The Song of David(28)

We stared at each other for a few long seconds.

“They use brooms in the sport of curling,” Henry said.

I bit my lip to control the bubble of laughter in my throat. “True. But I’m thinking you would look more like a baseball player with less hair. That’s your favorite sport, right?”

Henry held up the bat in his hands, as if that were answer enough.

“I was thinking . . . I was thinking that you and I should maybe head over to my friend Leroy’s and get a trim tomorrow. Leroy owns a barbershop. Whaddaya say? Leroy is nice and there’s a smoothie shop next door. It’ll be a man date. A date for men.” I might as well kill two birds with one stone.

“A mandate?” Henry ran the words together.

“Yes. I am mandating that you get your hair cut. We’ll go to the gym afterwards, and I’ll show you some moves.”

“Not Amelie?”

“Do you want Amelie to come?”

“She’s not a man. It’s a man date.”

Amelie chose that moment to gently push Henry aside.

“I am definitely not a man, but Henry, you really should have invited Tag inside.”

Amelie was wearing tan boots and a snug khaki colored skirt that came to her knees, along with a fitted red sweater and a fuzzy scarf that had streaks of red and black and gold in the weave. I wondered how in the world she coordinated it all. Judging from Henry’s hair, he couldn’t be much help.

“On February sixth, 1971, Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the moon,” Henry offered inexplicably, and moved aside.

“And today is February sixth, isn’t it?” Millie said, clearly understanding Henry’s thought processes a whole lot better than I did.

“That’s right,” I said. “So February sixth a golf ball was hit on the moon and on February seventh, 2014, Tag Taggert and Henry Anderson are going to get haircuts, right Henry?”

“Okay, Tag.” Henry ducked his head and headed up the stairs.

“Call me if you need me, Henry,” Millie called after him. She waited until she heard his door shut before she addressed me.

“Henry has an attachment disorder. He doesn’t even like it when I cut my hair. If my mom had allowed it, he would be the biggest pack rat in the world. But hoarding and blindness don’t mix. Everything has to be in its place or the house becomes a landmine. So he wears the same clothes until they’re threadbare, won’t cut his hair, still sleeps with his Dragon Ball Z sheets he got for his eighth birthday, and has every toy he has ever been given stored in plastic bins in the basement. I don’t think he’ll go through with the hair cut. He’s only let Robin cut it twice since my mom died, and both times he cried the entire time, and she had to put the clippings in a Ziplock bag and let him keep them, just to get him to calm down.”

I was slightly repulsed, and I was glad Millie couldn’t see my expression. “So he has bags of hair in his room?”

“I’m assuming he does though he won’t tell me where. I pay my next-door neighbor to come in and clean once a week, and she hasn’t found it either.”

“Well, Henry said okay. So I’m planning on it. But we won’t be bringing any bags of hair back home.”

Millie’s brows furrowed and she looked as if she wanted to argue, but stepped toward me instead, felt for her walking stick that was leaning against the wall, and changed the subject. “Did you drive? Because I’m thinking we should walk. The church is around the corner.”

I eyed my shiny red truck wistfully and then forgot it when Amelie slid her hand around my arm.

Other than a few scattered snow flurries that dumped in the mountains and frosted the valleys, Salt Lake City was enjoying the mildest winter we’d had in years, and though the temperatures plummeted here and there, in comparison to normal February temperatures, it was almost balmy.

We walked east towards the mountains that ringed the valley. The mountains were the first thing I noticed about Utah when my family moved from Dallas my junior year in high school. Dallas didn’t have mountains. Salt Lake City had staggering, snow-covered mountains. I’d spent more than a few weekends in them skiing, though I was careful about how much skiing I did when I was training. Unfortunately, I always seemed to be training.

Amelie lifted her face as if to soak up the sun.

“Can you see anything at all?” I wondered if the question would offend her.

“Light. I can differentiate light from darkness. That’s about it. I can tell where the windows are in the house, when the door is open, that sort of thing. Natural light is easier for me than artificial light. And the light doesn’t illuminate anything else, so it’s really only good for orienting me in a room with windows, if that.”