"Those are... good names," Rico said. They were perfectly fine names, just not for kittens. Plus were they even girls?
"Natalie and Veronica are my friends from daycare where Daddy and I used to live before," Sammy explained as she washed her hands. "Can the kitties come in?"
"We'll leave the door open, and if they want to come in, they can come in," Mitch decided.
He propped open the door, and Sammy stayed turned around to watch the kittens instead of eating her sandwich.
To get her to face forward, Rico asked her, "So how was it sleeping up there last night?"
"Daddy was sleeping on the floor in my room because a branch scared me," Sammy told him.
Rico looked over at Mitch who gave a small shrug as if to say, "What can I do? I'm a dad."
"What did the branch do?" Rico asked Sammy.
"It was waving," she said.
"Why didn't you wave back?" Rico asked and Sammy tilted her head at him.
"That reminds me. I need to take care of that branch, or it will be hitting her window again tonight," Mitch said.
"Let me know what I can do to help," Rico told him.
"There's a ladder in the basement. You can get it for me," Mitch said.
"Not a chainsaw?" Rico asked. "You're not going to go all lumberjack on that tree?"
"No," Mitch said. "I'm only cutting one branch."
"Oh, when we were clearing yard debris, Sammy and I discovered there used to be a swing in that tree over there. Can you put up another one, Mr. Handyman?" Rico asked him.
"I could, but your grandmother would have to approve it. This house belongs to her," Mitch reminded him. He was such a stickler.
"Like she's going to say no," Rico said.
Done with cleaning up after their lunch, Rico brought up the ladder from the basement. Taking it over to the tree outside Sammy's bedroom window, he noticed vines climbing up the side of the house.
"Do we have to tear those down?" Rico wondered as he helped Mitch lean the ladder against the tree. "They look kind of cool."
"Maybe not, we'll see. Could you make sure Sammy stands back and hold the ladder for me while I go up and cut that branch," Mitch said while Sammy came over to watch.
"The scary branch is gonna get cut?" Sammy asked as she looked up at it.
"Yes, it is," Mitch told her.
"Will it hurt?" she wondered.
"Hurt the tree? No, trees need to be trimmed," Mitch told her with an amused look.
"It's like a haircut for the tree," Rico added and Sammy seemed to find that reassuring.
"OK," she said and watched closely as her dad climbed up and started sawing at the branch.
As soon as Mitch was done and down from the ladder, Sammy was ready to run off to see what the kittens were up to. But first she came over and grabbed the end of the branch. "I'm gonna help and take it away," she said and they let her pull it behind her.
Now that Mitch was standing next to him, tall and imposing, Rico breathed a sigh of relief. "OK. I feel better with you on solid ground," he confessed. "And Sammy does too." They both looked at her as she was laboriously dragging the cut branch over to the pile of yard debris Rico had made.
"She worries about me, but I have to climb all the time for work. I'm used to it," Mitch said. Obviously it was no big deal to him.
