Free If Onions Could Spring Leeks by Paige Shelton

He always wore a shirt with a pocket. High school math teacher habits were hard to break even if he had been promoted to principal almost two decades earlier. “What are you doing?”
    â€œYour mother wants me to re-glaze this mirror. Do you even know what that means? I don’t know what it means, and I have no idea how I’m going to do it, but she thinksthat Google can tell me all I need to know. I’m moving it out to the garage because I think that anything called ‘re-glazing’ will be a decidedly messy process.”
    â€œI don’t know what it means either, but Google
can
find anything, I’m sure of it.”
    â€œHope so.”
    â€œTeddy inside?”
    â€œYes, he and Opie stopped by for brunch. Your mother invited you and Cliff, too. It’s our annual school’s-out-so-we-can-get-together-during-the-week event.”
    â€œI got some texts but I didn’t take the time to read all of them. I woke up late. Cliff’s swamped, though, I know that.” At least I thought that was why I hadn’t seen him since Dr. Callahan’s office.
    â€œYou okay, Red?”
    Dad had called me Red when I was a little girl and only in times of crisis as I’d gotten older. My hair was more auburn than red. It was good to hear the nickname, but only when he said it.
    â€œI’m fine. I wish Derek hadn’t been killed, of course, but I’m fine.” I reached up to the tender spot on the back of my head and realized it was still sore, but I pulled my hand away before Dad noticed what I was doing.
    â€œCliff and the other police have any leads?” Since Cliff and I had become a couple again, Dad had decided the police force was made up of Cliff and “the others.” Dad and the police chief, Jim, were very good friends, but family was number one in Dad’s mind, and Cliff was family. Even Opie had become family.
    â€œI don’t think he has anything yet.”
    â€œHe’ll figure it out.”
    â€œI hope so.”
    Despite the fact that my mom was the auto mechanic teacher at the high school, my parents’ attached garage wasn’t filled with tools and doo-dads. They frequently used the two bikes that were against one wall, and one old toolbox sat on a bottom shelf of a rack of four. The other three shelves were filled with things like WD-40, paint, cat litter for ice storms, etc. There was also one large table in the back corner. Oddly, even though the garage didn’t look like much happened inside it other than parking cars and bikes, Dad seemed to always have a small project going on the table. I followed him into the garage as he set the mirror on top of it.
    â€œRe-glaze. Why in the world can’t I just buy a new mirror?” he said.
    â€œI don’t know, but the frame is pretty on this one,” I said, running my finger over the thick and ornate silver frame that curved in and out as it bordered the glass.
    â€œYeah, Miss Winny gave it to us when we got married,” Dad said. Miss Winny was what he sometimes called his mom, Miz, aka Gram, and Missouri. She and I both had our fair share of nicknames.
    â€œReally? Why don’t I remember seeing it around the house?”
    â€œWell, that’s my fault, I suppose,” Dad said as he rubbed a finger under his nose. “I got spooked by it and I hid it.”
    â€œYou? You don’t get spooked by anything. What happened?”
    â€œYou can’t tell your mother. I hid it all those years ago and she found it just recently. I’ll tell you the story, but don’t tell anyone else, especially your mother. Promise?” he said.
    â€œOf course.” The last time Dad told me not to tell Mom something was when we’d made a secret trip to St. Louis toreplace a bowl from her best china that I’d broken with a poorly aimed basketball, something I wasn’t supposed to have in the house in the first place. To this day I didn’t