Ollie let go of her hand and studied her longer. “Well, Jasmine likes the color pink, so she will probably like you and your shirt. If you don’t yell at everyone, they will probably like you too.”
With that, Ollie turned on her purple-shoed heel and opened the porch door to go find the others. I smiled and nodded at Vick before following Ollie inside.
Margie, the group’s leader, opened the door wider and welcomed us in with a clipboard ready. “Katie, Brey, you made it.” She looked over at Vick. “I haven’t met you, so you will have to fill out a few forms.”
Vick nodded and took the clipboard from her. “I’m Vick. I wanted to start volunteering with Katie and Brey.”
While Vick filled out the forms, Ollie reappeared holding the hand of Jasmine. “Margie’s mad because Rodney didn’t come to the house today.” She leaned in to whisper to us three, “His mom is sick again.”
Katie and I glanced at one another. ‘Sick’ was code for something else. All the children had one thing in common. Their parents struggled and when they didn’t show up to the house, we could usually guess the reason. Margie prided herself on taking care of all the children she could during the day on the reservation. Instead of having those seven kids today, she had one less. The frustration I felt was nothing in comparison to what she must have.
“Why don’t we go find the others and we can pick some veggies while Margie makes some calls to Rodney’s mom and friends, okay?”
Jasmine took Katie’s hand as we walked out. “I like the red in your hair.”
The air hit us like a humid summer wave, and after an hour of picking vegetables out in the fields, Vick announced she was going to get sunscreen for all of us.
Jasmine piped up, “I don’t wear sunscreen.”
Brenda, who was a few years older than Jasmine and Ollie, added, “I don’t either. You only need it because your skin burns.”
Walter, the youngest of them all, stopped dusting off a carrot. “I wear sunscreen because my mom does too. She says I’ll get an owie if I don’t.”
Walter’s mother definitely was right about that. He had blonde hair and blue eyes with skin the color of porcelain. The other children though had been graced with the same skin I had. It was olive toned or darker like their Native American heritage.
Vick seemed to take their comments in stride. “Well, Walter, we are just a little special, huh?” she replied to them all, winking to us as she headed toward the car.
Ollie jumped on the opportunity to gossip. “I think I like her, but her hair isn’t as pretty as Brey’s hair and doesn’t have as many colors as Katie’s. What do you think, Jasmine?”
“I like her shirt, and she said she would get us sunscreen if we needed it. She’s nice.”
Walter chimed in, “I want to marry her.”
I laughed as my worries about bringing Vick were officially squashed.
Every time I visited the kids, the muscles that usually bunched between my shoulders relaxed. The anxiety that normally tightened in my stomach loosened. We were free here, no one judged us on anything but how well we got along.
Instead of focusing on a tabloid or what the media might be saying about Jax and my father, I focused on them.