Seeking Carolina. Terri-Lynne Defino
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vibration of her cell phone ringing in her pocket startled the image from her head. Johanna fished it out.
“Hello?”
She looked at the screen. A dropped call from a number she did not recognize. One with the area code and call numbers for Bitterly. Johanna’s scalp prickled. She hit the call button, listened to the ringing. Four. Five. Six times. He answered just as she was about to hang up.
“Hello? Hello? Jo, don’t hang up.”
“Hey, Charlie.” Her heart hammered. “Did you just call me?”
“Me? No. Why?”
“My phone just…” Johanna closed her eyes. Behind her lids, those children reappeared around the kitchen counter. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. I was just wondering…what are you and the kids doing Christmas Eve?”
* * * *
“Daddy? Are you okay? Daddy?”
Charlie blinked at the phone in his hand. The screen showed Johanna had hung up, but the phone number he’d begged Mike for was still clearly illuminated. As he watched, the display went dark.
“Who’s Joe?”
“Huh?”
Millie, his eight-year-old daughter, rolled her eyes, pointed to the phone in his hand.
“Oh. That was Johanna. You remember her from Henry’s? We’re going to bake cookies at her house on Christmas Eve.”
“Yay!” Millie bounced. “But why did you call her Joe. Joe is a boy’s name.”
“It’s just what I’ve always called her. Now turn around. Let me finish combing.”
“But it’s taking so long. I’m bored.”
“Read your book.”
“I’m tired of reading.”
And I’m tired of combing lice eggs out of your hair. Charlie took a deep breath, resisted the urge to push potentially contaminated fingers through his hair.
“Come on, baby,” he said gently. “Not too much longer.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
Charlie worked through his daughter’s hair with the tiny comb—a feat in itself. Millie had his thick, copper hair. She squealed every time it snarled. Shortcuts would only result in having to do this all over again in a couple of weeks, so he took his tedious time. He thought about all he still had to do, even though Millie was the only one who actually had lice. It was a matter of days before they all did too unless he stripped every bed, vacuumed every surface and put the gazillion stuffed animals in Millie’s bedroom into garbage bags. All the kids would have to be treated anyway, just to be safe. At least Millie was the only one who needed the comb-through.
“Can we still go to the carol-sing tonight?” Millie asked.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Because I got sent home from school. Doesn’t that mean I’m sick?”
“No, baby.” Charlie laughed softly. “Lice doesn’t make you sick. It just makes you itchy.”
“Why?”
“I really don’t know. It just does.”
The front door opened. Charlotte and Caleb. She had just picked him up from his guitar lesson. Will would still be at the hardware store, working. Caleb’s footsteps pounded upstairs to the attic room he shared with his brothers, while Charlotte’s slightly softer tread came towards the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, both hands instantly going to her red, pixie-short hair.
“Not again.”
“Again. You’d best stick to your room until I get the house vacuumed.”
Charlotte started to back away, but stopped.
“Already shampooed?” she asked.
“Just combing it through.”
“I’ll finish. You go do the other stuff.”
“You sure?”
“Come on, Daddy. I’m only around until the end of January. Take advantage of the help while you’ve got it.”
“Thanks, Char.” He handed the comb to his eldest daughter, kissed her cheek. “You’re the best.”
“I know.”
Charlie got the vacuum out of the hall closet, for once grateful the house was small. He could hear his daughters in the kitchen, practicing Christmas carols for the evening’s event—Millie’s, high and sweet, Charlotte’s lower and out of tune. His oldest daughter would come to the Green to help him with the twins, not because she wanted to, but because he needed her to. Halloween was more her thing. Not a single Hunter Moon passed without five pairs of shoes being set outside in hopes of being the lucky one to find theirs full of pebbles in the morning. After Gina left, his oldest daughter forgot to put the shoes outside on the full moon in October, but she did a lot of things she wouldn’t have before—like comb lice eggs from her little sister’s hair.
The vacuum’s roar drowned out their voices. For the next hour, he cleaned. It took him only half that time to shower, wash his hair with the de-lousing solution, and get dressed again. Trotting down the steps, he smelled the sausage and peppers he had earlier prepared, already cooking.
“Thanks, baby.”
His daughter barely looked up from the smartphone in her hand, her long and graceful fingers flying through a text. Charlie pulled the steaming pan from the oven and set it on top of the stove. Another ten minutes, to give it that crisp the kids expected. Gina had given him a few good tips before packing up her life and flying south. The secret to her sausage and peppers had been essential.
“Yours is better.”
Charlie straightened and closed the oven door. “How so?”
“Mom always put too much garlic.”
“She’s Italian. I don’t think there is any such thing as too much garlic for her.”
Charlotte tried hard not to smile, but she cracked.
“You’re a really good cook, Dad. And not because you don’t just open a jar of sauce and splash it on boxed pasta. I’m really impressed with what you put on the table.”
“It’s because you’re used to the cafeteria food at college.”
“It’s because you care. Anyone can put food on the table.”
Another last lesson from Gina—there was food, and there was food. Taking the time to prepare something more than simply edible made people feel loved, cherished. Charlie had wanted the kids to keep that feeling after she was gone, even if they never consciously recognized it like his eldest had.
“I like to cook,” he said. “But your mom is a tough act to follow.”
Charlotte turned away, though not before rolling her eyes.
“Look, baby—”
Charlotte slammed the table. “Goddammit, Dad, look at me. I’m two years older than you were when you had me. I’m not a baby.”
Charlie took a deep breath, tried to remember what the counselor said about kids over-reacting to one thing because it was really about another, one they didn’t want to deal with.
“Charlotte,” he said gently. “You will always be my baby. I’ll never look at you that I don’t, for a split second, see the infant in pink frills, the toddler I helped walk, or the little girl I taught to ride a bike. But I’ll try.”
She looked away, fiddled with her phone. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have popped off like a stupid baby. It was dumb.”
“I