Free Make a Right by Willa Okati

little unnerved, a lot thoughtful.
    Truth be told, Tuck thought he liked this less than the statue routine. “Want to tell me what that was about?”
    “What?” Cade shook himself out of some kind of reverie. He sounded as odd as his mood suggested. “It’s nothing. He reminded me of someone, that’s all.”
    You bet your ass Tuck would have asked about that if the sign for Dogwood Court hadn’t come into sight and put it out of his mind. “Thank Jesus, Mary, and all the saints,” he breathed. “See? I told you I’d get us here.”
    “You did.” Cade shifted in his seat. He shook his head, but not the way he’d been seconds before. “You did,” he repeated, the hint of that tiny smile drifting in to replace his preoccupied frown.
    It was a good thing, to be breathing easy at the end of this journey.
    They pulled up to the curb in front of the house, a style Tuck thought might be called colonial. He hadn’t expected to like it, but he did. It had the grace of an elderly, refined lady. One who’d grown old gracefully and scorned the idea of facelifts and was comfortable with being lived in as a home, not a showpiece.
    There was even a woman out front getting her hands in the dirt, turning over the soil in preparation for planting a bed of those cool flowers that bloomed in different colors every day. Moss roses, was that the name? One of their neighbors in the city had a window box of those. Rich with a decadent abundance of color sprinkled throughout a messy tangle of succulent green vines.
    Was she the gardener? Probably. Good to look at, she was, a woman lean but strong, her hair tucked up underneath a straw hat. She radiated a sort of quiet contentment that eased the rattle of the long and weary road from his bones.
    Wait . Tuck looked down. He hadn’t imagined that. As he’d wished for a long time, Cade had taken his hand. More than. He’d knotted their fingers together and squeezed tight. A little too tight, actually. His knuckles were white, and Tuck’s finger bones sent up a protest over the pressure of the squeeze.
    So, that couldn’t be good. Tuck killed the engine. “Cade? Cade.” He twisted their wrists from side to side, jostling him. “You okay?”
    “My God.” Cade couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the gardener. “ Look at her.”
    “I was. What’s the deal?”
    Cade’s laugh broke down the middle. He let go of Tuck. He looked different. Amazed. Surprised. Relieved. A dozen different emotions all warring for pride of place on one face. “You’ll see.”
    The woman dusted off her work gloves and tucked them into her pocket. Somehow familiar, same as the man at the gas station, but different too. It wasn’t, however, until she tipped the sun hat off her head to hang down on her back, loosing a spill of bright hair now a slightly darker gold but still less controllable than dandelions, that Tuck recognized her.
    “Changed” wasn’t a strong enough word here. This lady had found strength since the last time he’d seen her. A quiet courage, a peace of sorts that turned a familiar kid sister into a grown woman who knew how to be happy in her own skin.
    “My God,” Tuck echoed Cade, cranking down the window as fast as he could. He wrestled free of his seat belt and hitched himself fully half out the window. “Hannah?” he called, still not quite believing it could be her. Two years couldn’t allow for that much change.
    Only it had, and it was her. Hannah.
    And swear to God, Tuck had seen dimmer glows on 100-watt bulbs when Hannah got a proper look at his face. “Tuck?”
    Tuck whooped at top volume, matched by Hannah’s peal of excited laughter. He didn’t bother with unlocking the car door, just slithered on out and hit the ground running. She met him halfway, colliding, hanging on tight while he swooped her up in a hug that knocked the breath out of both of them.
    He’d hugged her this way when they were both kids, when she was as skinny as a spider monkey and scared