best to keep you from burning down your house. Personally I’m not sure you deserve that much consideration, but no one asked me.
Zoe allowed herself a brief fantasy that she would simply hit the send button. If only. Then she carefully and responsibly deleted the last two sentences and moved on to the next section of the instruction manual.
She translated more semi-English to the real thing. This week’s work was small appliances. The week before had been some high-tech medical equipment. That had been more challenging. It wasn’t so much that the original manuals weren’t written in English, it was that they’d been written by people who spoke in code and abbreviations. Technicians in hospitals were busy with pressing problems. They didn’t have time to figure out what they thought the instructions meant. They had to do their job and move on to the next patient.
Zoe made that possible. She translated manuals from their original gibberish to something easily understood. She knew that for the most part the average consumer never bothered cracking a manual, but if they happened to read one of hers, they would find easy-to-understand instructions written in a way that made sense.
She reached the bottom of the section, then rose to stretch. Too much computer time made her back stiff and her legs ache.
“Wasn’t I supposed to be getting more exercise?” she asked out loud, then turned to Mason, who was asleep on the old club chair in the sunniest corner of her small home office. “Did you not want to talk about it now? Should I point out I’m the only person who feeds you, and I’m the only one who loves you? So if something happens to me, you’re going to be swimming in regret.”
She waited, but Mason didn’t even twitch an ear. Right before she reached down to scratch him under the chin, he gave her a little murr of greeting and began to purr.
“Ha! I knew you were listening. And yes, I get how pathetic it is that we’re having this conversation.”
Her phone rang. Saved by the ringtone, she thought as she glanced at the screen, smiled and pushed the talk button.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Why don’t I ever see you? What are you hiding from me? Did you get a tattoo? Shave your head?”
She laughed. “Why does it have to be about my appearance? Is this a woman thing? Are you discriminating against my gender, assuming that we’re all about how we look? Women have brains, Dad.”
“Zoe, I beg you. No talk of female equality. It’s barely ten in the morning.” Her father chuckled. “As for your brain, I suspect you have too much of one. I’m checking up on you because I’m your father. Things are good?”
Zoe thought about “the attic incident” but decided not to mention it to her dad. He would worry and she didn’t need one more thing in her life. Well, truthfully she needed a lot more things in her life, but his worrying wasn’t one of them.
“I’m fine.”
“What’s going on?”
“Work.”
“And when you’re not working?” Her father sighed. “Please don’t say you’re hanging out with Mason. He’s a cat. He does nothing but sleep and eat.”
“Sometimes he poops.”
“Yes, and it’s a moment to be treasured by all of us.” There was a pause. “Zoe, are you getting out at all? You’re no longer going into an office and now Chad is gone. I’m glad you finally dumped him, but you’re young. You should be having fun.”
Uh-oh. She could hear the worry building up a head of steam. “Dad, I’m great.” She emphasized the last word. “And busy.” She desperately tried to think of something that would make her sound busy. “Oh, you know what? I’m having a barbecue next Sunday. You should come. It will be fun.”
“A barbecue?”
“Yup. At, ah, four. You can bring a date, assuming she’s age appropriate.”
Her father laughed. “We have different definitions of that.”
“Yes, we do and yours is icky.”
“I never dated anyone younger than you.”
“You don’t get points for that. Most people would tell you dating someone younger than me shouldn’t even be a consideration.”
“You know I gave up young women years ago. I’m not seeing anyone, but if I were, I promise she would be age appropriate.”
Zoe sank onto the floor next to Mason’s chair. “Dad, you haven’t had anyone in your life in a while. Why is that?”
“I want something more. I’ll know when I find her. Until then, I’m happily single.”
Zoe wondered when the change had occurred. If she had to guess, she would say it was when her mother had died. While her parents had been divorced for years, they’d always stayed friends. Her father had been nearly as devastated as Zoe by the loss.
“You need to get back to work, young lady,” he said. “I’ll see you next Sunday. Can I bring anything?”
She smiled. “The usual.”
“Tequila it is.”
* * *
Jen heard the garage door open and jumped to her feet. “Daddy’s home!”
Jack’s eyes widened and he clapped his hands together. For a brief, heart-stopping second, she thought he was going to say something. Anything would be great. She so wouldn’t care if Da-da was his first word. But he only laughed and got unsteadily to his feet before running toward the far end of the family room.
Jen was feeling a little giddy herself, but her excitement was more about knowing that her husband had made it safely through another day. His working for the Mischief Bay Police Department hadn’t bothered her very much. Nothing bad ever happened in the small, family-oriented beach community. But the LAPD was totally different. There were over eight million people in the metro area and some days Jen agonized that too many of them were after her husband.
Kirk walked into the house. He and Jack rushed toward each other. She watched as Kirk scooped up his son and swung him around. Jack squealed and held out his arms and waved his hands. Then Kirk pulled him close and they hung on to each other.
Seeing father and son together always filled her with love and gratitude. Jack took after his dad—both with red hair and blue eyes. Her two men, she thought happily. As long as Kirk kept coming home.
He kissed Jack’s forehead, then walked toward her. “How’s my best girl?” he asked before kissing her on the mouth.
“Good.”
She leaned into him for their ritual greeting of a family hug. Jack grabbed her hair and pulled her close. For several heartbeats, she allowed herself to feel only the perfection of the moment. This was everything she wanted, she told herself. They were all going to be okay.
Then Jack squirmed to be put down. Kirk stepped back and the spell was broken. He set his son down.
“How
