“Twenty of them,” Frasier said.
“Not that many.” My brother-in-law would be home from his deployment by summer, and I would feel like a fifth wheel if I still had to live here.
“Yes, Nero. That many.”
“Huh?” I’d zoned out again, watching Abby sniff at the ground. “That many what?”
“What were we talking about? Come on! Twenty blooms,” Frasier huffed. “Two eyes, a nose, five for the mouth—the smile—and twelve around all that in a circle.”
“Twenty.” I enlarged the photo by flicking at the phone screen, in order to count for myself. “Twenty-one,” I relayed with a shiver.
“Twenty-one?” Frasier asked.
“That’s what I see.”
He counted aloud on the other end of the line. “Twenty-one. Guess my eyes aren’t what they used to be. Is the number significant, or just how many it took to make the f
