32. Cass #2
Barb was in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame, smiling.
"She picked it out herself," Barb said. "I just drove."
Birdie grabbed my hand and pulled me to the couch. "Can you do my hair? Like yours? The braidy one?"
"Of course."
I sat down and she dropped between my knees. I pulled the elastic from her ponytail and combed through her hair with my fingers. Over, under, pull. Over, under, pull.
Barb sat in the armchair and watched us.
"Is it done?" Birdie was bouncing before I tied the elastic.
"Hold still. Almost."
I wrapped the end and patted her shoulder. She was on her feet and down the hall before I could blink. She looked into the bathroom mirror and gasped.
"I look just like you!" She was beaming so hard her eyes were almost closed. She ran back to the living room and wrapped her arms around my neck.
I held her. My chin rested on the top of her head. She smelled like shampoo and whatever Barb had been cooking. The little cop hat fell off and neither of us picked it up.
The front door opened. Wyatt walked in, keys in hand, and stopped when he saw us. He'd been helping Travis move a couch into his new apartment.
Birdie let go and scrambled off to show him. "Daddy! Mommy Andy did my hair! Look!"
"I see that." He crouched down and studied the braid. "You look amazing, Bird."
She beamed and ran to Barb to show her from every angle.
Wyatt sat down beside me. His hand reached for mine between the couch cushions.
"She's been asking to be you for Halloween for weeks," he said. "I see Barb came through."
"She's going to have a better solve rate than I do."
He smiled. "Birdie's also been asking about the camping trip. She wants to know if we're still going to Red Rock for Thanksgiving."
"Of course we are."
"Good." He squeezed my hand.
From the kitchen, I could hear Birdie's voice: "Barb, do you think real cops eat cookies on the job?"
"I think real cops eat whatever they want."
I leaned into Wyatt's shoulder and closed my eyes.
A year ago, I moved across the street with a bookshelf and a broken heart. I chose this block for the sight lines, the foot traffic, the distance to the precinct. I didn't know that I was going to find my new life twenty feet from my front door.
"Daddy, this one has sparkles!"
Red Rock Canyon in November was cooler than I remembered. The morning air had a bite to it and the sky was wide and clear above the red sandstone.
Birdie was crouched on the trail ahead of us, turning a rock over in both hands. Her collection bag was already bulging at the hip. She held it up to the sun, inspected it, and dropped it in with the rest.
Wyatt looked at me and smiled.
We rounded a bend and I saw it. A mule deer, maybe twenty yards off the trail, standing in the scrub. It lifted its head and looked at us.
"Are you okay?" Wyatt's hand came to my shoulder.
I looked at the deer. Its brown eyes looked back at me, its ears tipped forward.
I waited for the old response. The tightness in my chest, the tilt in the floor, the flash of headlights and my mother's hand reaching across the console. I waited for my body to do what it always did.
It didn't come.
I looked up at Wyatt and nodded.
The deer watched us for another second, then turned and walked into the brush.
We kept hiking. The trail steepened and Birdie scrambled up a boulder that came up to her shoulders. Wyatt boosted her and she disappeared over the top.
Wyatt climbed up first and reached down for me. I took his hand and he pulled me up. At the top, he didn't let go. He pulled me close and kissed me.
"Daddy! Daddy! Do it here! Do it here!"
Birdie was jumping up and down ten feet ahead of us on the trail. Her bag was bouncing with every jump and her face was so excited she looked like she might burst.
I looked at Wyatt. He was smiling the way he smiled when he had a secret he couldn't keep.
"Do what here?"
Wyatt turned to his daughter. "Can you hold this for us, Birdie?"
He pulled a small camera from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. Birdie took it with both hands and held it up like a professional, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration.
Wyatt turned back to me.
He got down on one knee on the red sandstone, with the desert stretching out behind him.
"Cass."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring.
"I've loved you since the night you beat Travis at darts and smiled at me on the walk home.
Every version of you since then. The woman who braided my daughter's hair, who held my hand at a funeral, who stood in a holding cell and called me stupid.
The woman who reads romance novels in the bath, who learned to bake cookies and knit for my daughter, who can tackle a six-foot firefighter, who stared down her sergeant when he was being an asshole.
I love all of them." His voice caught. "And I want to spend the rest of my life watching you figure out which ones are new. "
I laughed through the tears.
"Daddy, is she crying?" Birdie whispered behind the camera.
"Yeah, sweetheart. That's a good sign."
I pulled him up by his shirt collar and kissed him.
"Is that a yes?" he said against my mouth.
"Yes. That's a yes."
He took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger.
Birdie screamed. The sound echoed off the canyon walls and startled a bird out of a nearby bush. She dropped the camera and ran at us. Wyatt scooped her up with one arm while the other stayed around me.
The three of us stood on the trail. Birdie's arms around both our necks. Wyatt's forehead against mine. The ring on my finger, warm from his pocket.
Birdie squirmed down from Wyatt's arm and ran back to the camera. She picked it up, checked the screen, and turned it around.
"Daddy, your eyes are closed."
"Then we'll take another one."
He pulled me close. Birdie held up the camera, tongue out, one eye shut.
"Say cheese!"