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Larison’s shelves were larger and filled with a wide range of books, from fiction to non-fiction and on the bottom it looked like several of her textbooks from school. I hoped she’d be able to go back and finish her degree someday.

Her fiction was a lot of romance, which was expected. I was about to pull one promising title off the shelf when I heard Juniper waking up.

“Hey there,” I said blinked up at me. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” she said, which was better than the grunt I’d gotten earlier. “I’m hungry.”

I expected she would be. Once she was fully awake, she came with me to the kitchen to make something to eat and then I got her in comfy clothes and brushed her hair out, doing a quick braid. One of my favorite things to do when I’d worked at the campus daycare had been to play with the kid’s hair and do all kinds of braids and twists and updos that they begged me for. Iwasn’t a professional or anything, but it was sometimes the only way I could get the kids to sit still for more than five minutes.

“Do you like it?” I asked her as she spun back and forth in front of the mirror.

“Yeah, can we show Mama?” Juniper directed me to take various pictures of her and approved the ones she liked. I went ahead and sent several of them to Larison.

Someone is feeling more herself I think.

Her response was almost instant.Omg, she looks so cute! I’m not very good at braiding so I feel like a bad girl mom. I even tried to watch some of Hunter’s tutorials, but I got lost every time.

I smiled and wrote back.Well if you ever need help, I’m available. I’ve perfected the art of making a tight braid without pulling too hard.

That wasn’t too much, was it? No, surely not.

Juniper was feeling so much better that she asked to go to the park to play for a while before Larison got home.

“Hey, why don’t we do something nice for your mom?” I asked.

Juniper thought about that, striking a very serious thinking pose with her hand under her chin and her eyes squinted. No idea where she’d gotten that idea, but it was adorable.

“Any ideas?” I asked after a little while.

“Hmmm,” Juniper said, tapping her chin. She really was too much.

“You could draw her a picture. Or maybe we could make something for her. What does she like?”

Juniper did some more intense thinking. “Mama likes books. And ice cream.”

I knew from being in her fridge and pantry that someone in this house had a sweet tooth and I didn’t think it was just Juniper, although she definitely did.

While it would be cute to get Juniper to help me make a dozen cookies or something, that would just make a mess in the kitchen and leave Larison with dirty dishes.

I pulled out my phone and searched for anything nearby.

“What about pizza?” I asked.

“Mama loves pizza,” Juniper said, nodding and bouncing.

“What kind?”

“Green pepper and pepperinos.” I was going to assume that “pepperinos” were pepperonis because that was cute as hell and I wasn’t going to correct her.

“Okay, how about we surprise her with pizza? Then she doesn’t have to cook dinner.” Buying dinner for the woman who was paying me was probably a little weird, but I didn’t care. Larison probably had a rough day and I wanted to make things just a little better.

With Juniper’s help, I put in an order and scheduled it to be delivered after I left.

“Let’s make her a card to tell her about the surprise,” I said once that was done.

“But then it won’t be asurprise,” Juniper said.

“You’re right. But we don’t want her to make dinner and then have the pizza come, right?” Juniper seemed to agree with me, so we got out some paper and her crayons and colored pencils and I helped her with her letters. I wanted her to write the whole thing by herself. She was already reading, which didn’t surprise me, but she was having a little bit of trouble with writing. I was more than happy to help.