Under my breath I hum and she glances over with an encouraging nod, her look telling me, You’ve got this!
Jeremy Cocker gets up and meets Bucky halfway, squatting down to pet him with a huge grin, “Hey there boy! So you’re the dog my son saved,” he beams, dark brown eyes flicking up to smile at me. “If you knew my history, Madison, you’d know that’s kind of a special thing he did.” Patting the black ears, Jeremy murmurs, “At least one dog was saved. Maybe that evens the balance.”
Standing here next to him I gaze at Nicholas’s father, wondering what he means by the enigmatic statement, but instinctively knowing there’s a privacy to it, and I shouldn’t pry.
It’s impossible not to see the family resemblance, even though Nicholas is taller than his father, and more sinewy where Jeremy is stocky. But the smiles, olive skin and dark eyes are the same. Mr. Cocker’s hair is speckled with white now, and again I can’t help but picture Nicholas in his older years.
Rising, Jeremy touches my arm and guides me to his chair, offering to my friend, “Denise, why don’t you sit next to my wife. Zo, take the last seat. I’ll stand.”
His daughter doesn’t argue, so neither do we. He crosses his arms as I glance to Meagan Cocker, a woman who’s aging well. Laugh-lines lightly crease her eyes, accentuated now on her happy yet curious smile. “What did you think of the wedding, Maddie?”
I honestly reply, “It was really funny,”
Meagan laughs, nodding to her glass of red wine. “Yes, this family is lots of fun.”
Jeremy lifts the bottle and pours into two empty glasses he may have brought out here anticipating our arrival. Only as I watch him do I realize there aren’t enough. As I’m about to remark on it, Zoe beats me.
“Dad! I’m old enough to drink.”
“Says who?”
“The Federal Government.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Don’t know if you noticed but they don’t come around these parts. Or when they do, they’re retired.”
“Dad!” Zoe laughs.
Frowning he mutters, “Huh, just realized Elijah isn’t here. He would have been the only one who could have pleaded your case. Sorry, Zo. I’m not serving you wine until you’re thirty.” To me he smirks, “She’s my only daughter. Poor thing.”
Meagan shakes her head, explaining to Denise and I, “You should have seen when she was born. Jeremy wouldn’t let her go. I had to nurse her—oh my God, I was aching, and she was hungry—but he kept her swaddled little body in his arms, rocking in a hospital chair that wasn’t meant for rocking.”
“Any chair is meant for rocking,” he counters.
“He was singing to her, too. And he can’t sing.”
“You sang to me?”
“I can too sing!” Jeremy chuckles. “I just do it badly.” Locking eyes with me, he says, “My son tells me you’re a nanny.”
“Dad, you sang to me?”
He smiles at Zoe. “I did.”
She melts, her body tilting to the side. “Aw!”
Jeremy looks back to me so I answer, “I am a nanny, yes. Looking for work at the moment, but Nicholas cleared the way for me to apply.” Tentatively I ask, because it appears they know more than I think they do, “Did he tell you about what he did?”
His parents chuckle like devils, and Jeremy crosses his arms. “I wish I’d been there. Told my boys they should have called me!”
Meagan rolls her eyes on a smile, “That would have been a disaster.”
“Why?”
“You’re too old for that stuff now!”
He snorts, “Bullshit!”
I relax. So does Denise. Both of us sip the wine with amusement.
Returning to me, Meagan asks, “What happened after that, do you know?”
I take a deep breath. “I went to their school to say goodbye, and apologize because I’d told them before, that I wasn’t going to leave. They were really hurt. I explained to Skylar that she’s very strong, much stronger than she knows, and she needs to watch out for her little brother—his name is Kyle. It was very cute—she puffed up her chest a little. I think my opinion matters to her now, so she was able to hear that. When they left, she held his hand, and she never does that.”
Zoe whispers, “That’s so sweet.”
Meagan nods, “Have you always wanted to work with children, Madison?”
“I discovered it when I was in college.” To Denise I ask, “Did you ever think I’d work with kids?”
Her eyelashes flick up toward the porch’s chipped ceiling as she taps her glass with a blue fingernail. “No, I never saw that coming. You were like me in school, didn’t really like it.”
“I liked it!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You’re right. Not until I found subjects that actually interested me.”
Mr. Cocker squats to give my dog more love. “I hated school,” he admits, volume quiet like he’s talking to Bucky. “One of the reasons I went into the military. Needed discipline. And a purpose. Had no idea where to find that but I believed in this country and none of my brothers had gone in, so it was something different, and mine exclusively. Made my father proud, I know that. I have a sneaking suspicion he wished he had served when he was young.” Glancing up to us, Jeremy smiles, looking so handsome as his eyes sparkle in the candlelight. “But learning about algebra when I wasn’t planning on becoming a mathematician? No, thanks.”
Meagan light-heartedly argues, “You have to try the subject first, though, to learn if you have a taste for it. Otherwise we’d have no scientists if there wasn’t biology for all.”
He thinks about it while rubbing behind Bucky’s soft ears. “It’s time for us to get another dog.”
“We just retired, Jeremy!”
“A year ago. And we haven’t travelled nearly as much as we thought. The kids can always dog sit, too.”
Zoe shakes her head. “I can’t, Dad. Our cats do not like dogs.”
“The boys then,” he shrugs, returning to my happy pooch. “I miss having a dog.”
Denise and I glance over to see
