“Where’s my sweater?” Cal rummaged through his dresser drawers, pulling sweatshirts, shirts and jeans out, and then haphazardly stuffing them back in again. “The green one.”
“What?” Ronda asked from the kitchen.
“The sweater I wore to Aiden and Fiona’s Christmas party a couple years ago,” Cal called out. “Where is it?”
“It’s July,” said Ronda, appearing in the doorway, twirling a curl of chestnut hair as she grinned at him.
“I know what month it is.” Cal pushed the drawers back into the dresser, forcing them shut as much as he could against the shirts hanging out over the edges.
“Did you try the closet?” Ronda asked, turning around and walking back out of the bedroom, her curly dark shoulder-length hair flitting along with her.
Cal headed toward the closet, where he started pushing hangers aside four or five at a time.
“Don’t forget we have that benefit tonight, for Charlotte’s school,” she said from the hallway. “A game night with that silly game that requires no skill. The one with the dice.”
Right, he thought. And he had already agreed to this damn thing. “Where they force you to get up every few minutes and mingle, but you can’t actually talk to anyone?” he yelled without turning around.
Ronda answered from down the hall, “Because people are busy counting points over the loud music and getting all worked up over a twenty-dollar Target gift card or whatever nonsense.” Her voice got closer as she continued, “Yeah, that one.”
“Bunco,” Cal sighed, envisioning a clock spinning in front of him as his life passed, another private school fundraiser wasting not only his time but his money, and everyone else’s too. He hated these events. “Why are we going to that again?” he asked, emerging from the closet into the bedroom and peeking at his face in the mirror, rubbing his finger along his left eyebrow as he squinted at the gray hairs that were starting to appear from nowhere.
“Charlotte.” Cal turned around as Ronda answered, stepping back into the bedroom, her deep caramel eyes sweet and smiley.
“Right,” he sighed again. Charlotte. He could hear her practicing the piano in the living room, the same chords and the same notes in a row, over and over. That sweet, ornery, stubborn, lovely pigtailed six-year-old girl was his kryptonite, but he was the dad, so he couldn’t let her know that. Not yet, at least. Maybe when she got married someday. He pictured the grown-up version of that girl in a long white dress and sniffed, pulling the emotions back. Maybe after she got married, after the wedding was paid for, or the whole family would go broke.
He tried to think clearly while heading back toward the mess he’d made of the dresser. “But the sweater,” he said, the frustration of the moment returning.
“How about the garage?” asked Ronda. “The donation pile?”
“Why would it be in that pile? I love that sweater.” Cal could feel his frustration begin to rise toward anger, his knuckles getting hot as his hands formed fists at his sides.
Ronda sat on the bed and tousled her hair with her fingers, a habit he adored. His heart slowed down a bit as he unclenched his hands. “You mean the green one?” she asked.
“Yes, the green one,” said Cal.
“Have you tried the closet?”
Trying to not bite through his own lip as all his emotions started to blend, Cal took a breath and replied with his teeth clenched, “Yes, Dear. I’ve tried the closet.”
“In the back?” asked Ronda.
“Why would it be in the back?”
She got up and kissed him on the tip of his nose, smiling at him with those gorgeous eyes that could twist him into knots and melt him mushy. “It’s July.”
“July. What difference does that make? What would you tell me if we lived in the southern hemisphere?”
“Check the closet.” Ronda winked at him, then headed out of the bedroom.
The piano continued from the other end of the house, the notes going up the scale this time instead of down. Cal grumbled as he went to the closet again, reaching deep into the back, muttering, “I love that sweater. She knows I love that sweater. Why would it go missing now? Of all things.”
“Here you are, Darling,” said Ronda, reentering the room and presenting the forest green sweater out to him, smiling with her radiant lips and, of course, those sparkling eyes.
“Where did you find it?”
“Charlotte’s closet. I remembered she was playing dress-up last week. Wanted to be just like her daddy, she said.”
Cal held up the sweater and laughed.
“Why were you looking for it?” asked Ronda.
“Charlotte,” he answered, the girl’s small face with her bright brown eyes replacing all the anger and ticking clock and thoughts of money in his head. “Charlotte asked for it. She said it’s her favorite.”
