“Here you go,” Dani said, handing her the mug.
“Thank you.” She took a sip, and the coffee was very good. “Where’s your father?”
“Daddy jumped in the shower before Uncle Keane because he takes too long in there. They argue about it all the time.”
Dani gestured to a chair at the kitchen table with a grand sweep of her arm. “Please, have a seat. And relax.”
Kind of charmed by Shay’s kid being quite the little awkward hostess, Tock sat down.
“Would you like some toast?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” Grabbing her bright pink backpack from across the room, Dani sat down at the table, catty-corner from Tock.
Tock cringed. She was not in the mood to have a conversation with a kid. She was just not good at that sort of thing. For her, such conversations were always frustrating and uncomfortable; right now, she didn’t want to do anything but drink this delicious coffee and be annoyed thinking about her grandmother.
She loved her savta. She really did. But the way Mira wormed her way into people’s lives had always pissed Tock off. If she wanted to do that with heads of countries, that was fine. But treating everyone else the same way, especially family . . . Tock didn’t need that from her or anyone.
Still, after using the Malone kitchen cabinets as a hotel room, Tock knew it would be rude to tell the kid to stop talking to her. Especially since she was kind of sweet.
After ten minutes or so, Tock finally realized something . . .
The kid wasn’t talking to her. She just opened her pink backpack, pulled out a pink notebook, a pink, rhinestone-covered box of pencils, and a textbook. She opened the book and notebook, took out a pencil, sharpened it, and got to work. Quietly.
Allowing Tock to just enjoy her coffee and the silence until the third time the kid erased something with her separate big white eraser. She didn’t use the pencil eraser for some reason.
“What are you working on?” Tock finally asked after the fourth time Dani erased something on the same page.
“Equations. I can’t figure this one out.”
She moved the notebook over so Tock could see it. And Tock instantly knew the answer. She was even about to say it, but then remembered that she used to hate it when her mother just gave her the answers to problems. She wanted to figure them out herself. She was guessing Dani probably felt the same way.
“Okay,” Tock said, putting down her coffee. “What’s the first thing you do when you look at fractions?”
*
Shay finished tying his sneakers and quickly combed his hair back with his fingers. When he walked out of his room, Keane was just coming out of the bathroom. He gripped a towel around his waist and was brushing his teeth with an electric toothbrush while striding down the hallway to his room.
“Wha’?” Keane asked around his toothbrush because he knew what Shay’s glare meant: Why do you take so long in the goddamn bathroom?
Dani took less time!
“I’m leaving in ten minutes,” Shay informed Keane.
“Wh’?”
“Because we’re taking the puppies to a vet before practice.”
“Gonna be ’ait.”
“I will not be late,” Shay replied, wiping the toothpaste that had hit his chin. “There’s a vet in the arena building. We’ll just need someone to watch Dani and the pups afterward, until practice is done.”
“’ale.”
“Good idea. Dale!” Shay called out.
“What?”
“You’re going to need to come with us to practice so you can watch Dani and the puppies while we’re training.”
“I have a life, ya know!”
“You only have as much life as we allow you!” Finn yelled, dressed and already heading down the stairs. “Just get ready!”
“I really can’t! I’m going to a college thing. You know I start in a few weeks.”
“Okay, okay!”
“Don’t worry,” Shay told Keane when he came back out of the bathroom after spitting out his toothpaste and rinsing. “I’ll just bring Dani with me to practice. We’ve done that before.”
“But now she’ll have those dogs.”
“You’ll just have to deal with the dogs, dude.”
“Whatever. I’ll be downstairs in ten,” Keane added as Shay followed Finn to the first floor.
Together, the brothers headed to the kitchen. Tock and Dani were leaning over one of Dani’s notebooks. He really didn’t think about what they were doing, but they were clearly deeply involved. Both with pencils out, staring at something intently.
He also didn’t bother asking them what they were doing. He simply went to one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out what he needed for Dani while Finn put together food for the family to eat while at practice.
As Shay worked, his daughter continued to focus on her notebook, but after a few minutes, he realized that Tock was gawking at him.
“What?”
“I . . . uh . . .” She gave a little shake of her head. “Huh.”
*
Tock knew that Shay and Finn were moving around the kitchen, but she’d focused on the math instead. Much more interesting. Until she realized that Shay stood behind his daughter’s chair. When she glanced up, she saw him parting the girl’s hair with the end of a rattail comb. He held two black hair ties in his mouth. Once he parted the hair, he spritzed a little water on it, put in a little gel, and began French braiding first the left side, and then the right.
Initially, when she saw what Shay was doing, she was going to offer her assistance, but Shay didn’t need it. At all. The man knew how to braid his daughter’s hair. He didn’t fumble around or look overwhelmed. Not the way her father used to when he had to manage her curls. Poor guy. Her father, like most of the men in their family, kept his hair short, so he didn’t really know what to do with Tock’s long, unruly locks. She used to joke that her father’s hair was “Almost half an inch long! How did you let it get so out of control?” It was her mother who had curls similar to Tock’s, and she had even put in a few dreads in her younger days that she never took out. She loved the hippy, living-by-the-beach look she maintained in the middle of Wisconsin. But her mother also made it her business to know how to do her Black daughter’s hair. She didn’t want anyone in her husband’s family looking disgusted. Because they would.
And though Dani’s hair was thick and bone straight—easy enough for most people to braid—Tock was still surprised to see any dad doing his daughter’s hair. Not just brushing it and slapping a hairband on to keep it out of the kid’s eyes, but actually doing a style. And doing it well!
“Are you ready to go?” Shay asked his daughter while he twisted the hair tie on the end of the second braid.
“Just need to get the pups and Princess.”
“Can’t believe all we’re doing for that dog,” Keane complained as he entered the kitchen and kissed his niece on the forehead.
“They’re your responsibility, Uncle Mean. They live in your house.”
“I didn’t bring those things here. That was your father.”
“Mads wants to know if you need a ride,” Finn said to Tock, “or if you’ll be coming in with us.”