Blind Side
“Uncle Pirate,” she said. For a moment it seemed like she was going to hug him before she smiled shyly and looked down at her suitcase.
“Kamia.” He was too startled to even use her nickname. “What are you doing here?” It was a Wednesday — Thursday? — and his calendar was empty besides a reminder for the Rangers game at 7pm. It had been months since she’d last run away; he’d assumed that she had just grown out of it, the same way she’d grown out of diapers and carrying around her stuffed crocodile.
Her jaw pushed out, gaze flickering between coyness and defiance.
“You might as well come in,” he said and sighed, reaching out for her suitcase and finding only air until his hand finally latched onto the handle. “Stay in the kitchen.”
She sulked as he rushed around the apartment, collecting beer bottles and kicking dirty clothes into the closet while reassuring his sister-in-law over the phone. It wasn’t until the phone clicked off that she finally looked up from where she was turning a takeout menu into a pile of shreds. “I’m not going to school tomorrow. And I’m not going home.”
He sighed and screwed a knuckle into the headache blooming in his temples. He’d already taken the glass eye out for the night, and he was suddenly self-conscious about the puckered eyelid. “Did you eat yet?” He’d learned that diversion was the best way to deal with the flammability of her moods, something he wished that he had known growing up about his brother.
“Sort of,” she mumbled, and a dozen paper scraps fluttered onto the kitchen table. “Can I have some beer?”
“Very funny,” he said, and snatched the intact half of the takeout menu out of her hand.
