Page 52 of Second Start: Family
“Are you going to braid my hair, Daddy?”
*
Kenzie was partially right about braiding Lizzie’s hair not being like braiding rawhide.
The braiding wasn’t all that different. But the prep was.
His hands felt oversized and unwieldly. Not to mention the interested audience of his other kids — Bobby and Molly overtly and Dan covertly.
When he was done, he felt like he’d wrestled a steer made of glass. And wasn’t sure if he’d won or lost.
Lizzie and Kenzie went to the bathroom with her mirror for a look. Noohhhhsof pleasure accompanied this viewing.
When they returned, Lizzie said, “Thank you, Daddy. My head doesn’t hurt at all.”
“You’ll get better at braiding,” Molly said encouragingly. “You can do mine next time to practice.”
“You’re welcome, Lizzie, and thank you, Molly,” he said solemnly. “I’ll make you girls a deal. You don’t have to wear your hair braided outside the house until you think I’m good enough at it.”
“Deal,” they said with not entirely flattering enthusiasm.
*
Behind her sunglasses, Naomi Easton squinted against the light seeping under the sun visor of her luxury SUV.
The drive here had been worse than she expected. She was used to her husband driving. But he was out of town again. Even though she’d told him she needed to make this trip to see for herself how Annie’s children were after the email from Dan.
Eighteen months.
Had it really been that long since Hall Quick’s stolid voice had told her over the telephone that her sister was dead. Her fingers so tight around the phone that it almost squirted out of her hand like a grape being squeezed.
It hadn’t seemed right to hear the news like that. Not thinking of a phone squirting out like a grape. It had all been wrong, so very wrong.
Her husband had been traveling then, too.
At least he’d been home to drive her here for the funeral. She hadn’t been aware of the drive then, too awash in the impossibility of Annie being gone.
They hadn’t seen each other often, hadn’t talked on the phone. But somehow the knowledge that her older sister was plowing through life ahead of her had made it easier to get through her own days, like a car following a powerful snowplow through a blizzard.
And then Annie didn’t exist anymore.
She looked around at where Annie had lived.
Hall Quick didn’t even try.
He could have at least watered the lawn instead of letting it become a stretch of packed-down dirt. No flowers, no landscaping.
Naomi first visited when Danny was a toddler, and it hadn’t been much then, either, but Annie — beautiful, clever Annie — had been full of plans. She was going to paint and plant gardens and — oh, a hundred projects.
At the funeral last spring, Naomi had been too upset to notice her surroundings. Not only was Annie dead, but Hall refused to recognize that the right place for her to be buried was Cheyenne. Instead, they laid Annie to rest in a dusty plot with more tumbleweed than flowers.
As she turned off the engine, she looked up, and put her hand to her heart with a gasp. For an instant, just an instant, the figure there reminded her so much of Annie when they were younger. That defiant posture and strong-minded expression as she stood between their twin beds with the matching ruffled bed skirts and flower-patterned comforters. Naomi would sit up in bed with the covers pulled up to her chin, both chilled and thrilled, while Annie declared that she wasn’t going to follow their mother and step-fathers’ rules.
The instant collapsed — it was Dan. There was a resemblance, but pure boy. Wearing a too-big, faded striped shirt with the cuffs rolled back up his arms and material left to billow above where it was tucked into jeans.
“Danny? Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” The boy’s stiff posture didn’t change. “It’s me — Aunt Naomi.”
Recognition crossed his face. “Oh, yeah. Hi.”
