A Family to Cherish

“Huh?”

“You know, like old people in your family.”

“Like Grandma?”

The unlikelihood of that came through Rachel’s tone and showed on her face.

“Not everybody keeps that kind of stuff,” Cam explained.

“Well, they wear old-fashioned things in the parade every year,” Sophie offered as she buckled her shoulder belt. “Somebody must know where to get them.”

“Do we care that much?” Cam settled his laptop bag on the front passenger seat and met the girls’ gazes through the rear-view mirror once he’d taken his seat. “Because I can check it out if we do.”

Sophie looked tempted but stayed quiet. Rachel nodded as she clipped her seat belt. “Yeah. It would be great. And I think Meredith would like it. She likes having us around.”

Good thing, thought Cam, since we’re going to be underfoot the next few months. He double-checked his tool list, then started the engine. “But remember, this is a job. You need to be good while I’m working or I have to find a sitter for you.”

He didn’t miss their exchanged glances. “Not Grandma, right?” Sophie made a face that inspired Rachel’s giggle.

Grandma didn’t make Cam’s short list of options, either, but he wasn’t a fan of disrespect. “Your grandmother loves you. She’s just got her own way of doing things.”

“Yeah. Mean.”

“Rachel.”

“Sor-ry.”

She stretched out the word as if underscoring her sincerity, but Cam knew better. Rachel called things as she saw them, but he didn’t want to raise mouthy kids. “You guys have your books?”

Sophie patted her backpack.

Rachel looked guilty.

Cam held up three books about an irascible kindergartner whose antics charmed kids of all ages and handed them over the seat. “Luckily, one of us was paying attention.”

She grinned. “Thanks, Daddy.”

“You’re welcome. And I’ve got snacks packed, but don’t mess up Miss Brennan’s house, okay? Or leave food crumbs around for the mice.”

“Real mice?”

“Or rats?” Sophie wondered, intrigued. “Will you pay us if we catch one?”

Cam hesitated, then nodded, unsure how Meredith would handle that idea. Rodents were a fact of life in the country and he paid the girls fifty cents for every mouse they caught, inside and outside. He paid a dollar for rats, but they’d only bagged two of those over the past few years, thanks to Dora, their white-backed calico cat. Dora hunted regularly, as evidenced by the furry gifts she left on their side porch.

She’d had three kittens a few weeks back, two of which were promised to friends.

Kristy had loved kittens. Cats hadn’t been allowed in their apartment, but he’d promised they’d get one once they had their own place. She didn’t live long enough for that promise to become reality.

His fault.

Guilt festered, an angry wound in need of cleansing. But there was little to do for a wounded man who left his wife to die on the couch.

Pneumonia, the doctor said.

Five years later, Cam still felt a slap of disbelief that people died from pneumonia in this day and age, especially young women like his wife. But he should have known because he knew her lungs had been compromised as a child. He’d watched her use an atomizer for exercise-induced asthma. Problems in her first year had taken her to the hospital several times with infant pneumonia. What he hadn’t known was that the effects of those early problems could prove dangerous to the twenty-seven-year-old woman that shared his love, his life, his bed.

“What’s wrong, Daddy?”

He flicked a glance toward Rachel, erased his concerns and shrugged. “Nothing, honey. I’m just pondering how to do things at Miss Brennan’s.”

“Oh.” Rachel nodded, accepting, then sighed. “I love her hair. Don’t you, Sophie?”

Sophie darted a glance between Rachel and her father. Cam caught the tail end of the surreptitious look while paused at a stop light. “It’s all right,” she answered, purposely nonchalant.

“It’s gorgeous.” Rachel laced her observation with full drawn-out emotion. “I want hair like that when I get bigger.”

“I don’t.”

Rachel eyed her sister and shrugged. “Well, you couldn’t have it anyway. You’ve got dark hair. And it’s straight. I’ve got curls like Meredith.”

Cam cringed. The girls barely knew Meredith and already they were arguing about hair. What was next? Nails? Makeup? Boyfriends? “God made you different because you are different, Rach. That doesn’t make curls better than straight or vice versa.”

“Vice-a-whatta?”

“It doesn’t matter what your hair looks like,” he pressed.

Sophie’s eye roll said otherwise.

Rachel just laughed. “Of course it does. It’s hair. It’s supposed to look nice. Don’t you like the way Meredith’s hair looks, Daddy? All shiny and soft?”

Do not go there.

“How we act is more important,” Cam explained, feeling defensive and out of the loop, “than how we look outside.”

Sophie stayed quiet, staring out the window, then leaned forward. “You get your hair cut all the time, Daddy.”

“Yes.” He drew the word out, wondering. “I have to look decent to teach.”

“What if we want to look nice, too?”

Where Rachel finagled, Sophie calmly reasoned. Her words stabbed Cam. Could they possibly think they didn’t look nice? They were beautiful, lovely, adorable girls. They didn’t need artificial enhancements to make that more noticeable. He paused at a stop sign and met Sophie’s honest look.

“You always look nice, honey.”

She stayed silent, their gazes locked. Cam glimpsed a hint of the woman she was to become when she sat back and resumed gazing out the window, her face and posture quietly shutting him out.

He’d blown it, big time, but he had no idea why. Or how. Or why hair mattered to a pair of little girls who should be more interested in crushing opponents on a soccer field than playing with dolls.