Hopefully, he would be able to sleep with other people in the cabin.
“Maybe we should put on a movie for the kids,” Kenzie suggested to Tyrrell. “That will probably help keep things quiet until the others get here.”
With the kids entertained, Kenzie pulled out her phone and started running through her task lists and plans, filling Tyrrell in on any details he did not know. Together, they would do what they could to ensure that the evening ran smoothly.
Kenzie turned on the outside light and peered out the window for any sign of their additional guests. There was a set of headlights just coming down the road as she watched. It was too dark out to recognize the vehicle until it was right in front of the cabin. Lorne and Pat pulled in beside Zachary’s car. Kenzie opened the door to wave to them and waited there while they pulled bags and boxes out of the car to bring inside with them.
She leaned in to give Lorne a kiss on the cheek in greeting as he hobbled to the door on his cast. “Zachary is sleeping, but he’ll want to be up soon. Don’t worry about any noise.”
“Good to see you, Kenzie.” He paused beside her. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m doing pretty well. Nearly back to normal. Zachary’s going to take longer, but now that he’s done his protocol, it’s just a matter of making sure he gets enough sleep and calories.”
“We’ll see what magic we can work there,” Pat said, leaning close so that Kenzie could give him a kiss as well. He indicated the box he was carrying with a nod. “This will get him back on his feet.”
It took several trips back and forth to the car before they had brought in everything they needed, then Pat set to work on their final preparations. Kenzie and Tyrrell helped with whatever they could, while Lorne sat down with his leg elevated and watched the movie with the children.
It wasn’t long before Kenzie’s sharp ears picked up the sound of the bedroom door opening. She turned around and watched Zachary walk into the living room, rubbing his eyes.
“You didn’t let me sleep too late, did you?” he asked.
Then he did a double-take when he saw Lorne sitting there with the kids.
“Mr. Peterson? What are you doing here?”
It was cute how he still called his old foster father by his last name. Lorne always told him to use his first name, and Zachary tried, but when he wasn’t consciously trying to call him Lorne, he always slipped back into the old habit.
“We came for dinner,” Lorne said, as if that should have been obvious.
“Dinner?” Zachary looked into the kitchen area and saw Kenzie and Tyrrell working with Pat. “We’re having dinner here?”
“We don’t need to go up to the farmhouse every night,” Kenzie pointed out. “There’s a stove here. We can cook whatever we need to.”
“And we’re... and everyone is...” Zachary’s eyes glinted with tears, and he laughed. “I can’t even talk!”
“We thought we’d have an early Thanksgiving dinner,” Pat told him. “Kenzie told us all about the planned vacation, and it sort of... all came together. We need a break too. Kenzie booked a three-bedroom, so there’s room for all of us for one night.”
“One night?”
“We’re not going to stay the whole week. Just thought we’d drop in on you for a day or two. We were listening to the forecast on the way up, and it isn’t good. Probably best if we hit the trail by late tomorrow, if we don’t want to get caught in a storm.”
Zachary’s gaze shifted to Tyrrell. Tyrrell anticipated the question and raised his hand in a “halt” gesture. “We’re still planning on staying a few days,” he promised. “If we end up getting snowed in and have to spend an extra day or two here, it won’t hurt our feelings. Will it, kids?”
They were watching the movie and not paying him any attention.
“You don’t mind if you miss a few days of school, do you?” Tyrrell directed at them.
It was Mason who looked up first. “Miss school?” He grinned. “Mommy would kill you.”
Everyone laughed.
“I don’t think she would literally kill me,” Tyrrell protested. “If we were snowed in and couldn’t get back. That’s not our fault.”
Alisha shook her head. “Mommy won’t be happy.”
“Well, we’ll see what happens. Just because there is a storm coming in, that doesn’t mean the highway will be impassable. It could blow in, dump some snow, and then be gone again. I’ve just watched too many movies about getting snowed in at mountain resorts.”
“When are we eating?” Mason asked with a hint of a whine. “I’m getting really hungry.”
“We’ll eat when it’s ready. You be patient and polite.”
“It won’t be long,” Pat promised. “Everything is precooked, I’m just warming up here. I didn’t think we wanted to spend hours cooking the bird once we got here.”
“It smells good,” Zachary declared, sniffing the air. “Is it turkey?”
“It sure is. Turkey, my famous cornbread stuffing, glazed yams...”
“Mashed potatoes?”
“Mashed potatoes,” Pat confirmed, smiling.
“You know what a good cook Pat is,” Zachary said to Kenzie, “but until you’ve had his turkey dinner...”
Kenzie wondered how many turkey dinners Zachary had partaken of with his old foster father and his partner. And how many he had missed because he had been too sick or in the hospital when the special day rolled around.
“I can’t wait. It smells fabulous.”
“I’m a vegetarian,” Alisha piped up.
Tyrrell looked across the room at her, raising his eyebrows. “That’s news to me,”
“I am. Mom said she told you.”
Tyrrell’s brow wrinkled as he considered this. “Well, maybe she forgot to mention that.”
“There will be plenty to eat other than turkey,” Pat assured Alisha. “Do you still drink milk?”
Alisha nodded. “Mom said I have to. And I don’t like that soy stuff.”
“Well then, you can have everything except the turkey and gravy. And I didn’t even cook the stuffing in the bird, so that’s safe for you. Sound good?”
Alisha gave him a broad smile.
“Good,” Pat repeated.
Tyrrell looked at Alisha. “So when did this happen? And why? You’ve never mentioned being interested in vegetarianism before.”
Alisha shrugged. “I don’t want to eat animals.” She shot a look at Mason, who was making faces. “Would you want to eat those horses you were making friends with and driving today? In some countries, they would eat them. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“People don’t eat horses.”
“Sometimes! And what about all the other animals? Chickens and pigs are really smart. Smarter than a dog!”
Mason rolled his eyes and shook his head at his sister’s ridiculousness. Tyrrell didn’t reprimand him.
“Well, that’s fine,” Tyrrell told Alisha, “but next time can you tell me? In case Mom forgets?”
“She was supposed to tell you.”
“I know. I get that. But you can tell me too.”
She looked down at her hands for a few seconds, then nodded. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to be afraid to tell me. I’m not going to get mad.”
There was a heavy silence among the three of them. Kenzie turned back to the salad she was making, feeling like she was intruding on the little family. There were clearly a lot of things not being said between them. Alisha didn’t immediately jump in and say that she knew her dad wouldn’t get mad at her. The silence suggested otherwise. Tyrrell had mentioned, the previous Christmas, that he was a recovering alcoholic. Kenzie had thought at the time that he had probably been an alcoholic in his late teens or early twenties, and then had woken up to what he was doing to himself and sobered up. But maybe it had been much more recent than that. Recent enough that the kids could remember and were still worried that he might go into a rage over something like finding out
that his daughter was a vegetarian.
“Do you need any help?” Zachary asked Pat, breaking the silence.
“I think we have as many cooks as this kitchen can handle,” Pat said. “Why don’t you get washed up? We’ll have food on the table in a few minutes.”
13
Unlike the dinner the previous night, there was no need to worry about things like candles. Pat knew Zachary’s triggers as well as anyone, and would never have put candles out when he knew Zachary was around, much less light them.
The movie ended and Tyrrell turned off the TV to the children’s moans and complaints.
“You don’t have time to watch anything else. We’re eating soon.”
“We can eat and watch TV at the same time,” Mason contributed helpfully.
“Not today, you can’t. We’re all eating together at the table today. Mr. Peterson and Mr. Parker have made this wonderful meal for us, and we’re going to enjoy it all sitting together visiting.”
“I had very little to do with it,” Lorne objected. “It’s all Pat.”
“Well, Mr. Parker, then. I want you guys to be on your best behavior for dinner, okay? Remember your manners? No goofing off.”
They gave their grudging agreements. Zachary had finished taking his dinnertime meds and washing up, so the children were sent to make themselves presentable, and by the time they were finished squabbling over the sink and had returned to the table, Pat was just setting out the finishing touches.
As they started to pass the dishes around Mason picked up his table knife and started jousting with Alisha, waving it back and forth to clink against her raised fork and jabbing it toward her.
“Mason!” Tyrrell shouted.
Mason jumped and dropped the knife with a clatter.
“What did I tell you about good manners?”
Tears welled up in Mason’s eyes and started to race down his cheeks. “I was just playing!”
“No. No playing at the table. You know better than that. Does your mother let you sword fight at the table?”
Mason sniffled and shook his head. “No.”
“Then you’re not allowed to do it here either. Just behave yourself!”
“I’m trying!”
“Try harder,” Tyrrell insisted.
Mason stared down at his plate, silent tears still flowing down his cheeks. Tyrrell spooned some of the various dishes onto Mason’s plate as they went around, since Mason was making no move to serve himself.
Kenzie felt sorry for the little guy. As far as she could guess, without making any kind of clinical examination or doing any testing for hidden disabilities, he was at the upper end of the hyperactivity scale. He was clearly bright and observant, but also impulsive and constantly on the move. Even as he sat there, trying to be well-behaved for his father, he was swinging his legs back and forth and twisting his hands together in his lap. Trying harder wasn’t going to help him to overcome ADHD or whatever other disabilities he might have. Medication might help settle him down a little but, as Zachary had observed in the past, there wasn’t anything that worked reliably for impulse control.
Everyone was quiet for a few minutes while they dished up. Tyrrell’s neck was flushed red with embarrassment over either his son’s behavior or his own reaction to it. As they began to eat, they all made an effort at conversation, and gradually things returned to normal.
“This is just fantastic,” Kenzie told Pat. “You’ve really outdone yourself. When we started to plan, I thought that maybe we could have sandwiches together. Nothing like this!”
“It’s what I do,” Pat said with a modest shrug. “I love to cook for people.”
“And people love it when you cook for them,” Kenzie declared. Everything was delectable, and she regretted that unlike Zachary, she didn’t need the extra calories. She tried to eat slowly and savor every bite.
14
Zachary sat down with Lorne after supper to look at some photography he had brought with him, which inevitably led to the discussion of cameras and camera settings that could go on all night.
Getting the children to bed was not an easy affair, especially as far as Mason was concerned. Alisha was cooperative, though she got out of bed and made too many special requests and delays, but Mason was a little fireball who seemed to get more hyper the more tired he got, and Tyrrell looked exhausted by the time he finally managed to get both kids down to sleep.
“You wouldn’t believe how much energy that kid has,” he sighed. “I wish I had half as much as he does. Actually, I wish he had half as much too. We have a bedtime routine when they’re visiting me, but being somewhere else, somewhere unfamiliar with such exciting things going on, everything just falls apart.”
“Routine is everything at this age,” Lorne agreed. “With a lot of the kids that we had, it wasn’t worth it to do anything during the evening if it took away from the usual rituals. Change one thing, and you end up with kids who can’t settle until they are literally falling asleep on their feet.” He put his foot up, scratching around the top of the cast and grimacing. “With some of them, they were so hypervigilant that if you changed one thing, they would go right off the rails.”
He looked over at Zachary. Zachary scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sure you’re not talking about me,” he said uncomfortably.
Everyone laughed. Zachary had a strong relationship with his foster father as an adult. As a child, he’d only been in their foster home for a few weeks. Zachary’s own hyperactivity and other issues had been too much for them to handle. Too much for most families to handle.
“Even with night meds, you were always a tough one to get down for the night.”
“I remember. I couldn’t shut my brain off. Couldn’t stop worrying about things. About what was going to happen. About... a fire or something happening to one of the other kids. About school and getting left back because I couldn’t understand the work. Or having to go back to Bonnie Brown or go to juvie. My brain would just never settle down.”
Zachary didn’t usually talk about his anxieties or problems sleeping. Even in therapy, it was hard to get him to be open about what was going on inside his head. Maybe talking about his childhood gave her a little window into what it was like in there. She could picture his brain as a racing engine. Racing, racing, racing, and never slowing or stopping.
“Have you considered meds for Mason?” Lorne asked Tyrrell.
“His mom is talking to the school. They want to put him on something to make it easier on the teachers. I think we’re both a little worried that it will change him. He’s such a bright, inquisitive kid. I don’t want them to squash that curiosity, that little spark. I remember what it was like, some of the stuff they put me on when I was his age. It didn’t make me feel better. It did help my focus a bit. But I always felt like... I was swimming through wet cement.”
“They’ve got some better options now,” Zachary offered. “But even if it works without side effects, it’s hard feeling like... you’re defective and need to be medicated to even look like... neurotypicals.”
Tyrrell nodded. “I’m just glad I grew out of that.”
When they all got up in the morning, the storm was all over the news on Kenzie’s phone apps. Weather warnings had been issued and they knew they could be looking at a big dump of snow. Though Lorne and Pat had been planning to stay most of the day and only head home in the evening, satellite maps showed the storm moving in much more quickly than expected, maps that were verified by the strong wind that swept in through the door whenever they opened it.
Pat had packaged up all of the leftovers of the turkey dinner and left them in the fridge for Zachary and Kenzie to use in the upcoming week if they didn’t feel like going up to the farmhouse for dinner. It was nice to have something so good on hand. Better than the prepackaged stuff that Kenzie had brought with her. Pat packed up the rest of his dishes and ingredients to take back with them.
They all exchanged regretful goodbyes at the door, but th
ey didn’t hang around with the door open to watch Pat and Lorne leave. Zachary watched through the window and waved as they pulled out.
“Should we go up to the house for some breakfast?” Kenzie suggested. “You know now that they have muffins, and you were able to eat one of them yesterday. We can put in an appearance, see how the rest of the vacationers are doing.”
“I think I’ll stay down here. You go ahead, if you want to.” His expression was frozen and his tone flat. Definitely feeling the absence of their guests.
“I think it would be good for you to come. You don’t want to just mope around here feeling bad for yourself.”
“Tyrrell and the kids are here. I’m not by myself.”
“I know. I just think... it might help to get out of yourself a bit. See the other cabins.”
Zachary sighed heavily. “Is it that important to you?”
Kenzie nodded. “Yes. Come on up with me.”
Dr. Boyle had suggested that if they knew something was important to the other person, they should act on it, even if it wasn’t something that they felt like doing themselves. Couples did things for one another. Made concessions. Joined them in their activities even when they didn’t share all of the other’s interests. It would help bring them closer together.
“Okay.” Zachary said simply. He looked at Tyrrell. “Do you guys want to come up?”
“If you don’t mind, I think we’ll keep a low profile. I don’t know how, uh… how many fragile, expensive items they might have around the place...”
Zachary looked at Mason, eating cheese strings and apple slices in front of the TV, and nodded. Maybe remembering all of the things he had broken when he was Mason’s age.
He began to put on his coat and other winter gear without further objection.
15
It was a chilly walk up to the farmhouse, but the wind had died down, so it wasn’t too brutal. Kenzie supposed they could have driven the car up, but Tyrrell was parked behind Zachary’s car, and the exercise was good for them.
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