Square One by L.A. Witt

Author:L.A. Witt [Witt, L.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Holden

It was cute as hell to watch Porter and the kids at the zoo. Unbeknownst to him, I’d decided to follow his lead on everything and not just the direction we took. I let him set the pace for wandering around the sprawling wildlife park.

That was, to say the least, educational.

I learned that Ethan was utterly fascinated by big cats, especially the snow leopards. For that matter, I’d never realized how interested he was in birds, or how much he knew about them. He could identify all kinds of birds at a glance without even looking at the placards, and he was mesmerized by the raptor show.

Chloe loved everything. If it was a critter, she adored it, and I was pretty sure her favorite thing was the petting zoo in the farm animal exhibit. Watching giraffes, zebras, and hippos was fine and good, but she could actually touch the sheep and goats, so that was a winner for her. And for Porter. Long after Ethan started getting restless and wanted to move on, Porter and Chloe were still enthralled with the petting zoo. Fortunately, there were some squirrels nearby that kept Ethan entertained, so no one had any complaints.

Then, once Chloe had had enough of petting the sheep and goats, she took Porter’s hand and led him out of the exhibit.

“Okay.” He’d unfolded the map and held it where they could all see it. “Where to next?”

And then we’d continued through the zoo.

The whole time we were there, Porter never made any attempt to drag them away from an exhibit. If they wanted to watch the otters play for half an hour, then we watched the otters play for half an hour. He made sure we had plenty of time to get to the raptor show not only before it started, but before the close-up seats were full, so Ethan was able to snag a spot in the front and see without anyone blocking him. When Ethan wanted to ask the raptor handler detailed questions about the hawks and eagles, Porter occupied Chloe by pointing out some sparrows nearby or quietly going over the map and figuring out what she wanted to go see next.

At first, I’d been kind of impatient, thinking we should get moving if they wanted to see everything. But after the first hour or so of leisurely strolling between exhibits, I started to see what was going on.

He wasn’t rushing them. He didn’t need to.

Our tickets were for the entire day, as was our parking space. There was no need to sprint through everything, and that would just leave everyone tired and cranky anyway. Aside from getting us to the raptor show on time, the he only made a serious attempt to steer the group in a certain direction once, and that turned out to be a subtle means of herding us all toward the food court. By the time Ethan and Chloe started showing the first hints that there might be I’m hungry tears on the horizon, Porter had them seated at a table and was distributing burgers and chips.

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