why did you ask them over?” she asked.

Evan had his back to her, reaching for a platter on one of the higher shelves. “What do you mean?” he said. “We haven’t seen them in weeks.”

“It feels like you’re trying to—” She had gotten this far, and she was committed now. “Sell me. It feels like you’re trying to sell me.”

“Sell you on what?”

“Watson.”

He pulled out the Desert Rose plates one at a time, slower than necessary. She heard each one clink as it joined the stack.

“It feels like you’re trying to convince me,” she said. “Like you’re hoping—you’re hoping—”

He finally turned toward her, and she realized she had misread him. He was not ignoring her. He was not trying to draw her out more by keeping quiet. He was furious.

“Like I’m hoping you’ll tie on an apron and stay home and have babies?” he said. “You think I invited our nephew over here as some sort of ploy?”

“Are you telling me it didn’t cross your mind?”

The toast sprang up, and Evan reached for it, tossing both pieces onto an empty plate. He blew on his fingers.

“It’s like you’re looking for a reason to be mad at me, Lucia,” he said. “Like you’re mad at me before I say a word.”

He was not wrong about the anger. She knew that.

She had agreed to put the house up for sale. She had agreed to it even though