Black Hills

some farm thing. Cooper ate slowly, even though the Game Boy was forbidden at the table, because when he finished he’d have to go outside for chores.
    Lucy poured coffee into a thick white mug, then brought it with her to sit across from him. “Well, Cooper, you’ve been with us two weeks now.”
    “I guess.”
    “That’s about all the brooding time you’re going to get. You’re a good, bright boy. You do what you’re told and you don’t sass. At least not out loud.”
    There was a look in her eyes—a smart look, not a mean one—that told him she knew he sassed in his head. A lot.
    “Those are good qualities. You also tend to sulk and don’t say boo to a goat and drag around here like you’re in prison. Those aren’t such good qualities.”
    He said nothing, but wished he’d eaten his breakfast faster and escaped. He hunched his shoulders, figuring they were going to have a discussion. Which meant, from his experience, she’d tell him all the things he did wrong, and how she expected more, and he was a disappointment.
    “I know you’re mad, and you’ve got a right to be. That’s why you got these past two weeks.”
    He blinked at his plate, and a line of confusion formed between his eyebrows.
    “The fact is, Cooper, I’m mad for you. Your parents did a selfish thing, and didn’t take you into account when they did it.”
    He brought his head up about an inch, but his eyes lifted and met hers. Maybe it was a trick, he thought, and she was saying that so he’d say something bad. So he could be grounded or punished. “They can do what they want.”
    “Yes, they can.” She nodded briskly as she drank her coffee. “Doesn’t mean they should. I want you here, and so does your grandpa. I know he doesn’t say much, but I’m telling you the truth. But that’s a selfish thing, too, for us. We want you here, we want to get to know our only grandchild, have time with him we never got much of before. But you don’t want to be here, and I’m sorry for that.”
    She was looking right at him, right at his face. And it didn’t feel like a trick. “I know you want to be home,” she continued, “with your friends. I know you wanted to go to baseball camp like they promised. Yeah, I know about that.”
    She nodded again, and sipping coffee stared off hard out the window. It seemed she was mad, as she’d said. But not at him. She really was sort of mad for him.
    And that was something he didn’t understand. That was something that had his chest getting all tight and achy.
    “I know about that,” she repeated. “A boy your age doesn’t get a lot of say, a lot of choices. They’ll come, but at this stage you just don’t have them. You can make the best out of what you’ve got, or be miserable.”
    “I just want to go home.” He hadn’t meant to say it, only to think it. But the words came right out, pushing out of that tight, achy chest.
    She shifted her gaze back to his. “Honey, I know. I know you do. I wish I could do that for you. You may not believe me, you don’t know me very well so you may not, but I really want to give you what you want.”
    It wasn’t a matter of belief, it was that she talked to him. Actually talked as if he mattered. So the words, and the misery with them, just bubbled out of him.
    “They just sent me away, and I didn’t do anything wrong.” Tears rose into his voice. “They didn’t want me to go with them. They didn’t want me.”
    “We do. I know that’s not much comfort to you right now. But you know that, you believe that. Maybe sometime later in your life, you’ll need a place. You know you’ll always have one here.”
    He spoke the worst. The worst that hid inside him. “They’re going to get a divorce.”
    “Yes, I expect you’re right about that.”
    He blinked and stared, because he’d expected her to say that wasn’t true, he’d expected her to pretend everything would be fine. “Then what’ll happen to me?”
    “You’ll get through it.”
    “They don’t love me.”
    “We do. We do,” she said, firmly, when he lowered his head again and shook it. “First because you’re blood. You’re kin. And second, just because.”
    When two tears plopped on his plate, Lucy kept talking. “I can’t speak for what they feel, what they think. But I can say something about what they do. I’m so mad at them. I’m so mad at them for hurting you. People will say it’s just one summer, it’s not the end of the world. But people who