Free Red Dirt Heart 3 by N.R. Walker

be up?”
    Ma gave me a tired smile. “I’ve been sleeping all day,” she said. “I needed to get out of bed.”
    “Are you sure?” I asked. “Can I get you a cup of tea? Where’s George?”
    Ma sighed. “Charlie, I’m fine.” She studied me for a minute. “I heard you had a visitor, though.”
    “Something like that.” I opened the fridge and did a count of the bottles. There was one missing. I looked back at Nara, seeing Nugget was wriggling in her hold. “Did he feed?”
    “Not really,” she said, nodding to a half-full bottle on the sink. “But he won’t sleep. Keeps running everywhere, gets under my feet.”
    I sighed. “Sorry about that.”
    “Oh, it was no problem,” she covered quickly. “Just wish he’d take a bottle from someone else.”
    I snorted. “So do I! Then Travis could do night feeds.”
    “Like hell,” Travis replied, picking an apple up and taking a bite.
    “Here,” I said to Nara, “let me take him. You’re busy enough without havin’ to worry about this little guy too.” I picked up Nugget and touched his nose to mine. “You don’t need me to feed you, okay?”
    Travis laughed. “Yeah, like you’d let me do night feeds.”
    Ma was smiling weakly at us, and I’d guessed I’d put off her question long enough. “You wanna come into the lounge room, Ma?” I asked. “We can talk in there.” Then I gave a nod to Travis. “You too, please.”
    I sat on the three-seater with a now feeding Nugget, and Trav started the fire while Ma took a seat next to me.
    “George already told me who it was,” she said.
    “She just turned up,” I said with a shrug. “Same day we found this stuff.” I nodded toward the two boxes still sitting on the floor. I shook my head and sighed. “Not that it mattered none, I guess. If George wasn’t here, I wouldn’t have believed it was her. He remembered her, of course. And Trav says we have the same eyes, but I don’t see it.”
    The afternoon was starting to cool down, and although it wasn’t particularly cold yet, Ma looked like she was freezing. With my free hand, I took a blanket off the back of the lounge and put it over her legs. “I didn’t recognise her at all. She’s not what I remembered.”
    Ma’s eyes softened. “It can’t have been easy for you, Charlie. I wish I’d been there for you.”
    I patted her arm. “I was fine with her. She isn’t what bothered me at all. Like I said to Trav, she might have been the woman who gave birth to me, but she’s not my mother.”
    Ma frowned. “She’ll always be your mother, Charlie.”
    “She’s not the woman who raised me,” I said quietly. “You’re the only mother I’ve ever known.”
    Ma got all teary then. “Oh, Charlie.”
    “It’s true,” I said casually. “Laura sat in here, and it was like I was meeting a complete stranger.”
    Ma took a little while to talk. “George said she was upset when she left,” she said with another frown. “But he said you were more so… after what she told you. I’m really sorry I wasn’t here for that.”
    Nugget finished his bottle, so I put him on the floor. The little guy wandered straight over to Travis. “Don’t apologise, Ma. No one knew she was gonna turn up, let alone drop a bombshell like that.” I shrugged. “I did kinda lose the plot, and Trav took me out back so I didn’t lose my shit completely.”
    I looked over at him, just as he bit off a chunk of apple and gave it to Nugget. It made me smile.
    This time Ma rubbed my arm. I guess she didn’t need to tell me how lucky I was to have Travis. It must have been clear on my face.
    “What will you do now?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” I answered her truthfully. “I have no clue. This so-called brother doesn’t even know I exist apparently, so I don’t know if there’s much I can do.”
    Ma sighed, a quiet, tired sound. “I remember you being no more than five or six, telling me how you wished for a brother or sister.” Then she shook her