Chapter 10

One month later...

“Happy Birthday, dear GiGi!

“Happy Birthday to you!”

The family applauded as 104 candles washed their faces in a yellow glow. Leathery creases wrinkled Daisy River’s cheeks as she smiled. Then she opened her mouth and forced as much air as possible through her lips to blow out most of the dwindling wax candles. Marla and Mable enthusiastically helped their great-great-grandmother extinguish the remaining symbols of her many years on the earth.

Sylvia Greystone sat the rectangular sheet cake on the table and continued singing although everyone else had stopped. “And many more ... on channel four ... I hope you kiss a dinosaur!”

Heather and Poppy laughed and precisely placed a large butcher knife into the cake, cutting perfect squares. Carrie Richards, their mother, handed Poppy a serving spatula and placed a stack of dessert plates next to the cake. Poppy carefully lifted a square and eased it onto a plate. Carrie took the piece and put it in front of her grandmother. “Here, Grandma, you get the first piece.”

“Oh. Thank you, child. It’s so good to have all my girls together. Isn’t it a good thing I lived long enough to see you two get over your foolish squabble?” Her veiled eyes glared at her daughter and granddaughter.

Sylvia and Carrie hid their eye rolls, but Heather and Poppy smirked, flashing knowing eyebrow lifts at one another. Their mother and grandmother had called a truce on their decades-long silence for GiGi’s birthday. No one could pinpoint what had started the indifference. However, ever since Daisy celebrated her one-hundredth birthday, Sylvia and Carrie contemplated calling the truce, declaring this could be the old woman’s last hurrah on earth.

This one for sure would be her last. Even though Daisy was a full-blood Karuk native, it was still a big deal for her to live so long. She had been a widow longer than she had been a wife. Sylvia had brought her mother to a retirement community in Aurora, Colorado when she moved to Denver thinking she might last another four or five years. It had been fifteen, and Daisy was thriving. Seems the higher altitude was better for her than the northwest coastlands of California.

Perhaps the ruse Sylvia had fabricated six years ago about her ailing state was what had started the silent disagreement between Heather’s mother and Grandmother. No one really knew.

As the Denver Medical Examiner, Sylvia Greystone, too seemed to be destined for a long and active life. At 85, she wasn’t remotely entertaining the idea of retirement. But she was actively training Heather to take her place ... just in case she met a handsome chief and decided to take a year-long honeymoon. Grandma’s words exactly.

It was Heather and Grandma’s little joke. Heather was content working for her grandmother until the great white buffalo’s spirit called her home. She snickered at the thought. Seldom did she think in the ways of her Karuk ancestors. GiGi was the last living full-blood Karuk in Heather’s family. The Karuk language was considered extinct, according to Wikipedia, so perhaps Heather was better off remembering it as a lost time from her childhood, like aluminum Christmas trees and petticoats.

Heather pulled her phone from her back pocket, looked at the screen, and sighed. Poppy leaned over her shoulder. “Brady still texting you?”

“Yes.” Heather shoved the phone back into her embroidered pocket. “Ignoring him doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Ignoring him? You mean to tell me you haven’t answered one single text from him this whole month?”

“Nope!” Heather slid a glare at her sister through veiled lashes.

“Is that fair?”

“What would have been fair,” Heather glanced around the room and lowered her voice. “Would have been me included in the Almighty Brady Armstrong decision to never procreate again once our baby boy died inside me.” Tears choked Heather’s words. “Fair would have been to have the love of my life at my side to console me after...”

Heather gritted her teeth to stay the tears.

Today was about GiGi. Not Heather’s past ... or her future. To be honest, that day at Brady’s barn, the incredible sex she experienced with Brady, plagued her dreams even more than the dreams she thought were so intrusive before. And now ... she really did need to talk to him. But not by text. If only he’d just call her. She’d answer a phone call. Texting was just wrong.

Poppy shook her head. You’re more stubborn than Mom and Grandma.

Heather’s mouth dropped open. “Take that back!”

Poppy giggled and rushed away, picking up empty plates as she went.

Heather turned back to her GiGI. Colorful gift sacks littered the table, as GiGi rifled through her birthday presents. Cooing over each one and questioning how anybody knew such perfect gifts for her. “Who would think at my age, there’d be such wonderful things I could receive.”

The doorbell rang.

Everyone turned to GiGi’s door. A rock dropped in the pit of Heather’s stomach. It couldn’t be ... How could Brady possibly know where GiGi lived, or that they were having her birthday party at her retirement community? For some reason, all eyes swiveled to Heather. She stood statue still for a moment. Why me? Finally, she stepped to the door and pulled it open.

“Li’l Dove.” Brady stood there in polished boots, starched jeans, a white starched shirt, and a black Stetson hat. His long black hair flowed past his broad shoulders like a waterfall. Heather’s breath caught in her chest. He was gorgeous.

“I- uh,”

“For heaven’s sake, Li’l Dove, let the man in!” GiGi hollered from the dining table.

Heather turned to her great-grandmother. “Did you—?”

“It’s my hundred-and-fourth birthday! I can invite whomever I wish!” She pushed her chair back and struggled herself to her feet, leaning heavily on the four-pod cane. Rolling her head in a gesture of welcome, she made her way toward the door. “Come on in here.”

Brady slid his hat off and stepped across the threshold. “Happy Birthday Daisy! Kipa’k’hau qwa’hapuas, Achwit.”

GiGi leaned over, laughing, and slapped Brady’s forearm. “Nice try, young man. Do you know what you said?”

“I was told on good authority it meant ‘Happy Day of your Earthly birth, Wise Mother’.”

She laughed even harder, causing a hacking cough. She collapsed into an overstuffed chair while Poppy ran to her with a cup of water. She sipped the water and wiped the tears from her eyes. “No. If you paid for that, you got duped!”

Brady blushed and stammered. “Well?” A half smile exposed the one crooked tooth. Heather’s insides turned to goo.

“What does it mean, then?”

GiGi drew in a deep ragged breath. “You said, ‘Come down, let’s run a race, maternal grandmother’.”

Brady smiled amongst the snickers. “Well, at least I got the Grandmother part right.” He pantomimed getting set to run beside her. “Shall we race?”

She laughed. “I always liked you, Brady Armstrong.” She reached out and squeezed his hand, then dug her fingers into the ribbon of muscles along his arm. “Ooo. I see why Li’l Dove is so attracted to you. You handsome hunk of—”