all american bitch

When Nicola Spinelli Anderson was four or five, she'd take the ornamental clock off her father's desk when he wasn't watching.

She was a small child, brown curls and red jumper and brown eyes and round face, looking near identical to her older brother Roger when he was the same age.

She was a precocious sort, possessing the kind of youthful curiosity that borders on destructive.

She'd open the clock up and play with the clogs and rewind the hands. One rainy Sunday, her father caught her, finally taking a break from his work papers, peering over his half moon glasses, the corners of his eyes crinkling up, his hair falling into his eyes.

"You can't take that apart, Nico," he'd say with a soft grin, "otherwise how are you going to put it back together?"

Nicola would pout, her tiny face upset. "I can fix it, I swear."