Life
Living in the backwoods means there are animals. My court-ordered therapist told me before children and marriage that living around animals would either make or break me. Hearing that, I saw two futures. In one, I was living alone under an invented name, living without any support in some type of established town or city where no one knew me, trying to return to my former prime and panicking at every animal I saw. The other was taking the chance on letting someone else in and facing animals. Deer and rabbits are the most common out here.
I won't say Dwayne and I haven't tried creative ways to eliminate the nearby animal population. We have. We haven't tried nearly as much as when I lived in the suburbs, because the idea of losing the girls is too much for us to take enormous risks.
If Dwayne weren't permanently fired as a Verminator, I would have taken Verm Tech classes and we'd be the best in the business together by now. We're a fun team. I wish that were possible. If nothing else, we'd be entertaining and people would know us to hire us for that.
Are we intelligent?
I don't know. We know big words and how to use them. We're also impulsive. We're book smart. I don't think we're very life smart, but we made it this far.
Aubrey doesn't pull away from Parker anymore. She grew out of that.