One who wears battered, enormous yeti house shoes out in public.
“Breakfast?” I ask her, and she yawns and nods. She’s still wearing the ghost of last night’s party glitter. Lanny, at least, has washed hers fully off. “You’re lucky there’s any left.”
“I ain’t picky,” she says, and winks at Lanny. “Anything’s good.”
“Tell me you didn’t walk all that way dressed like that,” Lanny says as Vee pulls up Sam’s empty chair and I get her a fresh plate. Lanny looks genuinely worried, but Vee doesn’t answer, just digs into her eggs and bacon like a starving wolf. The girl’s got manners, somewhere, but she doesn’t usually bother with them. And in truth there’s something satisfying about seeing someone so completely in the moment, every moment. Doesn’t mean I don’t worry about her, and her influence on my daughter.
“Hey, Ms. P,” Vee says. “You got any ketchup for these eggs?”
I provide it and try not to shudder. “Vee, what are you doing today?”
“Nothin’.” She pops ketchup-soaked eggs into her mouth. “Killin’ the patriarchy.”
“Killing it by not having a job,” Connor says. “Good one.”
“I got a job,” she says, not quite defensively. “Part time, anyway.”
If she does, it’s news to me. Vee’s record of jobs since being ruled independent is . . . spotty. We gave her the deposit on the apartment, and she’s on her own for rent, which luckily isn’t much; she seems to do okay. I’m not her mom, and I know her well enough to know she won’t welcome me pushing in and interrogating her. Instead, I observe. She doesn’t seem wired or high, which is good. I can’t stop her from doing what she’s going to do, but I have let her know how much I worry about it. And she’s actually listened. Changed from that wild, angry, occasionally chilling child I met in Wolfhunter, at least a little.
I accept progress, even when it’s in small steps.
“I got a letter,” she announces suddenly, and pulls it out of the pocket of her pajamas and slides it over to me. “Thought you ought to see it.”
“Actual paper letter,” I say. “Wow. Old school.”
“I guess.” There’s something solemn in Vee’s expression. I look at the envelope; Vee’s name and address are carefully written on the outside, no return address. I slip the thin copy paper out and unfold it.
Dear Vera Crockett,
Don’t be fooled. They aren’t who you think they are.
That’s it. Not surprisingly, it’s unsigned. And there’s no stamp on it. “This came to your apartment?”
“Yep. Bastard knows where I live, put it on that rusty clip thing at the door where they hang late-rent notices and stuff like that.”
“Who do you think he’s talking about?”
She rolls her eyes. “Do I got to spell it out for you? I ain’t got too many friends around here. Seems pretty plain to me.”
“You think it’s about us. Me and the kids.”
“’Course I do.”
I put the letter and envelope aside. They’re going in my files. I know this is a problem; how large a problem, I don’t yet know. “Vee, you knew this could happen; you come over here all the time, you hang out with Lanny. You’ve been in the news. Sooner or later, you were going to get a troll interested in you. The good news is, ninety-five percent of the time these people are cowards who’d never dare try anything. They feel big and brave threatening from a distance.” That’s all true. But this, I’m all too aware, wasn’t delivered from a distance. It was at her front door. “If you want me to take it to the police—” Though I know full well the Knoxville police will just dismiss it. There’s no threat even implied here, much less openly stated. Free speech applies.
“No!” She snaps it instantly, just as I thought she would. “I can handle it.” Vee has had far too much contact with the police in her life, and in Wolfhunter, the cops were as bad as the criminals, if not worse. She doesn’t trust a badge unless she absolutely has no choice. And truthfully, this time it wouldn’t help anyway.
Lanny takes Vee’s hand and squeezes it, which is more comfort than I’m offering. Vee gives her a ketchup-smeared smile and makes a kissy face, and Lanny flinches away. “Ewww,” my daughter says. “Gross. No.”
“Definitely no,” I say. “Wipe your mouth, Vee.”
“You ain’t my momma.”
“You parked your ass at my table like I was. Wipe your mouth.”
She does, grudgingly. Vee doesn’t like doing anything that isn’t her own idea, which is something I hope she’ll grow out of. It may take another eighteen years of growing before she achieves anything like balance. I like and admire the girl—love her, in some ways—but I’m wary too. Vee’s all edges, and no comfortable place to hold on to. I don’t want my kids—especially Lanny—getting hurt.
Then you shouldn’t have quasi-adopted her, I tell myself. Fair enough. But I couldn’t just abandon her to the spiral of destruction she was headed down either. At least this way she has a chance. And someone watching her back.
“I’m gonna get a gun,” Vee announces. “For protection.”
Oh shit. “No, you’re not,” I tell her. “If you want one, you follow the same rules as anyone in this house. You train, and I don’t mean the bullshit online checkbox courses. You go to a gun range and you get good with it, and then you keep training to stay good at it. Understand?” I have zero authority to say this; Vee can sneer at me and do exactly as she wants. But she’s got her feet under my table, and I use my severest tone.
To my surprise, it works. Vee chews thoughtfully on her eggs a second before she says, “Well, I don’t know much about guns. Might be a good thing to have somebody like you tell me what I ought to be doing.”
“Guns are for offense. They can’t shield you. They’re not for show. The only thing they do—and they do it very well—is to kill somebody first who you believe is trying to kill you. But that’s the problem right there: judgment. Because you have to be prepared to make that decision in a split second, without real information, in a situation where your adrenaline is screaming through your veins and you’re scared to death.”
“You’ve got guns,” she says, and it’s surprisingly not confrontational.
“I do. Because I have kids to protect, and because I don’t romanticize firearms. They aren’t ego props, Vee. They’re tools to kill, and the damage they leave behind is real and brutal. Often final.”
“I know that,” she says. And she does—she’s seen far too much of it already. “But I think I need one, Ms. Proctor. And I’d like it if you’d help me get one.”
She’s thrown it right back, and I feel Lanny’s gaze heavy on me. Lanny doesn’t own a gun, but she’s been taking classes once a week; she and I practice together. She’s getting to be a decent shot too.
“Here’s the deal,” I tell Vee. “You do classes with us at the range, starting tonight. You only get to buy a gun when I say you’re ready to have one, and that means when you’re officially eighteen. And when you do get one, you keep the practice up. I’ll check. Understand?”