“Jacob!” I yelled.
My dad buckled over and groaned.
“Jacob, why did you hit him?!”
“Daddy told me to. He said if anything happened that I should punch your daddy.”
Oh my God.
My father had fallen to his knees and his face was scrunched up in pain.
“That was for Daddy,” Jacob said. “You’re a bad abuelo!”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
My father didn’t say a word. And I wasn’t worried about leaving him. Because he had at least one great kidney to hold him together. I scooped up Jacob into my arms and ran out of the room, through the foyer, and out the door.
“You shouldn’t hit people,” I said, even though I was silently high-fiving him.
“You shouldn’t hit people,” he said back to me.
Touché.
“But…Daddy said it’s okay to hitbadpeople,” Jacob said.
“Your father was right about that.”
“I know,” Jacob said. And then he smiled up at me. “I did good?”
“You did great.” I kissed the top of his head as we hurried down the stairs. I doubted my father was running after us. But I still wanted out of this building.
“What’s a slut?” Jacob asked.
Oh no.“It’s a bad word. Something mean that you should never repeat.”
“What about whore?”
I’d covered his ears, how had he heard that? “Don’t ever say that either.”
“Prostitute?”
I walked through the lobby and out the front doors, hoping no one heard my son say that. “Sweet boy, promise me you’ll never say those words again.”
“Sí. If we go to the zoo.”
“Are you bartering with me?”
“Abuelo Tanner says bartering is the key to succession.”
“You mean success?”
Jacob shrugged.
I couldn’t help but laugh. My son had just hit my father in the nuts. And it was actually kind of hilarious now that we were far away from him. A last parting gift from Miller. Jacob had doneeverything Miller had told him to. And that deserved a special treat. “Okay, let’s go to the zoo.”
“Huzzah!”
I was pretty sure Rob had yelled that the other night when he made a family-room-soccer goal. Jacob was picking up everything.
