Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

He was blocked on my phone.

I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days.

More good.

Mom nor Saff had heard anything at all.

And that was excellent.

“You wanna meet a couple of your grandkids?” Birch offered, the fake joviality in his tone making me give his fingers a return squeeze.

“I do, Birch,” Mom said. “But not…Maybe when…” She took a second. “If I get into that trial, and maybe if I feel better.”

She meant didn’t look like death.

“Or if things progress and time starts runn—” she didn’t quite finish.

Birch cut her off quietly, “Okay, Ma.”

“But, Pepper, Saffron sent me Juno’s letter. Is she there? Can I talk to her?” Mom asked.

“Sure, Mom,” I whispered.

“I’ll say bye now, Ma,” Birch said. “And go get Juno for you.”

“All right, Birch. It was…nice to see you,” Mom replied.

“You too, Ma. Real nice. Love you.”

At his last two words, her head snapped weirdly to the side, like she’d been slapped.

Then she looked everywhere but the screen.

My nasal passages started stinging.

Finally, she looked at us and said, “Love you too, beautiful boy.”

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

Hold it together, Pepper!

Birch’s voice was rough and hoarse when he said, “Talk later,” left me alone with the phone and took off to send Juno our way and occupy his kids (who were, incidentally, cute as all hell, super sweet and I really liked them—it’d only been six days since it all went down, so I’d only met the two, his oldest, Joshua, who was ten, and Arya, who was Juno’s age, but I was looking forward to meeting the others).

“Saffron tells me you’ve found a decent man?” Mom asked.

I focused on her. “Yeah. Auggie. I wish you could have met him before you left.”

“She says he’s exceptionally handsome,” Mom noted.

“He is,” I confirmed.

“The last one was too, Pepper,” she noted hesitantly. “Please be careful.”

“This is why I wish you’d met him, Mom. Because if you had, you wouldn’t feel the need to say that.”

“Saffron did say he seemed really keen,” she muttered.

Yeah.

You could say that.

Dive-through-a-window-to-“save”-your-woman keen.

“Momma,” Juno said, tucking her fingers in the pocket of my jeans and swaying me to get my attention.

I looked down at her.

“Grandma is on the phone. She got your letter. She wants to talk to you.”

I was going to ask her if she was okay with that, but my girl lifted her hand for the phone right away.

“She wants to talk, here she is,” I told Mom.

“Pepper,” Mom said quickly.

“Yeah?” I asked, instead of handing Juno the phone.

“I have things…there are things…to be said.”

“No, there aren’t, Momma,” I said softly.

She pressed her lips together and sniffed.

I blew her a kiss and gave the phone to my daughter.

Juno looked at the screen and didn’t flinch, didn’t do anything, but cry excitedly, “Hey, Grandma!”

Damn, I loved that kid.

She stepped away and I let her.

Then she stepped farther away, and I didn’t want to let her.

I looked to Birch.

He had his daughter dangling down his back, but his gaze was on Juno.

Since he’d left us all those years ago, he’d been working some things out in all the wrong ways.

But seeing him with his kids, how he was with Juno, I couldn’t imagine how I ever questioned the true-to-the-bones goodness of my big brother.

I heard sneakers slapping on concrete, turned, saw Juno racing my way and then I felt my phone pushed into my stomach as she averted her face and said, “Grandma had to say good-bye.”

I then bobbled the phone since she let go of it and raced outside.

I looked at the blank screen, pushed it in my back pocket, and turned to race after my daughter.

“Pepper!” Birch called urgently.

I stopped and looked at him.

He shook his head.

“She was—” I started to call back to him to explain.

“You don’t think I know what a Hannigan woman needs?” he asked. “She’s your daughter, Pep. That girl is all you. Let her alone, yeah?”

I shut up.

What he meant was, my girl needed space to work a few things out before I got in said space.

She hadn’t let me read her letter, but she hadn’t had any problem writing it.

My hand itched to call Mom and ask what went down.

But Birch was right.

Sometimes, we Hannigan women needed space.

Still.

I moved to the door that led outside. It was open. And I positioned myself in it so my eyes were on Juno, who’d crawled up on the hood of my car and was staring at the sea of asphalt that maybe, one day, would be pulled up to put in a garden.

I jumped when, from up close, Birch said, “This is from Cisco.”

I looked to him to see he was holding out an envelope.

“What is it?” I asked, taking it.

“No clue,” Birch answered.

I started opening it as I turned my attention up to him. “And why, as well as how, is he giving you stuff to give me? He’s coming over tomorrow night to have dinner with us. He could have given me this then.”