I nudge her knee gently with mine. “Eat, Bluebird,” I mumble under my breath.

She jerks a little as if in a trance and then picks up her fork.

Most of the time we eat in comfortable silence. Liam is out of breath when he finishes because he hardly took one while he filled his belly.

“After this,” Dixie begins, turning to me as she continues, “we’re going to have a campout at my house. Movies and a tent and sleeping bags. We’re even going to make s’mores by roasting marshmallows on the stovetop like Nana and Papa used to. Would you like to join us, Gavin?”

The way she speaks my name, enunciating both syllables, I can tell it’s an invitation of desperation. I know she’d really rather have space from me after everything I told her but she needs my help tonight, with Liam, in not letting her huge heart show.

“What do you say, man?” I dip my head to catch Liam’s eye. “That okay with you? I’m pretty good at roasting stovetop marshmallows. Not to brag or anything . . .”

He shrugs but I can see the interest in his eyes. Not sure if it’s for the camping or the marshmallows, but at least it’s something.

When I glance over at Dixie, she has a certain gleam in her eye as well. Maybe she’s not dreading spending time with me as much as I thought she was.

That’s something, too.

I’ll take what I can get. It’s what I’ve done all my life.

23 | Dixie

I FEEL LIKE I can breathe again when Liam and I arrive home with Gavin following us in a green pickup.

Gavin seems to understand Liam in a way I can’t. He relates to him, chats easily with him, and doesn’t seem as nervous about screwing up as I am. When we were getting into the van earlier, I went to help Liam up and I saw some alarming scars on his back. One is dangerously similar to the shape of a belt buckle.

Each mark on him, each sign I missed all this time while giving him lessons, is affecting me in ways I can’t understand. I do the best I can to hide how much I want to curl up and have a good cry. I don’t deserve to get to cry. Liam is a tough kid and he deserves my strength, not my pity or my tears. Gavin has kept my pity party in check and I’m glad he’s here.

But it’s hard, too. Hard to look at him and not kiss him, hard to be so close and not touch him.

We walk toward the house, the three of us, and there is an odd peaceful feeling soothing me as if I am exactly where I need to be in this moment.

Gavin holds the door open and we step inside and get busy pulling out the old two-person tent he and my brother used to use and every pillow, blanket, and sleeping bag we can find. I put Liam in charge of organizing the snacks on a plate at the kitchen table and he remains very serious and intense about counting out and lining up marshmallows, graham crackers, and pieces of Hershey bar in methodical groups.

“Good job,” I tell him once Gavin and I have the tent and pillow and blanket fort assembled in the living room. “Now let’s get cracking on these s’mores.”

Liam grins, proud of himself for his hard work, and it both warms and breaks my heart to see him smile. He’s so small and vulnerable and my mind keeps drifting to how big his dad is and what kind of life this little boy has had so far.

Gavin catches me tearing up a little and steps in. “How about Liam and I handle the s’mores and you be on movie duty?”

I nod and my skin heats from the embarrassment at being caught breaking down again.

Buck up, buttercup, my subconscious scolds me. I take a deep breath and do that.

I’m tough. I lived on the road alone for nearly three months. I started a business by myself. I’ve got this.

Even though I do feel as if I can handle this, I also know that just as Gavin’s pain is my pain, Liam’s pain is also seeping into the broken places inside my heart and that I won’t allow this child to receive another mark on his skin or miss another meal no matter what I have to do.

The ire burns in me, anger at the kind of people who allow children to be hurt or go hungry, rage at those who inflict pain on the innocent and helpless.

“Breathe, Bluebird,” Gavin tells me quietly. “Go pick out a movie. One of those Disney ones you’re always telling me I need to see.”

I take a deep breath and turn to go into the living room, but not before hearing Liam ask, “Why do you call her Bluebird?”

I can’t help myself, I need to hear the answer. Once I’ve stepped out of sight, I lean against the wall and do my best to eavesdrop.

“Well . . . that’s kind of a long story, I guess,” Gavin says, barely speaking loud enough for me to hear. He mentions something about a story he already told Liam outside this morning but I don’t know what he’s referring to.

When Liam doesn’t respond, Gavin continues.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t have a whole lot of hope. I didn’t hope to see my friends, or hope to play with my toys, or hope to get anything for my birthday or Christmas. I had done that and been let down a lot. So I didn’t have much hope or dare to think that my life would ever get much better.”

I close my eyes and place a hand on my chest to keep my heart from breaking apart.

“Then I met Dixie. And her brother Dallas. And I don’t know . . . I felt . . . alive. I felt hope.”

Liam is still quiet and I wish I could see his face.

Does he have hope? Does he get birthday presents? Has he ever had a Christmas?

“Remember what I told you about today,” Gavin continues. “When Dallas, my friend and Dixie’s brother, was mowing grass by a pond and he saw a bird. One of the blue finches like you and me saw in the backyard. This one was small and lying down in some high grass but there wasn’t a tree or a nest around. It was just . . . there. And it looked dead.”

“But you said it wasn’t. You said it flew away,” Liam’s voice is soft and yet heavy with the sound of betrayal.

“I told you the truth. It didn’t die. We just thought it was dead. But then Dixie showed up and Dallas picked it up and carried it home and the next thing we knew, it was chirping and flying away, right out of his hands.”

“But . . . how?”

I have to strain to hear Gavin’s answer. “I think, maybe, that our little bluebird was lying there, feeling bad and defeated and maybe thinking about giving up. But then we came along and lifted it up off the ground and took it somewhere safe. We gave it hope. And when it came to and we watched it fly away, it gave us hope right back.”

I smile when the inevitable question slips from Liam’s lips. “Okay. So you saved the bird but what does that have to do with Miss Dixie?”

Gavin chuckles lightly. “I call Miss Dixie Bluebird because she gives me hope. When I’m lying down feeling bad and thinking about giving up, it’s her that makes me pick myself back up again and fly. Even when I think I can’t, even when I don’t want to. As long as she has hope, has faith in me, I’ll still try to be the best that I can be.”

And here I thought it was because I had blue eyes and my last name was Lark.

Fighting tears at this point just feels stupid so I let them out, wiping them gently and wondering why it took a child to get that story out of Gavin. Why he never told me how he felt.

The room falls quiet so I peek around the corner. Gavin turns on the burner and pulls up a chair for Liam to watch while he roasts the marshmallows.

Seeing them does strange things to my insides. I don’t know what it is, but somehow they are right together. As if my only purpose in life was to unite these two wounded souls. As if somehow they belong to me and I belong to them.

“How goes the movie search?” Gavin calls out.

Even though his back is to me, I know he knows I haven’t looked for movies.

I take a few steps back from the entryway and call back, “Oh, it’s going. Disney really has the corner on the princess market, though. Not sure you boys would like any of these.”