Birdie stood on the edge of the apron and waved until the tan wagon had turned the corner onto Superior and gone. Then she came back into the bay and climbed up on the stool by the bench and sat there swinging her legs, touching her braids.
"She said 'next week,'" she said. "Did you hear? She said 'same time next week.'"
"I heard."
"That means she's coming back."
"That's what it means."
Birdie thought about this. Then she said, very seriously, the way she said things she had been saving up, "Dad, I don't want her to be my mom or anything. I know you can't just get one. I just like her."
"I know, Bird."
"I just like her a lot."
"I know."
He wiped his hands on the shop rag for a long time after they were clean.
* * *
It was Birdie's idea to go to church, and Dale should have seen it coming from a mile off.
She brought it up Thursday at supper, which was fish sticks and canned corn and a heel of rye bread, and she brought it up sideways, the way Karen used to bring up money. Kelly Maki went to Sunday school at Bethany, she said. Kelly Maki got to be a sheep in the Christmas program last year, and this year she was going to be a shepherd, and there was a sign-up sheet. Anybody could be in it. You didn't have to be anybody special. You just had to come.