answered. “Today has opened their little eyes. Tomorrow, more than just your tray dropper will be crying by bedtime, and then things will begin to get better.”
“One baby step at a time?” Jayden asked.
“Oh, honey, one-half a baby step if we’re lucky.” Novalene waved as she followed her crew back to the Moonbeam Cabin.
Jayden didn’t go inside the hot cabin when she got back but sat down in one of the double Adirondack chairs on the porch. Skyler should have told her more, but if her sister had, then she would be at home in her apartment instead of at Piney Wood. That was a guaran-damn-teed fact. Yet now that she could look ahead with hope of helping these girls, she was glad she’d come.
Elijah rounded the end of the cabin and sat down beside her. “How’s it going?”
“About as expected. Strip any teenage girl of her makeup, fancy jeans, and phone, and they think the world has come to an end. Right now, they don’t even know if the sun will come up tomorrow,” she answered.
“By the time it does, they’ll have done thirty minutes’ worth of exercise and walked a mile.” He chuckled. “Are you going to walk with them? You aren’t required to join them. The other counselors just wait until I bring them all back for breakfast.”
“I’ll be right there with them,” Jayden answered.
“Skyler didn’t—” he started.
Jayden held up a palm and butted in before he could say another word. “I’m not my sister.”
“I can already see that.” Elijah grinned. “What’s this thing between the two of you anyway? She never even mentioned having a sibling.”
“She had trouble even acknowledging that I was her sister to her friends. I was the ugly duckling.” Jayden didn’t know why she was telling him such personal things and wished immediately that she’d just brushed off the comment. “Most of the time, I imagine both of us wish we were only children. What about you? Brothers? Sisters?”
“Brother, but he died of a brain tumor when he was sixteen. I was three years older and had just reached my duty station near Atlanta when I got the news. We didn’t even know he was sick, and then six weeks later he was gone. Then a couple of years after that, my folks were both killed when a drunk driver hit them, so Uncle Henry and Aunt Mary are the only family I’ve got left,” he said. “And you realize ugly ducklings grow up to be swans, right?”
“I’m so sorry about your brother.” Jayden swallowed a lump in her throat at the idea of losing another loved one, almost not noticing the sweet comment he’d made about a swan. She and Skyler had never gotten along, but she’d never wished that Skyler were dead. Her father had always favored Skyler and still did. She seldom saw him these days, but again, she hoped there’d be more time in the future to maybe mend fences with both her sister and her dad.
“I still miss them, but I’m grateful that I’ve got Henry and Mary,” he said. “At least you’ve still got your dad.”
“We don’t get along so well,” she admitted and then wondered again why she was talking to a complete stranger about her personal life.
“Why? You don’t have to answer that. It’s way too personal.” Elijah stood up.
“My folks divorced when I was in high school. He moved to Virginia with his girlfriend, who later became his wife. Skyler was in her sophomore year of college, so she didn’t have to choose where to live, but I did, and I chose Mama and my grandfather, who had come to live with us when Granny died. He never quite forgave me for that.” She wasn’t willing to tell Elijah that she’d never felt like her father really loved her like he did Skyler.
“Did you go to the same college as Skyler?” he asked.
“Nope, I went to a juco only a mile or two away and lived at home. Then I went to the university that was only five miles away and still lived at home,” she answered.
And I’d be living in that same house now if Skyler hadn’t sold it right out from under me, she thought.
“So y’all kind of grew apart?” Elijah suggested.
“You could say that,” Jayden agreed and changed the subject. “Why did you leave the air force? You were pretty close to putting in twenty, weren’t you?”
“After we lost the other three members of our team, I and a few