The Night I Gave My Best Friend's Brother a Child novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Pirate Spit Test

A cheek swab turned into a game is interrupted by Bridget's key in the door, and she says the company is hers by default.

I did not answer Bridget's text.

I turned the phone face down on the counter and went to bed, and I did not sleep.

At nine the next morning, Rhett was at my kitchen table with a white box from a private lab.

He had ordered the kit to the cottage he was renting, and it had come overnight.

"Two swabs each," he said. "Then a signature, and we mail it today."

Effie stood in the kitchen doorway in her dinosaur pajamas, studying him.

"You're the grumpy man," she said.

"Effie," I said.

"It's all right," Rhett said. "I am a little grumpy."

"Why?"

"My leg hurts, and I didn't have breakfast."

Effie considered this.

"Mama makes pancakes," she said. "But only if you say please."

"Please," Rhett said.

She nodded, satisfied, and climbed up on the chair beside him.

I made pancakes.

I could feel him watching me from the table, and I kept my back turned and flipped them harder than I needed to.

He had rolled his sleeves to the elbow.

His forearms were corded and brown, with a long pale scar on the left one.

I had once put my mouth on that scar, in a motel room with the heat knocked out.

I turned the pancakes again.

After breakfast, I knelt next to Effie's chair.

"Effie, baby, we're going to play a pirate game."

"Pirates!" she said.

"Pirates check each other's teeth to see who's strong enough to sail. Mr. Rhett is the captain. He's going to rub a tiny stick on the inside of your cheek."

"Does it hurt?"

"It tickles," Rhett said. "I'll do mine first, so you can watch."

He tore open the packet, pushed the swab inside his own cheek and rolled it around, with a very serious face.

Effie put both hands over her mouth and laughed.

"Now me," she said. "Now me, Captain."

He crouched in front of her, slowly, with his bad leg stuck out to the side.

He put the swab to her cheek with two fingers, very slowly.

Effie held absolutely still.

"Done," he said, and his voice cracked on the second syllable.

"Again," Effie said. "Do the other side, Captain."

Rhett did the other side.

I turned away and put the syrup back in the cupboard.

I heard a key in my front door.

I had given Bridget a spare when I moved out of her spare room, and I had never asked for it back.

"Knock knock!" she called. "Bagels, and I come in peace!"

Rhett had the second swab in one hand and the sealed bags in the other.

He looked at me.

I looked at the kit box on the table.

He slid the box into the inside pocket of his jacket, and the bags after it, in one smooth motion.

Bridget came in, in a yellow blazer, with a paper sack in one arm and a stuffed giraffe under the other.

She stopped.

"That's Sarge's truck out front," she said.

"He came to apologize," I said. "For last night."

"Aw." Bridget put her hand over her heart. "Sarge, you did?"

"I did," Rhett said.

"I told Grandma Effie had a stomach bug," Bridget said, setting the sack down. "I handled it. She wasn't even mad."

"Thank you," I said, and meant it.

That was the strange part.

I meant it, and I was grateful, and I could not look at her.

Bridget crouched and held the giraffe out.

"For my goddaughter. Pirates need a lookout."

"Her name is Gerald," Effie announced, taking it.

"Gerald it is."

Bridget stood and poured herself a coffee from my pot without asking.

She leaned against the counter and looked at the table, where Effie had climbed back up onto the chair next to Rhett.

Effie had her chin on her fist, and so did he.

"Huh," Bridget said, and laughed. "Same chin."

Nobody said anything.

"I'm kidding. Everyone looks like somebody." She waved her coffee. "Effie looks like my grandmother's side of the family, honestly. Sarge, you two could be cousins."

"Could be," Rhett said.

His face did not change at all.

I had to look at the floor.

Bridget settled onto the stool by the window and tore a bagel in half.

"Speaking of family," she said. "Grandma's eightieth is in three weeks, and she's making a speech. She says she'll name who gets Ketterman Freight."

"Who gets the company?" I asked.

"Whoever carries the family forward." Bridget licked cream cheese off her thumb. "And since the family is the two of us, and Sarge is out of the game, and I'm not having kids." She spread her hands, grinning. "It's mine. By default. Lucky me."

She winked at Rhett.

He picked up his coffee and said nothing.

"Lucky me," Bridget said again, and bit into her bagel.

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