It wasn’t.
Three weeks later, I happened to be back at Tina’s for another fill.
The same chair.
The same pink walls.
The same dryers humming behind us.
The door chimed.
Tina looked up first.
Walker ducked through the doorway again.
This time nobody grabbed a purse.
His nails weren’t purple anymore, at least not all of them.
Most had chipped badly.
A few were almost bare.
But on his left ring finger—the one his granddaughter had cared about most—a stubborn patch of violet polish and two tiny gold stars were still hanging on.
And Walker wasn’t alone.
A little girl stepped out from behind him.
She was small enough that his hand nearly swallowed hers when she held it.
She looked stronger than she had in the hospital photograph, though still a little tired.
She saw Tina.
Then she saw the polish bottles.
Then she looked at Walker’s damaged manicure.
Her face became deeply offended.
“You chipped them.”
Walker looked down at his hands.
“I was careful.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I was extremely careful.”
She pointed at his thumbnail.
“That one is almost gone.”
Walker looked at Tina for help.
Tina folded her arms.
“I’m with her.”
The girl marched toward the manicure table like she owned the place.
Walker followed.
I couldn’t help smiling.
Tina crouched beside her.
“So you’re the designer.”
The girl nodded seriously.
“Did I get the color right?”
Another nod.
“And the stars?”
The girl inspected Walker’s surviving ring fingernail.
“Almost.”
Walker groaned.
“Almost?”
“There needed to be more.”
Tina laughed.
“Good thing your grandfather told me that finger mattered.”
The girl looked up at him.
“You remembered?”
Walker’s expression changed.
It was the same look I had seen when the phone rang three weeks earlier.
“Course I remembered.”
She wrapped both arms around one of his.
For a second his enormous hand rested against the back of her head.
The remaining purple polish looked brighter against her hair.
Tina asked how she was feeling.
