Spring Cometh

It was Lucia’s 21st on that chilly gray day in March. Another cousin, Esther Black, was on business in Cape Town.

It was a quiet day. Collette and Puck spent most of their morning hanging black and white photographs on the wall.

On Collette’s and Puck’s walks around the neighborhood, doves cooed from unseen perches. The front yard was once again strewn with bright purple crocuses, planted, perhaps, by the Hispanic family who seemed to have owned the house before it had been renovated.

Puck had been found sitting next to a pile of matches the previous morning. He had found the jackpot: jumbo match box. He had spilled out the contents before OLeif had been able to stop him. Once again, that morning, he had sought them out. He turned around just to make sure his dad wasn’t looking. Too late.

“Oh, no you don’t, mister,” OLeif laughed at him. “We’re not going to go through that again.”

Puck smiled, and found other ways to cause trouble. That day, he had also been saying:

“Wow!”

…mostly whenever he had tossed something across the room.

The biggest news of the week: Puck had twin second cousins due in October. Bristol and Nerissa were likely still getting over the shock of it all. But Nerissa’s sister had also had twins, so perhaps it wasn’t quite as much of a surprise as it could have been.