Page 6 of The Christmas Mittens
“Hey, you feeling okay?” I asked as she sat down. I noted she had showered and changed her pajamas. Her cheeks were flushed pink against the pale white.
“My stomach hurts,” she said softly before picking up the frog. “This is cute.”
“Yeah, they had a fishbowl full. It reminded me of the frog you had as a pet when you were eight.”
“Oh yeah. Rupert. I let him go after a few weeks.” She placed the frog beside her cup and peeled open the candy bar. She offered me a square. I took it with a tender smile. “So, like, I don’t need you to tell me all about how I’m a woman now. I just cannot with that. Also, I know about getting pregnant now. You told me all about sex and everything years ago.”
It was three years ago, to be exact. “Okay, I won’t say anything about you being a woman now. I will just say I’m here for you whenever you need me, and I will always be here for you. I get that this is a hard time of life, but you’re smart and strong and will sail through it with grace and good humor just like your mother did.”
She chewed her candy, damp strands of hair hanging into her tired eyes. “Did Mom want to cry a lot when it was her time of the month?”
“Oh yeah, she cried over everything. Coffee ads, tissue commercials, a butterfly on a flower. One time, she cried because I wore a green shirt.” Gilda giggled. “No lie. I never did get why that green shirt made her weep. Maybe because it was so ugly?”
“Maybe.” We ate more candy and drank some of our cocoa. “I’m tired, and my belly hurts. I’m going back to bed. Thanks for the pad run.”
“Take some Advil for the cramps. And you’re welcome, sweetie. You can call on me whenever for whatever.”
“I know.” She rose, padded over to me, and kissed my cheek. A static moment passed, then she threw her arms around me and hugged me close. Nothing was said, but her embrace was tight as a vise. I hugged her back, wishing I could do more for her during this tricky transition from girl to young lady. “Love you, Dad,” she whispered before letting go.
“Love you too, G-Bug.”
She rolled her eyes at the baby name, sniffled a little, and then took her cocoa and her little frog and made her way back to her room.
When the door clicked shut, I let my brow thud to the table. This parenting a girl thing was not all glitter and powder puffs, that’s for sure. They needed to invent a checklist or a guide for single dads to refer to just to check if they were doing itright. They made manuals for small engines. Why not for fathers raising teenage girls?
Chapter Four
Thursday, December 10
I’d read the manual for this carburetor rebuild ten times, and it still made no sense.
How the hell could it be any clearer? I’ve done this kind of job a hundred times, yet this morning I couldn’t seem to get the damn thing running properly. I tore it apart, cleaned it, and replaced the bowl gasket and intake gasket. The fuel lines were new as was the gas, but it still wasn’t running right. I also called the old Tecumseh a few choice words, which sometimes helped, but not even cussing was getting this thing to stop sputtering.
“I have a hammer,” I warned it and let my head fall to my forearm as it lay on my workbench.
Lack of sleep was making things more difficult. Gilda and I had a rough night, but we were forging on. She’d been incredibly hard to wake up this morning. Once she was relatively coherent, I asked if she wanted to stay home. She didn’t. She said the cramping was less, and she didn’t want to miss play practice. So I packed her lunch and walked her to the door, where she left me behind as she ran for the bus. Mr. Plankett, the bus driver, knewto give her a few extra minutes. He’d been driving bus for Grouse Falls since I was a kid, so he was well-versed with terminally late preteens.
Hopefully her day was progressing better than mine. Probably it was. She was a kid who bounced back incredibly quickly. I’d seen her and her friends stay up all night for sleepovers—why they called them that when the kids never slept, I never did grasp—then charge around all day at top speed. Me? Not too much charging. If I didn’t get at least eight hours, I looked like Nosferatu and not the sexy Bill Skarsgård version either. I was the old black and white vampire with big ears and wild eyebrows. As I rested my weary head on my arm, I could feel my eyebrows growing out. Yep, frightful sight in three…two…
The bells over the front door rang out, startling me awake. I jerked upward so quickly I nearly fell backward off the stool.
“Be right there,” I shouted as I got my ass under me, as Wilson liked to say. Yawning widely, I wiped my hands on an old rag and then ambled out to the showroom. I was expecting a rush delivery from the auto parts store out on Old Kenner Road. I had a cranky ice auger that needed a new solenoid on order for Frank Miller. Big ice fisherman Frank was. Caught the biggest pike once and never let anyone forget it. Schnell Lake in the next county west of us was having a big ice tourney in a few weeks. The cold weather of late had frozen the small lake well, so Frank and the rest of the ice fishermen were chomping at the bit to get out and snag a monster. “If you want some coffee, I just made a pot.”
I blinked at the man in the doorway. It wasn’t Larry, the deliveryman from Auto Parts Express. Standing there with the morning sun glinting off some vibrant dark brown streaks in his curls was Blue Coat Man.
“Good morning,” he said, his dark amber eyes flicking to me then returning to the line of scarves, mittens, and hats.
“Looking for a hat to match the mittens you’ve taken?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible. This man had been tiptoeing around inside my head for days.
“No, the hats won’t fit her,” he replied and turned to face me. “Do you have any of the smaller mittens? The ones for infants? She keeps chewing up the ones that I take.”
“Oh.” Huh. So he had a toothy baby. “Well, I might have a few in my knitting bag. If you give me a moment. Please feel free to browse.”
“Thank you,” he replied, his accent barely there unless you listened closely. European for sure, Scandinavian perhaps, but I wasn’t sure. Katie had a cousin who had studied and lived in Norway for many years and sounded much like this man. He shrugged out of his coat as the showroom was quite warm. Most of the heat ran into it via some fans and ductwork to keep the customers warm. My workspace held the woodstove, so I was always toasty, even if much of the heat was blown into the front room. “You have some very nice saws.”
“I try to keep a few of the newest models in stock. You should take a gander at that new Snow Goose snowblower over there. Electric start, 252cc engine, twenty-six-inch clearing width with a twenty-inch intake height. Comes with hardened gears in the auger gearbox so you won’t have to worry about sheared pins that need replacing all the time. Self-propelled. Three-year warranty. Reasonably priced.”
He glanced at the bright blue snowblower and back at me, his coat lying over his forearm. I snuck in a fast once-over while he was admiring the snowblower. His clothes fit him well, clean black jeans, and a soft-looking sweater of pale blue. His shoulders were wide, and his waist was lean. A nicely put-together man with curls for days. “It seems quite nice, but I don’t really need a large piece of equipment like that.”
