Page 19 of The Heart That Breaks
“Oh,” she said. “My daddy said if I act like I do at home at school, I’ll spend most of my day getting beatings.”
“That’s not true,” I said with a frown, certain now I knew what kind of a dad she had.
“But you get snacks?”
“Yeah. Usually stuff like goldfish crackers and apple juice.”
“That sounds good,” Brandi said, looking out the window of the school bus.
I noticed then too that she was awfully small for her age. I wondered if she got enough to eat at her house.
I reached down and picked my back pack up from the floor board, unzipped it and pulled out somecheese crackers I had planned to have for a snack that afternoon. “Would you like these?” I asked.
Her eyes lit up instantly at the sight of them. I could tell she thought she should refuse, but clearly, she wanted them too much to give in to politeness.
“Thank you,” she said.
I opened the pack and handed it to her. The crackers disappeared so fast that I wished I had more to give her.
I did have a hair brush and some rubber bands so I said, “Would you like for me to do your hair before we get to school?”
“Would you?”
“Sure,” I said, hoping I would be able to get through the tangles.
She turned so that her back was to me. I started with the bottom of her hair, brushing the ends gently until I could pull some of the mats apart and work my way up.
Her hair was fine so it didn’t take as long as I had feared it would to get it all straight and tangle free. By the time I was done, it hung well below her shoulders, a fact that surprised me since with the knots, it had seemed a lot shorter.
“Braids or pigtails?”
“Braids, please.”
I divided her hair down the center of the back, brushed one side into a pigtail and then began quickly braiding it and snapping one of the bands at the end. I finished the other side just as we pulled up to the school.
“Thank you, Ann-Elizabeth,” she said, looking at me with such adoration that I wished I had a cute outfit for her to meet her new teacher in. But I didn’t, so I assured her she was welcome and got up to lead the way off the bus. She reached up and took my hand, and we walked that way into the elementary school building.
I wasn’t her mama, but it felt like Brandi was proud enough to be seen with me that I could have been. And from that day, it had been like that with us. I bought things now and then that I knew she needed. Nothing expensive or fancy. But compared to Brandi, I was practically rich. And compared to Nathan, I’m dirt poor.
“What are you thinking about this morning, Ann-Elizabeth?” she asks, pulling me out of my daydreaming. “A boy?”
“Now what would make you think that?” I ask, giving her a half-smile.
“You kind of have a dreamy look in your eyes.”
“I do?”
“Yeah, you do.”
“I guess I must have been thinking about Henry.”
She gives me a clearly skeptical look. “Henry’s great, but I haven’t seen this look on your face before.”
“Hm. You’re awfully perceptive this morning.”
“So it is a boy?” she says with a notable amount of glee.
“I didn’t say that.”
