The Flower Bowl Spell by Olivia Boler Page B

understanding.
    “Oh. I gotcha.” Tyson shakes his head and
looks at the girls with a laugh. Cleo is about halfway through her
pile of pellets, and dumps the remainder on the ground. She points
at the goats and they wait, their sideways ears alert. She turns
her back on them, walks a few steps away, and waves her hand.
Voila! The goats fall on the food like famine victims.
    Cleo stops next to Tyson and looks up at him.
“Do you like being home?”
    He smiles down at her and makes a little
quizzical noise. “Do I like being home? Yeah. Do you?”
    “Not really. Sometimes. I like it here. “ She
looks beyond us into the depths of the playground. “Romy, lets go
on the seesaw!” They run to the little gate and let themselves out.
Tyson turns back to me. This close, I can see his eyes behind the
sunglasses, a different pair than the ones he wore the other day. I
myself have one ten-dollar pair I bought at Walgreens five years
ago. I never lose them. Tyson’s eyes linger on the locket Cooper
gave me. It’s half-tucked in my blouse and I pull it free, patting
it straight.
    Before we go out the barnyard gate, I look
back at the ducks. The vested one nudges his toy around with his
beak so I can see the screen. Among the gibberish are the words wings , toes , elder , and Peking . His
companion puts down her knitting and waddles over to the place
where the girls fed the goats. She pecks at whatever infinitesimal
niblets are left.
    I catch up to Tyson, who is trailing the
girls at a leisurely pace. He holds himself straight, which makes
him look taller than he is, and I wonder about his military days,
about what that was like for him.
    The duck finishes her snack, quacks, and goes
back to her knitting. Alice used to knit, and nostalgia floods me.
“Ty,” I say, forcing myself to stop before the son . “I miss
Alice.”
    He doesn’t stop walking, but there is a catch
in his step, and his aura darkens. How easy it is to read him.
Almost too easy. I wish it weren’t, and I wonder why it is.
    “Me too,” he says. He clears his throat. “I
mean, she—she was my little sister.”
    “She was one of my best friends.” My best
normal friend. “She was good to me.”
    I only received one missive from her when she
was in Africa, a postcard with the briefest outline of her
surroundings. I’ve read it so many times, I have it memorized, no
charm needed: The Bantu are so cool, such a gorgeous group of
people! Not to say they are perfect, but most are kind. Been going
by train and boat to get to villages, and of course on foot. I
thought it would be more dusty. Bailey’s French classes are coming
in handy, for sure.
    I was so happy she had sent the card—still
am—because we had had a disagreement right before she left. She’d
been having an affair with a married man, which was partly why she
had decided to join this little-known charity group and work with
refugees in Africa, to get some distance and clarity about her
life’s direction. She didn’t want to end things with her lover, but
I thought she should since she wasn’t his only mistress and he said
he would never leave his wife. She accused me of being judgmental,
which I’ve never denied.
    I tried to say sorry. I made the protective
amulet for her without her permission, and she made fun of it. She
almost wouldn’t accept the gift, she was so pissed at me. But Alice
could never stay mad for long. And as always, I figured I knew
better than she did.
    Tyson is nothing like her. He’s more like me,
a little reserved.
    He looks at me, and I can imagine the inside
of his glasses fogging up. But he doesn’t take them off. “You took
it hard, yeah?”
    I nod, thinking, You have no idea .
“Pretty hard. It changed my life.”
    “Mine too.”
    I’m about to say more, but the children
interrupt us.
    “Ty!” Romola calls out. The girls have tired
of the seesaw and moved on to the swings. “Push me!”
    “Me!” Cleo says. “Me me me!”
    “No sweat.” He gives