Eye of the Storm

Story 4

  "Are we at Uncle Brents house yet?" My daughter Angelina asks,
  "No just a few more minutes, be patient."
  "But I'm just so excited to see him."
  "I know you are, and I am to but you'll just need to wait a few more minutes."
  "Okay." She sighs.

  After a little while we arrive at my brother Brent's house, Angelina gets out of the car and runs up and rings the door bell. By the time I reach the step Brent opens the door.
   "Hi Angie how are you?"
   "Good, can I play with the puppies?" Angelina says jumping up and down.
   "Go ahead." Angelina runs into the house and up the stairs.
   "Holy crap you lost a lot of weight." I say as I get a good look at Brent.
   "Yeah about 70 pounds."
   "Wow that's awesome, I'm so proud of you." I smile.
   "Thanks" we both walk into his house and into the living room. The two of us sit on the couch talking and catching up with each other, when Angelina bolts down the stairs excitedly.
   "Uncle Brent, can I pretty please braid your hair?"
   "Uh-"
   "Angie I don't know that-"
   "No it's fine, I'm okay if she wants to braid my hair."
   "You sure?"
   "Yeah it's cool." Brent moves off the couch and on to the floor and Angelina taking his previous spot. I watch as my six year old daughter braids her Uncles hair and watch how adorable they are together. Angie separates his hair into sections and loosely braids the hair. I begin to giggle and that causes Brent to start laughing too. While Angelina keeps braiding his hair, Brent starts to talk after a while.
   "Hey Angie do you like my long hair?" He asks
   "Yeah but I think long hair is for girls." She answers.
   "Oh okay, because I was thinking of cutting it all off. What do you think about that?"
   "Does that mean I can't braid your hair anymore?"
   "Yeah, but you can still braid your mom's hair." He says steering the attention back to me.
   "No her hair isn't as pretty as yours."
   "Ouch" Brent teases. And I laugh. "So you wouldn't be okay if I cut it?"
   "Hmm... I guess it would be okay." She agrees, "But you'll still play with me right?"
    "Of course I will." Brent assures her. The twinkle in Angelina's eyes reappears. She still braids his hair knowing it may soon be gone. After a few hours of talking Brent leads us to our room, that we stay in when we visit him, because I live so far away.
   I make sure Angelina brushes her teeth and gets in her little bed next to mine and once she's asleep I go back to see my brother and talk for a little while longer.
    "Hey." I say as I walk into the living room where Brent was on his phone.
    "Hey, did ya get Angie to sleep?"
    "Oh I think so, she's tricky when I get her to bed, I never know if she really is sleeping or not."
    "Yeah, so about earlier, I was thinking about cutting my hair." He mentions.
    "Yeah I heard." I smile.
    "Well I was thinking that if your okay with it, if you could do it so Angie could see it in the morning, and I don't want to use my time going down to a barber shop when I could spend it with you guys, because its been bugging me lately. I also thought it could be funny to surprise her in the morning." He says with his adorable smile. I chuckle.
     "Okay, I'll do it but only if you know what you want, or else its hard to do." I agree.
     "Cool I'll be right back." He walks out if the living room and comes back with a stool from the kitchen island, a small towel, a pair of scissors and a comb. He sits on the stool and explains how he wants you to cut his hair. You begin to cut off your brothers hair, his beautiful brown hair. He tells you how he was so happy he was able to loose the weight he had gained and how jealous he was that I had a daughter who I loved so much. After a while you finish his new haircut.
   "There you go. All finished, you like it?" You say handing him a mirror.
    "It looks great thank you." I brush off the hair left on his shoulders and back onto the ground and once I do that I see how much hair I had cut off and it was on the floor in a few large piles. I however was proud of my work. His hair was evenly cut shorter around the sides and back, and was thicker and layered at the top.
     "Wow, it's perfect. Do you think Angie will like it?" He asks.
     "I think she will, it may come to her as a shock, so maybe act like nothing happened to confuse her."
     "You just love messing with your daughter don't you?"
     "You have no idea." I joke. "But we love each other." He laughs at me. The room goes quiet. He runs his fingers through his freshly cut hair.
     "Wow it's really short, isn't it?"
     "Yeah, but it looks great." He smiles and I tousled his hair and walkes back to the room to get to Bed and pass out as soon as my face hits the pillow.

   "Mom, get up!" Angie yells
   "Angie. shh, you'll wake up uncle Brent.
   "Oh he's already up."
   "You sure?"
   "Yeah I just was in the big room and he was there too. But mommy, he cut his hair."
    "He did?" I say as if I didn't already know. Angie makes me get up so I can see Brent. She walks me into the living room.
    "See mommy he did cut his hair!"
    "I see, Uncle Brent, why'd you cut your hair?" I say with a wink.
    "Because, I wanted to." He winks back.
    "I can't do your hair anymore." Angie says starting to tear up.
    "Are you sure? You can still try." Brent says trying to make her smile. It works. Again the three of us sit in the living room and Angie trying to do Brent's hair. However it wasn't going too well.
    "It won't work." Angie complains.
I walk over to help her and so we just start messing it up which Angie thought was the funniest thing. Brent whirls his head around to look ant Angie.
    "What are you doing?" He says in a goofy voice. She bursts out with laughter and a squeal. Brent starts tickling her and they mess around while I run over and get my phone to take pictures. My two best friends bring so much joy to each other and myself.