On the Outskirts

One

~Sadie~

"Hal, we're running a littl-" My eyes widened at the state of Hallie's room. I hadn't been in here in a day or two. Between the final rush of finishing up the last of Hallie's home schooling paperwork for the end of the school year, work and Brynn's birthday prep for tonight I'd had a manic few days. I couldn't leave the house with this mess in here and we were in a rush to get out the house like we needed to be. I took a slow breath to calm myself down as Hallie sat up, slowly putting her notebook down that I know she's been doodling in for the past half hour. "Okay, this room needs tidying up before we can leave Hal." 

"Can't I do it later?" I looked around the room and back at Hallie, knowing this kid too damn well to know laters never gonna come if we don't whiz through it now.

"We both know that leaving it until tonight isn't gonna sort it Hallie. We'll get home tomorrow exhausted and neither of us will want to do anything more than shower and crawl onto the sofa with and binge Gilmore Girls and I don't want to be the one then who forces you to do it when we're both tired and cranky from a couple long days. But here are the options, okay? It doesn't look that bad. It'll probably take like 10 minutes, right?" Hallie nods, brown scraggly curls bouncing everywhere. "Okay, so we get dressed and you put everything away whilst I make us breakfast to go and sort the rest of the house out then we head out and you know you can come home to a nice tidy room. Or, we can leave it and then when you get home it's gonna end up stressing you out because nothing is where it should be. Eventually it's going to pile up and its going to be unmanageable. Which do you want to go with?" 

"Now." I gave her a quick, appreciative nod as she pulled the duvet off. 

"Atta girl. Dressed, teeth and face, tidy your room and I'll have everything else ready in 20 minutes. Shout me if you need some help because it's too much but I think you can sort this, it's just dirty clothes to put in the basket and putting your coloring and craft things away. Right?" 

"Mhm. You can leave now." Ooft. Gotta love the preteen attitude. 

I'm honestly glad I decided to homeschool Hallie this past year. Moving this far away from everything she's ever known, bringing her to a new kind of lifestyle, to family she never really knew, old friends that didn't even know she existed. It's been a system shock for both of us and I had put it off for too long out of fear it would push her to hate me for taking her away from all of her friends back in Montrose but it was just too hard over there. I was completely alone and watching Hallie being happy was the only thing that kept me going when I was barely putting enough food on the table to feed her, let alone me. Loosing my job was the final straw and it landing right intime for Christmas was a blow I wasn't ready for. It was one phone call from my dad early Christmas eve morning that unleashed years of tears and built up guilt that landed enough money in my bank to get everything packed up and move us back home. 

I kept Hallie at home, thinking home schooling her would be the perfect way to properly introduce her to a life the polar opposite of one she's been living for the past 9 years. It's quiet. That's all she said for the first 2 weeks. No more sirens or city traffic. Just peace and birds and god, the smile on her face when she fed her first calf this spring was the thing of daydreams. 6 months of her learning to love dirt and climb trees with my dad and falling in love with everything I've missed and not once has she hated me for it. Not once has that girl done more than soak it in and I just know this summer is going to be amazing for us both. 

She comes back downstairs, jean shorts, a bright pink tie dyed tee that I am 98% sure Dad pulled from some boxes in the attic that mom must have packed away. I smile at her, handing her a cap and her breakfast, a classic bacon and egg bagel.