“Not so unexpected,” he said. “I’m a disappointment.”
“I agree.” As the words came out of my mouth, I immediately wanted to take them back. “No, I mean, not in general. I don’t even know what you do, so I have no…It was a joke,” I finally spit out.
“Wow,” he said. “And I was about to take it as a joke too.”
I moved to put the flash cards back in my pocket, obviously flustered, because I completely missed and the cards scattered all over the top of the RV. I gasped and scrambled to gather them up.
“Be careful,” Skyler said, picking up several himself.
As my hand grabbed a small stack, it bumped into several others and they slid toward the edge. I dove forward to savethem and was jerked to a stop by my ankle. Two cards fluttered over the side and landed on the ground where, no joke, the sheep began munching on them.
I looked over my shoulder to where Skyler was gripping my ankle, his eyes wide.
“I wasn’t going to fall,” I said.
His shoulders rose and lowered several times before he released me. “Don’t…just don’t ever do that again.”
My heart fluttered in my chest at his intense tone. I wasn’t sure how to react to his reaction, so, with our eyes locked, I ended up saying, “Bighorns is eating my questions.”
There was the squeak of a door opening below. Then Ezra’s voice called up, “Is that a pack of racoons on top of our RV or some other pests trying to keep the people inside from actually sleeping?”
“Watch out for the sheep,” I called down.
“Is that supposed to be some sort of sleep joke?” Ezra must’ve scared it away because the sheep was gone.
“I guess this means you’re done with the bathroom.”
“I’ve been done forever,” he said.
I shook my head. “Sure.”
Skyler headed down the ladder first. When I got to the bottom, I found a half-chewed card, but the other one had obviously been completely devoured. I wondered which question had been on the card. The one Skyler had asked? The first piece of art that moved me? That answer was easy. It was a charcoal sketch of a mom watching a sleeping baby. Her face had expressed love or happiness or peace or something mynine-year-old mind couldn’t quite tap into but it made me feel something in my chest I’d never felt before while looking at a picture. Skyler had drawn it. And that had made me feel something too—pride.
I turned to say good night to Skyler but he was already in his RV, the door shutting behind him.