Chapter Sixteen
The snow was crusty, the trail through the woods, well worn. A raw breeze caused Sara to zip her puffy coat up to her chin. The day was softly gray, and Sara tilted her chin up at the sky, trying to gauge if the heavy clouds contained snow. She hoped it would snow for Christmas—soft fluffy snow. It would be fun to come here after a snowstorm and be the first one to walk through it.
While ambling along, Sara kept her eyes open for animals. If only she could see a fox. She’d never seen one except in the zoo, but their tails were unbelievably thick and bushy, and she was anxious to see one in the wild.
A crackling sound from behind made Sara turn. A boy about her size in a blue parka and black knit cap came toward her on the trail. Soon, he was close enough to recognize.
“Hi, Corey!”
He waved a black-gloved hand. How nice that he’d remembered her saying she walked in the woods by her grandparents’ home nearly every day.
“I’m glad you came today,” Sara said a bit shyly when he caught up to her.
“I like the woods,” Corey said as if that explained everything, and they walked on together. Once, her sharp eyes caught a line of tracks crossing the cushion of snow, and they left the trail to examine them.
Corey studied them knowingly. “Deer,” he pronounced, then looked around as if some might be skulking behind the thick oak and hickory trees.
Smaller tracks skittered over the frozen top layer of snow. “Are these rabbit tracks?” Sara pointed at the tracks.
“Could be.”
“Do you think it could be a fox?” Sara clasped her hands in rapture to think a glorious animal such as a fox might be close by. “Or maybe it was a raccoon.”
“I think raccoons sleep during the winter, like bears.”
“Do they ever come out to eat?”
“I think so.” Corey didn’t sound as sure as Sara would have liked.
When they returned to the trail, she asked, “Have you ever been here before?”
“Yeah, I come here a lot with my dad.”
“Have you seen the pond?”
“My dad and I go ice skating there, but we haven’t been yet this year.”
Although Sara always enjoyed her solitary walks, it was fun to have someone with her and point out different things. They came to a bend, and after rounding it Sara took the right fork, which led to the pond. The path was almost as well used as the main trail.
“A lot of people must come here,” Sara remarked.
When they reached the frozen, bluish-gray pond, Corey took a few steps onto the ice. Alarmed, Sara cried out, “Don’t go out there! It might crack, and you’d fall in.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t go any farther. My dad always tests the ice before we skate to make sure it’s safe. But look, people have already been skating.” Corey pointed at the multitude of grooves and scratches on the pond’s surface.
“Do you like to ice skate?” Sara asked.
“Yeah. My dad and I go a lot. Have you ever skated here?”
“Not for a long time. I used to come with my mom and dad.” It seemed like forever since the three of them had held hands and skated here.
“Do you want to go skating?” Corey asked eagerly. “I have ice skates. Do you?”
Sara was thrilled with the idea but unsure about skates. “I outgrew mine years ago. But my grandma has a box of skates in her garage. They’re pretty old, but I can see if any fit me.”
Chatting enthusiastically, they followed the trail as it circled around the pond, making plans. They could see their breath when their laughter echoed in the clear, bright air. Corey talked about how his car-bed would have to be dismantled when they moved.
“Are you excited about moving?” Sara asked.
“Yeah.” Corey’s voice was soft, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I know your mom wanted to buy the house we’re moving to.”
“She really wanted it.” Sara’s voice turned mournful. Her mother had been so disappointed. “Mom was really excited about moving back here, but now she’s kind of sad.” Sara didn’t want to tell Corey that her mom still hoped to buy the house—especially since Sara didn’t understand how that could happen. Grandpa and Aunt Mandy both said Corey’s father had bought it.
As if trying to keep up with Sara’s confidences, Corey offered, “My dad’s sad sometimes.”
Why would he be sad? He was getting the house, wasn’t he? But then, maybe he was sad about other things too, like her mom. “My mom’s been sad a lot, ever since she and my dad got divorced. She doesn’t want me to know, but I can tell.” At least her mom didn’t have red eyes as often as she used to. Now she only got quiet and had a solemn look on her face when Sara left for weekend visits, carrying her bulging backpack. Her mother tried to hide it, talking all bright and shining as if everything was wonderful, but it wasn’t. Her mom would stand at the door, her smile too big, while she waved too energetically—as though nothing was better than watching Sara walk to her dad’s car.
Corey digested that in silence. “That’s kinda like my dad, only he didn’t get divorced. My mom died.”
Inhaling sharply, Sara stopped in her tracks. Having your mom die was the very worst possible thing in the whole world. She felt so bad for Corey that she didn’t know what to say. Finally she murmured, “I’m sorry. It must have been awful.”
Corey acknowledged Sara’s condolences with a nod, and they walked on. “I think my dad’s lonely.”
“Me too—I mean my mom is too.” Sara’s scarf came undone, and she fumbled with it, throwing one end over her shoulder.
Corey had an idea. “Maybe your mom and my dad can be friends.” Peering at Sara out of bright, dark eyes, he added, “Dad told me once that it’s hard for him to talk with girls, but he talks to your mom all right.”
Sara didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm because on the surface it did sound like a good plan—but there were all those bits and pieces she’d overheard. Her mom didn’t sound like she liked Corey’s dad very much. “Maybe.” Her voice was doubtful. “But my mom isn’t very happy that he’s buying my uncle’s house.”
Her words put Corey on the defensive. “My dad bought it before you and your mom even got here.” Then he stopped, unsure. “Well, I think he bought it. He signed a bunch of papers.”
That sounded pretty final to Sara.
“If your mom wanted it, she should have said so,” Corey added.
Sara frowned. Corey’s statement sounded like he was repeating something he’d heard his dad say. Annoyance on her mother’s behalf sprang up, and she blurted, “Mom did say something! She wanted it to be a surprise for Uncle Tom and Aunt Mandy. Like a Christmas present.” Her eyes flashed with blue fire at what she perceived as an affront to her mother.
“Oh. I didn’t know that.” Corey sounded apologetic.
“Mom thought it would make Uncle Tom and Aunt Mandy happy. Mom wanted the house because it’s where she grew up.” Sara kicked at the snow as they went along. She looked up at Corey, whose cheeks were flushed from the cold.
He nodded deeply, assuring her it all made sense. Then they smiled, the tension melted away, and they were all right again.
“Does your dad go out on dates?” Sara was curious about the process and glad to have someone she could ask.
“Sometimes. What about your mom?”
“She goes out once in a while, but I don’t think she likes it very much.” Sara didn’t understand it. If you went out with someone, didn’t that mean you wanted to? Yet her mother often came back tight-lipped about the whole thing.
Then Corey said something that took her breath away. “I think my dad likes your mom.”
Sara couldn’t help it. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “She’s taken. Mom likes a boy she used to know when she was little.” Her mother’s face lit up whenever she talked about Tyrone. It was something Sara wanted to see all the time. “I think he lives here. They used to meet here in the
woods all the time, but then he moved away.”
Corey was confused. “How can your mom find him if he moved away?” It was a natural question.
“I think he moved back.” It sounded dumb when she said it out loud. But it hadn’t sounded like that when she’d said the same thing to Grandma. She didn’t know for sure that Tyrone had moved back—it was just something Sara really hoped for—sure it would erase the sadness she saw at times in her mother. More than anything else, Sara wanted her mother to be happy and laughing, without all of that awful pretending. Sara hated seeing the emptiness behind her mother’s smile. She’d gotten good at spotting forced cheerfulness. She wanted the real thing—the way her mother used to be before her dad left.
They came to a fork, and Corey examined the sky as if gauging the time. “We’d better turn back.”
They turned around as one and walked along in comfortable silence. The tip of Sara’s nose was cold and most likely red. Sometimes in her prayers, Sara asked Heavenly Father to bless her mother. And she knew God had listened because things were a lot better than they used to be. But things could be better still. That was part of why her mother had moved here. Whenever her mom talked about living in Lake Forest, her voice got all soft just like when she talked about Tyrone. Her mother needed something—someone. And that had to be the boy with the dumb name—Tyrone. He just had to be here. Sara picked up the conversation as if it had never ended.
“I know Tyrone could have moved a long way away, but I still think he came back.” Then Sara played her trump card. “Besides, my grandma said there’s magic at Christmastime. So he really could be here.”
“How could magic make him come back?” Corey was skeptical.
His question made Sara feel foolish—and defensive. When she’d talked with her grandma, magic was the perfect explanation for how and why Tyrone had returned to Lake Forest. She tried to explain. “Magic can happen if you want it to. I read a book about it. It’s pretty good. I’ll lend it to you if you want.”
Corey was agreeable. “Okay.”
“If you want, we can go to my grandma’s house, and I’ll get it for you. Grandma said that if I believe in magic, it can happen.”
“Magic is for kids.”
“Grandma says we’re all kids at Christmas.”
Chapter Seventeen
Corey was usually such a bouncing, running bundle of energy that Jared was surprised to see him curled up in a chair with a book in the living room. “What are you reading?”
“Sara let me borrow some books.” There was a pile on the end table beside Corey.
“When did you see her?”
“I went for a walk in the woods, and she was there. We went to the pond.”
Talk about déjà vu. Boy meets girl in the woods. A glistening pond provides a backdrop to a delightful playground in a forest. Then Jared’s parental instincts kicked in. “Wait a minute. You didn’t go out onto the pond, did you?”
“Just a step or two. I knew you didn’t want me to go any farther.”
“That’s right.” A wave of relief washed over him. When Corey asked if he could go to the woods, Jared hadn’t even thought about the pond. He lifted Corey up and settled into the chair, putting him on his lap.
“Sara and I want to go ice skating. Can we?”
“Not until I check the ice. Do you remember what to look for?”
“It needs to be thick.”
“At least four inches, and the ice should be blue or clear. If it’s gray, white, or opaque, the ice is weak. What did it look like today?”
“Um, I think it was kinda blue.”
“Why don’t you and I go skating and check it out. If it’s safe, then you and Sara can go. How about it?”
“Yeah!”
Corey’s elbow was digging into his side, so Jared shifted him. “So what did you do in the woods?”
“We saw some deer tracks. And a bunch of other tracks. Sara said they might be a fox or a rabbit. Maybe even a raccoon. Do raccoons sleep during the winter, Dad?”
“Mostly. They’re kind of like bears, but they wake up sometimes and come out for food. Then they go back to sleep. Unless it’s really cold—then they stay put. I think bears sleep more soundly than raccoons.”
“I wanted to see some deer, but there weren’t any. We walked around the pond.”
Something he and Izzy had done many times. “It’s pretty there, isn’t it?” From the expression on Corey’s face, Jared could tell his son wasn’t sure about the “pretty” part.
“I liked it,” he offered, trying to find common ground. “Did you go skating there when you were little?”
“Yep.”
“How long did you live here, Dad?”
“A couple of years. And actually I lived in West Lake Forest.” Jared had almost lost track of all the places he had lived. Life without a father had been difficult, and it was only when he was an adult that he realized how his mother must have struggled. Now that he was older and wiser, Jared had a better appreciation for all she had done.
“Oh, yeah. And Izzy lived here.”
“She lived on the south end of Lake Forest, and I lived on the north end of West Lake Forest with only the woods in between us. So I’d ride my bike and meet her there.”
“Where did you lock up your bike?”
Oh, the simpler times of years past! “We didn’t lock them—we never even thought someone might take them.” Corey looked astonished. What a sad commentary that was on the state of the world.
“What did you do there?”
How to even start? Jared told him how their days had been filled with wandering through the woods, skipping stones on the pond, gathering leaves, and climbing trees. Sometimes he and Izzy pulled long lush grass in open meadows, stuffed it in sacks, then went to a nearby pasture to feed it to the horses. Once, Izzy brought an old tarp, and they’d made a tent.
Corey looked envious.
“One day, Izzy and I decided to become trappers. We made our own trap out of an old wooden box and propped up one end with a stick. We baited it with lunchmeat from our sandwiches, then tied a long rope to the stick and backed off, waiting for an animal to smell the meat and go inside. Once it did, we’d pull the rope, and the box would fall and trap the animal.” Jared chuckled. “For a while, my mom wondered why I didn’t want peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore.”
“Did you catch anything?”
“Nothing but ants. Once a magpie flew in, but by the time I pulled the rope, it had flown off. Sometimes we’d take jars to the pond to catch polliwogs. I wanted to take mine home, but Izzy couldn’t stand to see the polliwogs cooped up in a jar. So when my back was turned, she dumped them back into the pond.”
When he paused, Corey looked at him expectantly. “What else did you do?”
“Let’s see . . .” Jared scratched his chin as he tried to remember. “Well, we brought sack lunches every day. Most of the time we’d trade—except for when Izzy’s mom made hers out of homemade bread. Then Izzy wouldn’t trade—not unless I threw in my cookie along with my sandwich.” Izzy had been smart as well as shrewd.
Corey was disapproving. “That wasn’t fair.”
“Ah, but if you’d tasted that bread, you’d know it was worth it. Besides, Izzy always broke the cookie in half and shared it with me along with whatever treat she’d brought that day.” Izzy had always been generous. Jared had liked her tremendously and had been amazed at how he could talk to her all day long. He was never tongue-tied like he was around other people.
Those were the days! Each afternoon when it was time to go home, Jared would marvel at how the day had passed so quickly. He’d been heartbroken when his mother told him they were moving—again. He and Izzy promised each other they’d write faithfully. And yet she hadn’t. He still had a sore spot about that. Why hadn’t she written? He’d checked the mailbox so many times, his heart dropping to his shoes each time he turned away. They’d been such good friends—he thought. Perhaps their frien
dship had been one-sided on his part.
Corey squirmed a little, ready to talk about something else. “Dad, are we still going to buy that house?”
“We sure are.”
“Oh good. I told Sara you’d signed some papers. She said her mom really wanted it. Because she grew up there.”
A pang shot through Jared, but he pushed it aside. “Kenzie could have bought the house. It had been up for sale for a while before I bought it.”
“That’s what I told Sara.” Corey sounded very firm.
Great. And Sara would tell Kenzie all about that. But then, why did he even care? He didn’t.
Corey went on, a veritable fount of information. “Sara said her mom’s sad a lot since she got divorced. Maybe you and Sara’s mom could be friends.”
When pigs fly! But Corey stared at him so earnestly that fatherhood compelled him to say something encouraging. “Sure. I guess so.” Actually, when he’d first met McKenzie Forsberg, Jared had wanted very much to be friends—perhaps more than friends. But Kenzie’s one-track mind had put an end to that.
“Maybe you could ask her out to dinner.”
Jared frowned at his son. “I thought you didn’t like it when I went on dates. You always get a stomachache.”
“Oh, Dad! That’s when I was little. I’m okay when you go out with Pam.”
True. But then, they hadn’t gone out that much. Jared liked Pam, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue a relationship. She was always dropping hints about going to the movies or dinner, but somehow his heart wasn’t in it.
Then there had been the night he’d spent with Kenzie—taking those baskets around. There had been something special between them that night. The look in Kenzie’s eyes told him she was interested. He hated to admit it, but he’d felt a stirring that night—something warm in his chest. Then Jared caught himself and pushed all thoughts of Kenzie out of his mind. He was definitely not going to go there.
Chapter Eighteen
Saturday morning, Kenzie’s mom asked her to run a few errands. After picking up a prescription and stopping downtown at the dry cleaner’s, Kenzie headed for the bookstore on Main Street. As she walked along the sidewalk, warmth flooded her as she thought about taking the baskets around Thursday night—the grateful Mr. and Mrs. Keeler, the excited Nesrin children, and the jolly Mr. Rodriguez. All of them were struggling financially, and some physically, yet they were all cheerful and upbeat.
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