Chapter 9: The Dimple

Samson's POV

The snow stopped before dawn, and I was in the kitchen at six with a cup of black coffee, because I hadn't slept.

I had spent the night in the library chair, looking at a cold fireplace.

I kept seeing a woman in my grandmother's flannel pajamas stand up and say not for long.

She was my brother's wife.

I had held her hand for four minutes, and I had wanted more than her hand.

I put the cup down harder than I meant to.

Little feet came across the tile.

"Are you the uncle?"

Maisie stood in the doorway in a yellow nightgown with her braids half undone.

Her eyes were gray and wide.

"I think I am," I said. "I'm Samson."

"I'm Maisie. I'm five. Mommy says I'm not allowed to wake up Grandma Eleanor."

"That's good advice."

"Can I have the orange juice?"

I got it down for her and found a cup.

She climbed onto a stool and drank with both hands and watched me over the rim.

"You look like somebody," she said.

"Who?"

"I don't know yet."

She grinned.

A dimple appeared in her left cheek.

Only the left, and none on the right.

I set the juice pitcher down very slowly.

I had spent my whole life with that dimple.

My father had had it, and I had it, and in every family photograph on my grandmother's wall the Sorrell men had it, on one side only.

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