Eighteenth Lovely

Lucky for me, I managed to get the entire show's basic planning done Sunday night. So all I needed to do in the office on Monday was to report and turn them in. Boba was satisfied, and I was let off early. Well, not without a nice survey to be carefully filled out by Friday. He claimed it was to develop the show's advertisement. I asked why I couldn't just do that instead, seeing as I was handling that too. So he gave me until Monday to arrange the first flyer to go around. Wonderful.
Instead of dealing with all of that, I decided to just let the dog sitter off early and spend some time with Dot. The little puppy was too rowdy for me, and I was just too exhausted to not take him outside. Unfortunately, we didn't have any dog toys, so he still couldn't entertain himself. So, the dog park it was.
I drove down there, only relatively smoothly. It's hard to have a relaxing drive with a puppy chirping every two seconds. We pulled up and I was quick to let him run around with other puppies and public toys. While he did that, I fell back into a wooden bench and sighed.
"Hey!" I looked up and saw a thin woman with jet-black hair brushing her wrists.
"Oh," I waved back. "Rachel right?"
"Yup!" she grinned. "I'd be a little irritated if you'd gone and forgotten my name so quickly, Samba." Rachel put her hand on the side of the bench and tilted her head a bit.
"Well, good thing I didn't." I was too tired to be more enthusiastic and didn't try to fight it.
In response, she gave a disappointed, "Yeah."
"Did I...tell you my name?"
"You filled out my mother's form. I checked it." I gave her a look, and she squirmed a bit under it. "Um, how's Couro?"
"Good," I hummed. "She's coming home late today. She decided to join this book club at school." After a second, I leaned over and whispered, "I give her a month."
"That's not fair!" Rachel said between laughs. "She might pick up something."
"She's eight."
She shrugged. "She said something about a brother?"
"Yeah, Gora. He's sixteen."
"Sixteen?" Blinking fast, she looked at me in disbelief. "Are they yours or...?"
A little taken aback, I paused, "Uh, yeah."
"So, the product of a happy marriage then, huh?" she grimly joked. "Sixteen years with one child, and eight with another."
"Yup. But uh, not anymore." I looked away for a minute. A faint image of Kutu sitting beside me appeared, and I didn't want her seeing me like this. "So here, I am," I continued. "Juggling two kids. And a part-time puppy."
"Part-time?"
"We're just nursing him for now. In a few weeks, he goes up for adoption."
She looked over at Dot and laughed, "So I'm guessing you don't know how to care for one?"
"Not at all."
"Well, if you need anything, I'm always here."
"Trust me, me coming all the way here will be a rare occurrence. I doubt it'll ever happen again given with the holiday schedule they're giving me."
"Ah, that sucks." I looked up to see Rachel force herself to say, "Hey, how about you take my number? You can text me for help anytime." She dug into her pocket and stuffed a small slip of paper into my hands.
"Uh, thanks."
"Try it," she insisted. So, I did. Her phone chimed and she held it up to confirm it was me. By the time we settled that, Dot was back at my feet, barking and whimpering. "Think he's ready to leave," Rachel giggled.
I forced a big smile and waved, "Well, thanks, Rachel. See you."
"Bye!"

As I loaded Dot into the car, my phone buzzed. Rachel.

I just realized, I never asked. How old are you?

44.