LITMIR.BIZ

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pocket. Dixon lived here. He worked at Bootstrap, where the girls went for day care. He knew their ice cream preferences and a whole lot more about their lives.

      Dixon would be the choice. No question.

      What would Brianna want? Wait. Was there a will? Didn’t people list guardians in wills? Aubrey sure hadn’t seen a will. Had Dixon?

      “All set?” Dixon picked up the bowls.

      Aubrey felt woozy, like the stormy drift dive in the Bahamas before they’d sunk below the waves. Dixon looked just as green, as if he stood on the same rolling deck.

      “Hang on.” She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “We need something more.” She ducked into the refrigerator for a can of whipped cream and a jar of maraschino cherries. As she squirted the cream and dropped the cherries, her hands shook. So did Dixon’s holding the bowls. The resulting mounds were lopsided, the cherries sadly off center. “Good enough.”

      In the family room, the girls were holding on to each other trying to balance on their skates, sliding forward and back, waving their free arms wildly.

      “Ta-da!” Aubrey said. “Ice cream sundaes!”

      Dixon set them on the table. “Have at it, girls.”

      “But we’re not allowed to eat in here,” Sienna declared, staring at the heaping, messy bowls. “And you said just a taste.” She paused. “Where are Mommy and Daddy? They promised they’d be here by supper.” Her voice was sharply alert.

      Aubrey looked at Dixon, who closed his eyes briefly, then gave her a slow, resigned nod. It was time to tell them. “Sit down, girls,” he said dully.

      Still holding each other up, the girls clumped to the sofa, and sat, skates dangling from their skinny legs like moon boots. Already scared, they stared at Dixon and Aubrey with wide eyes. Dixon pushed the table to the side, making room for him and Aubrey to kneel in front of the girls.

      “You asked about your parents...” Dixon started. “We...your aunt and I...need to talk to you about...them.”

      Looking into their still, wan faces, so vulnerable, so terrified, Aubrey couldn’t stand it another second. “They were in a car accident.”

      Both girls gasped.

      “They didn’t make it,” Dixon added quickly.

      “What didn’t they make?” Sienna asked in a tremulous voice.

      “He means they died. The accident killed them.”

      “But it didn’t hurt,” Dixon said. “They didn’t have any pain.”

      “What? No! You’re lying!” Sienna’s shrill cry, echoing Aubrey’s first reaction, pierced like a hot spike to her heart.

      “It’s true,” Aubrey said. “I wish it weren’t, but it is.”

      “They’re in a hospital in Nevada,” Dixon said, “but they’ll be flown down to Phoenix for the funeral.” He paused. “That’s a church service where people get together and talk about the dead person and—”

      “Everybody knows what a fun’ral is,” Sienna said. “We had one for our gecko that died.”

      “Are they getting fixed up at the hospital?” Ginger asked, clearly not grasping what Dixon meant. This was so hard. Aubrey wanted to pull the girl into her arms and erase her pain, but there were no magic hugs any more than there were magic words.

      “No. It’s just their bodies,” Dixon said. He had to clear his throat to continue.

      Aubrey put a hand on his arm to support him. “Their spirits are gone. In Heaven.”

      “With Grandma Hanson and Grandpa Carter?” Ginger asked tremulously.

      “And Grandpa Metzger,” Aubrey threw in, though she had no idea how Heaven worked or if her father would be there to greet the daughter he never knew he’d had.

      “I don’t believe you!” Sienna’s voice broke, her anguish ringing in Aubrey’s ears.

      Oh, sweetie, I know, I know. It hurts so much, so very much. She was too young for so much suffering.

      “I’m calling Mommy.” She lunged off the couch and tromped, headlong in her skates, to the kitchen, where she grabbed the phone.

      “I want my mommy and daddy,” Ginger said, big tears rolling down her cheeks.

      “I know you do.” Aubrey held out her arms, but Ginger pushed off the couch onto Dixon’s lap, her knees bent, skates behind, and sobbed into his shoulder with all her might. Dixon was more familiar to her, so it made sense she’d go to him over Aubrey.

      It’s done. They know. The worst’s over.

      But that wasn’t true. Aubrey’s mother’s death had been a boulder dropped in a pond, but grief had rippled outward for months and months, each wave a fresh blow. She’d feared it would kill her, then wished it would. Instead, she had had to endure the pain, day and night, on and on, as had Brianna. Would it be easier because the girls were so young, or harder? She had no idea.

      Sienna stood by the phone, wobbling in her skates, so Aubrey went to help, steeling herself the way she did when she faced an impossible-looking rock climb.

      “Mommy, call me back...please,” Sierra said into the handset, her voice frantic, her eyes jumping here and there, like a trapped bird desperate to escape a cage. “It’s an emergency.” She put the handset in its dock, then stared at it, willing it to ring.

      “I know it’s hard to accept, Sienna.” Aubrey racked her brain for soothing words. “I can hardly believe it and I’m way older than you. It’s a terrible shock. It takes time to get used to, but we’ll do it.”

      Sienna’s lip trembled, her face slowly crumpled.

      “We’ll help each other.” Aubrey held out her arms.

      “Leave me alone!” Sienna turned and hop-tromped down the hall, slamming the bedroom door so loudly the living room windows rattled.

      Now what? Go to her or leave her be?

      In a flash, she remembered holding Sienna the day she was born. Brianna had thrust the tiny bundle of a baby at her. Aubrey had cupped her hand around Sienna’s delicate skull, examined her tiny fingers, fragile as twigs, looked into those clear trusting eyes and panicked. Here. She’d tried to hand the baby back to Brianna. I’m scared I’ll break her.

      But Brianna refused to take the bundle. She looked at Aubrey, her eyes glowing with a new fire. Everyone feels like that. You learn together.

      That flash of memory, hearing Brianna’s voice again, felt like a gift to Aubrey and calmness washed through her. Go to her. Shared pain is less pain. Brianna and Aubrey had gotten each other through the terrible times, after all.

      At first, Aubrey hadn’t understood that. When the minister’s wife had said, You’re so lucky. You have each other, it had been all Aubrey could do not to smack her. They’d lost their mother, their only parent. Lucky was the last thing they were.

      Soon enough, she saw the truth in those words. They’d comforted each other like no one else could have. She would do her best to comfort Sienna. You’ll learn together.

      CHAPTER THREE

      GINGER’S LITTLE BODY trembled in Dixon’s arms, and he had to tighten every muscle to keep from breaking down. He was no good with feelings in general, and his niece’s heartbreak was more than he could grasp, let alone figure out how to fix. Aubrey had gone after Sienna. He hoped she knew what to say.

      Ginger raised her tear-drenched face and looked at him. “Will you take care of us, Uncle Dixon?”

      “Of course I will,” he said, fighting the urge to squeeze her tight—too tight—as if that would somehow help. His

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