around here. We start porcine science pretty early.”
Izzy cocks her head in confusion. “Igpay issectionday?”
“Pig Latin.” Which may have been the wrong tool to mask my message from an actual pig. Kevin’s watching me with alarming interest, so I focus on the explanation instead. “It’s a made-up language where you take the initial consonant or consonant cluster at the start of a word and put it on the end, then add ‘ay.’ The word ‘food’ becomes ‘oodfay,’ for instance, or ‘the’ becomes ‘ethay.’ American kids find it hilarious.”
So, apparently, does Izzy. “That’s absolutely wonderful!” She hoots and claps her hands together, tugging Kevin’s leash. “Ouldway ouyay ikelay otay alkway otay ethay ablesstay?”
It takes me a second to translate. “Would I like to walk to the stables?” I grin. “That sounds great. Kevin would probably enjoy the smells.”
We amble along the path together, close enough to touch if we wanted to. I want to, but I’m trying to get a read on Iz. She’s smiling and chattering, her breath bursting in excited puffs in the frozen winter air. “I learned Latin from my tutors,” she’s saying. “And French and Italian, plus English and Dovlanese, obviously. But Pig Latin? How utterly charming.”
“My sister and I used to have full conversations in Pig Latin,” I admit. “We were completely convinced our parents couldn’t understand us.”
“Smart parents not to let on,” she says. “They probably learned all kind of things from your secret conversations that weren’t so secret.”
“Probably.” I stuff my hands in my coat pockets and slow my pace so I don’t rush her. “No wonder they always knew when one of us hid our green beans in the houseplant or said we’d shoveled stalls when we really just had dirt clod fights in the pasture.”
“I’m afraid to ask what dirt clod fights are.” Iz kicks a hunk of dirty ice off the path without missing a stride. “You’re close with your sister?”
“Yeah. Definitely more since our father died.”
She swings her gaze to look at me, green eyes searching. “I didn’t want to bring it up, but—I’m sorry. Truly. I can only imagine it’s difficult to lose a parent.”
“I don’t talk about it a lot,” I admit, a little unsure why I brought it up. “It was all people wanted to gossip about for a while.”
Or maybe it just felt that way. Every time I went into town, I swear I heard people whispering. It might have been all in my head, but I don’t think so.
Izzy touches my arm. “If you want to talk about it with me, I’m here,” she says softly. “If not, I completely understand.”
“Thank you.” It occurs to me that of all the women I’ve dated since my father passed, I’ve never discussed this with a single one. Not once, with anyone.
But the urge to share with Izzy sends the words spilling out of my mouth. “I was stationed in Iraq,” I say softly. “It was the middle of the night when I got the call about my father.”
Julia was sobbing too hard for me to make out most of the words, but two were all I needed.
Car accident.
I knew without another word what had happened. Not specifics, but I could have guessed. It was only a matter of time.
“It was a road rage incident,” I tell Izzy softly.
Her eyes widen. “You mean someone got angry and hit him?”
“No, my father.” I swallow back the familiar mix of sadness and anger. “He was famous for his temper. Someone would cut him off in traffic and he’d slam on the brakes and get out of the car to yell at them.”
Izzy frowns. “That sounds…dangerous.”
“It was.” I pause to watch Kevin sniff a patch of slushy snow caked into the grass. “Once, when I was just learning to drive, he stuck his hand out the window and flipped off someone he thought was going too slow. Turned out it was my science teacher.”
“Goodness.” Izzy’s eyes search mine. “That must have been humiliating.”
“It wasn’t awesome.” As soon as I got home, I emailed an apology to Mr. Snyderman. I half expected him to dock me a grade, but I ended up passing with flying colors. “Anyway, that kind of thing happened all the time.”
Izzy’s brow furrows like she’s trying to wrap her head around a parent who’d behave that way. Maybe she can relate to having a father who bore no resemblance to Ward Cleaver. Between the Duke—a man known for his sketchy record on humanitarian issues—and Cort Bracelyn—a serial philanderer