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“Maybe she was just late.”
“She said she’d come twice next week, but she says that all the time and then she never does.”
“How old are you?” Norma Jean said, thinking that the little girl should be in school.
“I’m five.” Norma Jean didn’t have to ask the question, because Holly continued. “And I was supposed to go to kindergarten this year, but with all the stuff at our house, Daddy said that he would wait and send me next year. He said maybe if we did a little school this year, I could just go to first grade, and I wouldn’t need kindergarten.”
“I see. And have you been working on schoolwork?”
“A little bit. But Dad had a lot of work to do on the farm, and now he has to help Mr. Peter a whole lot more too, I’m not sure if he’ll have time.” The little girl shrugged her shoulders and then said, “Should I start the hot chocolate?”
“Well, if your dad is going to take an hour, we probably ought to start the hot chocolate five minutes before he’s going to get here. Otherwise, it will be cold. But we can practice making hot chocolate, and you and I can taste it to make sure it’s okay?”
Holly smiled real big. “Yeah. I don’t think I need any practice, but you can taste my hot chocolate and see if it’s good.”
“All right. Let’s do that.” She walked over to the display she had out and chatted with Holly as she pointed out the hot chocolate and helped her with the hot water.
If she didn’t have anything else to do when it was time to sit down at her desk, maybe she could give Holly some kindergarten work to do.
And that’s exactly what she did after they were done making a hot chocolate. They went over to the desk, and Norma Jean grabbed the markers she had bought for the whiteboard on the wall.
Apparently in the spring, sometimes they wrote the date that they were changing pastures and different things that had to do with the cattle herds. Currently both whiteboards were completely blank, and so she slid the chair over, helped Holly to stand up on it, and showed her how to write a couple of letters.
Holly was already able to write her name, and so Norma Jean just went from there.
Norma Jean gave her a few things to work on on her own and went to her desk to get started on her own work.
She wouldn’t have thought she would have enjoyed the company, but Holly chatted, jumping up and down from the chair, asking Norma Jean to check her work, and just generally giving a cheerful vibe to the small office. The day was overcast, and the little, cheerful presence was welcome. It was sad that the little girl’s mom had gone off, and Norma Jean found herself wishing that there was something she could do.
Of course there wasn’t. She couldn’t make anyone want to come back, and she was probably too late anyway. Although with Miles’s serious and somewhat dour personality, she could kind of understand why someone might leave. Women didn’t really want a man they couldn’t talk to, not that that made it okay to leave. Although, maybe he became like that because of his wife leaving.
Regardless, fifty-five minutes after Miles walked out the door, she told Holly it was time for them to make a hot chocolate.
“Of course, your dad said around an hour, so he might not be back exactly at an hour on the dot, but at least we’ll be ready with his hot chocolate and it won’t be completely cold.”
“Okay,” Holly said immediately, putting the lid back on her marker and setting it on the little tray before she got down from her chair and skipped over to Norma Jean’s desk.
It turned out it was another fifteen minutes until Miles walked in. His hot chocolate was ready, and Norma Jean and Holly had made another cup for themselves.
“You can drink with us, Daddy,” Holly said as she carefully carried his hot chocolate to him.
“After we’re done drinking, you and I are going to go and make sure that everything is cleared off Peter’s porch. I heard back from him, and he is going to be on his way home. Probably by dinnertime.”
“Well. That’s it?”
“I don’t think he was hurt terribly. That broken leg was nasty, but other than that, he’s a tough old bird.”
She didn’t think of Peter as a tough old bird, but she smiled at Miles’s description.
“Well, I think Holly and I had a pretty good time while you were gone...” She looked at Holly, and Holly nodded her head up and down, making her ponytails swish back and forth. “She’s always welcome to stay here if she wants to while you go and do whatever you need to make things ready for Peter.”
“What do you think about that?” Miles said to Holly, and he seemed to be a little bit more relaxed. Maybe that was because Peter wasn’t hurt badly. Maybe he had been worried this morning, and that’s why he was quiet and seemed grumpy.
“Miss Norma Jean is teaching me my letters, so I won’t be behind if I go to school next year.”
“Is that the writing on the whiteboard over there? Those letters are so nice I thought it was Miss Norma Jean who was doing it.”
“No. Me,” Holly said with her chest puffed out real big.
