CHAPTER TWENTY
Rhys pointed the Range Rover in the direction of Camden, Massachusetts, his thoughts full of the woman who occupied the seat beside him. Over the past few weeks, Andie had become a fixture in his bed. But she was so much more than that: a balm to his doubts, a magnet to his senses, and a singing effervescence in his blood. Although they’d settled into something of a routine, there was nothing routine about his days when he knew that her hot, sweet kisses and the oasis of her body were waiting for him at the end of them.
This must be some sort of addiction, he told himself. He’d never felt this powerful sense of elation in the company of another person, the conviction that they could draw the shades and erect a barricade and be perfectly content in their own private union, drinking in the satisfaction of each other’s company—nothing further required. He only hoped she felt the same way.
Will had dropped off to sleep in his car seat a half hour into the ride, and Rhys placed a warm hand on Andie’s nearest jean-clad thigh. As the car ate up the miles, her anxiety visibly ratcheted up, her eyes becoming a storm of green, brown, and gold. He snuck surreptitious glances at her delicate profile and the solemn set of her lovely mouth. She had paired her jeans with her red sweater and pulled her hair into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck. He imagined loosening the elastic later that night and encouraging the dark waves to ripple over her shoulders.
Andie sucked in a tense breath as they passed a traditional white sign announcing their arrival in her hometown: ENTERING CAMDEN, INCORPORATED 1786. The outskirts of the town were indistinguishable from those of its neighbors—small and in many cases dilapidated farmhouses lining the main road, separated by large expanses of frost-glazed fields. Then came the usual run of automotive and tractor-supply stores, interspersed with a stretch of fast-food restaurants, gas stations, and strip malls. Finally, more densely settled blocks heralded their entry into the older town center.
Antique homes, including some large Victorians, graced the perimeter of a traditional village green. Farther on, beyond an intersection where train tracks passed through the town, were all the ingredients of a classic Main Street: two white-steepled churches, a redbrick post office, a library, a regional bank, a funeral home, a barbershop, a hardware store, an insurance office, a real-estate office, and a general store. There was even a restored Art Deco movie theater, and a thrift shop with a glamorously styled window display to appeal to students from the surrounding colleges.
“Nice town,” he commented mildly. It was only then that he noticed Andie’s unnatural pallor and the grim tension in her hands as she clung to her armrest.
“Andie, are you okay?”
“Just a little carsick,” she murmured, fending him off with a wave of her hand as she settled back into her seat and turned her face to the window. She let her eyes flutter closed altogether as the final few blocks of the town center flashed by.
What is it that’s unsettling her? Rhys wondered. He felt an overwhelming urge to muscle in between her and the threat she faced, to defend her bodily, if need be. But if the source of her fear was internal, what then? The idea of whisking her back to his bedroom and distracting her from her demons held tremendous appeal, but that was too easy. She’d come through for him when the going got tough, and he would do the same.
He was touched she’d invited him today, in spite of her palpable unease about making the trip out here at all. Rhys couldn’t help but feel a fierce curiosity about her background and what today’s visit might reveal about the childhood that still held her in its powerful grip.
As the GPS counted down their imminent arrival at Andie’s mother’s farm, the houses once more became fewer and farther between. Andie sat straighter in her seat again, her expression resolute. Their destination loomed in the form of a large and picturesque red barn set back from the road beside a neat white farmhouse. A driveway opened into a large, paved turning circle and parking area beside the barn, where a number of cars already sat. An open field allowed for spillover parking. An arrow with the words “Petting Zoo” pointed from the parking lot to a collection of smaller outbuildings huddled beside pens that held a menagerie sure to take Will’s fancy. On the opposite side of the barn was a weathered, pitch-roofed building with a chimney belching maple-scented steam.
Will stirred, attuned to the slowing motion of the car as they pulled in.
“Good timing,” Rhys commented, reaching back to give his son’s leg an affectionate squeeze.
“Here goes,” Andie murmured.
“Hey.” Rhys reached out and took her hand. “It’ll be okay.”
“Thanks.” She smiled and squared her shoulders, her determination evident in her burning eyes and the set of her jaw. “Yes, it will.”
She broke free and headed for the main barn. Rhys lifted Will out of his car seat and hoisted him up on his shoulders to follow the others walking toward the rustic building.
A large, engraved sign proclaimed TILLY’S FARM STAND in antiqued gold lettering above the barn’s double doors. It was a relatively temperate day—in the midforties and sunny, despite the large piles of snow still on the ground—and one of the doors was propped open to reveal an expansive, airy space with clean-swept, wide pine floors dotted with folding tables and chairs set up in clusters.
The far end of the large, open room was set up with trestle tables loaded with heated catering trays and large coffee urns. Another table nearer to the doorway was lined with glass bottles of amber liquid and small tasting cups next to a sign that invited guests to sample the farm’s bounty of maple syrup in its various colors and grades. Andie, head down, made for a corner to drop off her bag so she could help finish setting up. Will, clutching his trains, tilted his head back to inspect the raftered ceiling.
“Andie!”
A tall, angular woman with pale, freckled skin, shoulder-length red-brown hair, and amber eyes crossed the floor to intercept them. There was something about the vivid intensity of her well-formed features that marked her as Andie’s sister. She swept into their path, her attractive face alight with curiosity.
“Jess!” Andie hugged her eagerly, and both faces turned to Rhys and Will.
“You must be Rhys,” Jess said, eyes gleaming, too impatient to wait for Andie to make the introductions. “I’m so glad you could come. And Will.” She leaned in and gently squeezed Will’s knee.
“Andie has told me a lot about you,” Jess volunteered, her face full of mischief. “And, I must say, you don’t disappoint in person.”
“Ah, thanks? I think.” Rhys cast a questioning look at Andie, but she just shrugged and elbowed Jess in the ribs.
Will chose that moment to reach out for Andie. He did the classic toddler lean, pitching himself toward the object of his desire as if basic physics had nothing to do with his own safety. He teetered precariously for a second before Andie stepped closer, completing his transfer into her embrace. Her ponytail trailing over one shoulder was an irresistible lure to the toddler, who cooed and chortled as he stroked the cool strands.
It was then that Rhys looked down the wide corridor formed by the rows of tables and saw at the far end of the room a figure watching them. How long she’d stood there he could not know, but once he spotted her, he couldn’t shake the strange idea that perhaps she’d been there forever, as still as an effigy, her features a study in conflicting emotion—as if a gifted artist had set himself the task of depicting disdain and fascination, resentment and longing, and love and hatred in one woman’s face. And she was staring straight at Andie and Will.
Rhys froze as the murmur of Jess’s and Andie’s voices rose up around him. He had to fight the sudden urge to throw himself between this woman and the pair who stood by his side, as if her laser focus had a cutting edge that could actually harm them. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, until a passerby crossed between him and the woman and momentarily blocked the invisible current that bisected the room. Rhys shook himself out of his daze and rubbed his eyelids. She was still there, a handsome woman in her midfifties with salt-and-pepper hair and delicate features that had been sharpened, not softened, by age.
“Who is that?” he blurted, already knowing the answer.
“Oh, that’s Susan, star of today’s show,” Jess replied drily. “You must come over and meet her.”
Rhys shot a quick look at Andie, but her expression was unreadable. She followed Jess and Rhys, hugging Will close as they made their way to the other end of the barn.
“Hello, Andrea,” the woman said with a tight smile. She held still as Andie leaned in and gave her a dutiful kiss on the cheek and made the introductions.
“How nice.” Susan fluttered, her eyes turbulent. “I didn’t expect to meet your employer today.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Rhys saw Andie’s shoulders stiffen.
Susan turned her focus directly on him. “Mr. Griffiths, we’re honored you came to our little celebration. Of course, it’s usually only family and friends, so I hope you’ll forgive the modest scale of our little spread.”
What to say to that? Think. Think. Rhys’s head spun as he took in the double-edged meaning of the woman’s pleasantries, branding him an outsider even as she extended her disingenuous welcome. Andie’s eyes flashed a warning.
“At this point, Andie is like family to both Will and me, and I hope she would say the reverse is true,” he managed. “So I’m sure we’ll do just fine.”
Jess smiled like the Cheshire cat and looped an arm through Rhys’s.
“I can tell I’m going to like you,” she announced as she led him off to meet her husband and Andie’s other two sisters.
Andie looked longingly after Rhys and Jess as they walked arm in arm to the other side of the barn, which was filling up with guests, including some familiar faces from her school days. Will lifted a hand to play with her hair, cooing softly, and Andie smiled and rubbed her cheek against his.
“I suppose you think it’s funny to flaunt that poor child in front of me,” Susan said, her eyes narrowed.
So this is the way Susan is going to play it. Andie tucked Will even tighter against her, fuming at her mother’s characterization of him. “I invited Rhys and Will here because they’re part of my life.”
“Well,” Susan sniffed, “I don’t know how you expect to keep him out of harm’s way while you help with the breakfast.”
“It’s not a problem,” Andie said, tamping down her anger, forcing herself to be upbeat. Let it not be said that she wasn’t willing to give it one last try before changing tactics for good. “Rhys and I will trade off. Rhys offered to take a turn at the serving table. He might be able to sell some maple syrup, too.”
A teenage boy shuffled up, carrying a heavy coffee urn. Probably one of Susan’s farm-stand employees. “Mrs. Tilly, where do you want this extra urn?”
“This way, David.” Susan beckoned. She stopped for a moment, turning on her heels to look back at Andie. “Well, for God’s sake, keep an eye on that child. As if I don’t have enough to do today without worrying about what you’ve gotten yourself into.” She gave a martyred sigh and bustled off toward the tables.
Andie felt her fury solidify and pulse, like a coal glowing at her core. But better that than the anguish that had overcome her when she, Rhys, and Will had passed along the busiest section of Main Street twenty minutes earlier. The tremor still hadn’t quite left her hands, and it was hard to swallow around the lump lodged in her throat. She’d almost asked Rhys to turn off and take the maze of back roads she would have chosen if she’d been driving herself. Anything to avoid that corner. The corner where it had happened.
But she’d pulled herself back together and even survived Rhys’s first brief encounter with her mother. Later, she was going to get Susan alone, and they were going to talk. For now, she pressed her lips against the smoothness of Will’s cheek.
“C’mon, Will. Let’s grab your dad and go see some animals before I need to start playing waitress.”
She followed in the direction Rhys and Jess had taken, slipping out the side door of the barn.
Predictably enough, the blond miniature horses were a huge hit. They looked so much like Lilliputian versions of Ace from hippotherapy that Will was simultaneously baffled and beside himself with excitement. He shrieked and chortled, his happy cacophony echoing around the animal pens and earning a heavy-lidded look from a nearby llama before it went back to chasing the chickens that had wandered into its enclosure.
Next, they braved the warm confines of the sugar shack, where Andie was surprised to see a familiar figure sporting Susan’s faded and stained old leather apron over jeans and a sweatshirt.
“Officer Hendrix?” Andie murmured in confusion. The woman was perhaps fifty, with a face that radiated good-natured calm. A few deep laugh lines grooved skin that was otherwise smooth, bronzed, and set off to advantage by cropped gray hair brushed forward in a pixie cut that suited the proud angles of her cheekbones and her pointed chin.
It had been easily ten years since Andie had seen the woman, who’d been one of the first officers to arrive at the scene of the accident on that distant night of sleet and fog. She could still remember the strength and warmth of Officer Hendrix’s arms around her, holding her back from Gus’s body as the flashing lights of the cruisers penetrated the gloom with lurid spokes of color.
“It’s Chief Hendrix now, actually.”
Denise Hendrix had always been a friendly, capable presence in town. Connected to the Tilly family by the tragedy of Gus’s death, she was more than just a familiar face glimpsed at police picnics and other gatherings. During her lonely teenage years, Andie had been keenly aware of Denise in the background as something of a guardian angel—making visits to the house to check on the family. Making sure Andie didn’t fall in permanently with the rough crowd after her self-esteem plummeted like a stone to the bottom of a well as she entered adolescence.
“Congratulations.” Andie remembered her father’s dinner-table tirades when Denise had joined the department, the first woman police officer in Camden’s history. Jim had been a card-carrying member of the old guard, out to ensure that Denise—or any woman who tried to penetrate the male-dominated bastion of the Camden PD—more than paid her dues. Looking into the woman’s steady, intelligent brown eyes, Andie felt a wave of admiration. “But what are you doing here? I didn’t know you were a maple-syrup aficionado.”
“A person’s gotta have a hobby.” Denise shrugged. “I hear you’re an occupational therapist now. It sounds like you’ve done great.”
Andie looked at her searchingly. It was not a conclusion Susan was likely to have cultivated. Andie couldn’t help but feel a flash of curiosity about what her mother was to this vibrant, generous woman. Denise moved around the sugarhouse with a familiarity that was almost proprietorial.
“Yes, in fact, this is Will, one of my clients, and Rhys, his dad.” Andie wondered how else she should introduce Rhys. She wasn’t sure she could even define their relationship for herself. It was a constant electricity in her veins, a warm fullness in her chest that could tip her into laughter or tears in an instant, and a vertiginous pull in her stomach—a bittersweet yearning that left her perpetually off balance.
Greetings were exchanged, and Rhys peppered Denise with questions about syrup grades. Then he wandered off to peer curiously into the boiling trays of watery sap while Andie held Will at a safe distance.
“From what I can tell,” Denise said quietly to Andie, “Susan’s still wrestling with a few ghosts, and they’re not going down without a fight.”
Andie stilled, not taking her eyes off Rhys. “Well, I think I’m done waiting.”
“You know . . .” Denise paused, considering. “I’m glad. It’s past time.”
Andie nodded, a little taken aback to be speaking with a nonfamily member about the Tilly family’s demons.
“Oh, there you are, Andrea.” Susan’s voice interrupted from the doorway. “I could use some help in the barn.” She raised her eyebrows at Denise, who responded with an infinitesimal twitch of eyes and lips in a funny little exchange that hinted at an emotional shorthand of long use.
Susan might not have been thrilled to have Rhys and Will at her pancake breakfast, but she knew a good marketing opportunity when she saw one. Soon Rhys was stationed at the serving table, doling out short stacks and doing a booming side trade in bottles of Susan’s maple syrup. Andie did the rounds of the tables with the coffeepot, watching Rhys in action.
The line that snaked across the barn from the serving table featured a conspicuously female clientele. Everyone from her old high school principal to the prom queen of Andie’s graduating year to the octogenarian town librarian was represented in the excited group, eager to come within a few feet of the most attractive man ever to cross the Camden town line.
He was pretty spectacular, Andie conceded, her rib cage suddenly stretched to bursting. Not just his commanding physical beauty but his kindness. She could tell it was an effort for him to play up to the twittering throng, but he did it valiantly. A muscle twitched beside his left eye as he tried to avoid looking down the spray-tanned cleavage of prom queen Jean Marie Stokes, who now ran Jean Marie’s House of Dance on Oak Street.
Rhys, spotting Andie, raised bewildered eyebrows at her, forcing her to suppress a breathless laugh. She could hardly believe they’d had another erotic interlude in the laundry room last night. His presence was like some surprise gift that never lost its luster. With each taste of bright, narcotic joy he delivered, she wanted more. And more.
It felt surreal to see him in public and at a distance. Their life at the house was so intimate, so seamless, she could almost believe she’d conjured him by a sheer act of will—a figment of her imagination or her desire. And yet there he was across the room, a flesh-and-blood figure whose magnetism acted on others besides herself. He was a man whose presence changed things, made ripples in the wider world. Could she really ever have this Rhys? The public Rhys?
Gathering herself, Andie craned to see Will, who’d found Rose’s youngest, Luke—a fellow toddler and train enthusiast—and was on the floor by the serving table with his new playmate and a cluster of toy engines, watched over by all three of Andie’s sisters. Andie headed slowly toward them, strangely shy in the presence of Louisa and Rose.
“Be still, my beating heart,” Louisa cried, her eyes drinking in the vision of Rhys surrounded by his admirers. Her warm laughter drew Andie into the sisters’ conspiratorial huddle.
“It’s a good thing Eric’s up to his ears in pancakes right now,” Rose chimed in, “because I haven’t been able to take my eyes off that man since he got here.”
“So, what do you think?” Andie asked Jess in an undertone.
“He’s incredible.” Jess’s eyes gleamed. “And we had a very enlightening chat. He told me how it came about that you started working for him. I’ve just been sharing the story with Louisa and Rose, seeing as how none of us are ever going to get any information out of you.”
“I’ve never heard anything so romantic in my life,” Louisa sighed. “Will picked you, and only you, to help his dad.”
“You’ve been hiding your light under a bushel,” Rose said, her tone puzzled and almost hurt. “I never knew you were some sort of child whisperer.”
“Back off, Rose,” Louisa laughed. “I was going to ask Andie for help with Finn’s pencil grip. I have seniority here. I ought to get a perk or two. Get in line.”
Louisa and Rose want me around their children? The entire barn seemed to reel for a moment and come to rest at a different latitude. And Jess kept looking at her with that gleeful twinkle in her eye.
“So, spill,” Jess demanded half an hour later, when Andie had been relieved of beverage duty, and they’d taken an overexcited Will outside to sit in a sunny, sheltered spot by the barn for a few moments of quiet. Rhys was still drumming up business inside. “What’s going on between you and Rhys?”
Andie balanced Will on her lap and held a paper plate laden with bite-size morsels of syrup-soaked pancake for him. As finger food, it was messy, but it was certainly keeping him happy. “Who says anything’s going on?”
“I’m saying it,” Jess said, rolling her eyes. “That man is so into you it’s written all over him. If Ben looked at me that way, I think my clothes would burn right off.”
“Okay, maybe my clothes have gone up in smoke a few times,” Andie admitted. “Maybe even more than a few. But Jess, I have no idea what I’m doing, and it scares the hell out of me. I like him too much.”
“And that’s so terrible because . . . ?”
“It feels too big,” Andie said softly. “Too important. He’s the real deal, Jess. He’s a grown-up, and I’m still on my training wheels.”
“Andie, from where I stand, you’re doing just fine.”
“I really did mean to leave it at friendship, but I . . . feel things. Now the stakes are too high.” Andie swallowed, hard. “I can’t follow where this might lead.”
“Why not? Because of your self-imposed prohibition on the whole family thing?”
“Jess, you know I can never be a parent.”
Jess gave a strangled laugh, eyeing Andie up and down. “I don’t know,” she said. “If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck . . .”
Andie stared at her sister. She’d become so accustomed to Will’s weight snuggled in her lap, the tickle of his curls against her cheek, and the little-boy scent of his neck, that she was no longer consciously aware of the subtle shifts in her posture, her movements—and her psyche—that made this feel like second nature.
“As far as I can tell, parenting is something people just get up and do every day,” Jess said. “It’s not like they wait around for anybody to give them a certificate telling them they’re qualified to do it.” She rubbed her hand over the place where her belly would soon swell. “And even if they did, they wouldn’t be looking for an endorsement from Susan, of all people. You’re the one who encouraged me to believe I could do it in spite of her, remember?”
Just then, a tractor passed the barn, pulling a large red-painted hay wagon lined with bales for seating. It stopped beside the animal pens.
“Next ride to the maple grove in five minutes,” announced the sixty-something-year-old man driving the tractor. “All rides free today.” The guests milling around the animal pens started to form a line, waiting to take their place in the hay wagon, their faces wreathed in smiles. Andie felt an uncomfortable flash of pride. There was no doubt Susan was contributing to the local economy by making the farm a destination and creating jobs in the community.
She smiled and, raising her hand to her eyes, squinted into the sun to look at the man driving the tractor. Something about his face was familiar, but for some reason the clues didn’t add up, until his smile fell when he looked straight at her.
Her breath whistled inward with a sharp stab, and she gripped Jess’s sleeve.
“Jess,” she said urgently, “is that Earl Peterson driving the tractor?”
“What?”
“It is. It’s Earl Peterson.” Andie’s lungs were suddenly incapable of processing the breath she’d sucked in, and she choked out a painful series of coughs, her eyes stinging, her head reeling. The man had looked so different seventeen years ago, his shoulders drooping, his eyes desolate pits. Now he seemed restored to himself, herding the crowd with jocular ease, the weathered smile lines carved around his eyes suggesting a man at peace. Until he saw Andie.
Realization finally dawned in Jess’s eyes. “I had no idea she’d hired Earl Peterson,” she said, shocked.
“I need a few minutes,” Andie gasped hoarsely. “Would you do me a huge favor and take Will back inside to Rhys?”
“Of course,” Jess said. “But are you sure I shouldn’t stay? Are you really okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” Andie said, her cheeks hot, her eyes watery. “I’m just a little freaked out. I need to be by myself. I’ll be back inside in a few minutes. Thanks, Jess.”
Susan hired Earl Peterson. Andie stumbled off in the direction of the farmhouse, circling around the back to the small, private patch of lawn where a tree stood within a circle of stones. Gus’s tree. One look at Earl Peterson’s face had hurled her back in time seventeen years, and at this moment Gus’s tree was her only anchor.
Her brother had always loved dogwoods. He would point in jubilation when the spring sunshine filtered through their waxy petals, making them glow like a beacon. Gus’s dogwood was pure white. She remembered the day they’d planted it as if it were yesterday, the remaining members of their family united for an hour in their sorrow, the quiet eye in a storm of blame, remorse, and recrimination that would rage on for years.
In a couple of months the tree would bloom again, heralding the arrival of another summer Gus would never see. Andie sank to her knees on the damp ground. Her pulse raced as the images and sensations flooded in. The shape of Gus’s hazel eyes. The cowlick that caused a cheeky chestnut tuft to stick up in front, even when his hair was freshly trimmed.
How she’d loved him. The pain threatened to break her, snapping her at the waist with a tremor so engulfing that she barely noticed the rough bark of the dogwood pressed cold against her forehead as hot tears trailed down her cheeks.
She wasn’t sure how long she knelt in place, her hands tensed into claws, her nails sinking into the moss at the base of the tree as if to get a purchase on reality.
“Andie?” Rhys’s voice broke through the haze, and warmth spread down her spine as he pressed one large hand between her shoulder blades. Before she knew it, he was beside her on the ground, heedless of the cold and damp—hauling her into his lap, lifting her up and folding himself protectively around her as she shuddered and heaved with racking sobs.
“Wh-where’s W-ill?” she asked through torrents of tears.
“With Jess. He’s fine. What is it? What happened?” The deep timbre of his voice resonated beside her ear, warm and rich. “Jess said you were upset, but she wouldn’t tell me why.” One of his hands caressed the nape of her neck, and she gave a convulsive sniff. His heady scent curled into her nostrils, and she inhaled deeply, breathing in his comfort, cherishing it even if she could not yet respond. The front of his shirt had soaked up an ocean of tears by the time her cries finally subsided.
“Oh G-God,” she hiccupped. “My little brother—”
“Your brother? What . . . ?”
“My brother d-died when I was eleven,” she said, still trembling. “H-he wasn’t quite four years old. He was barely bigger than Will. H-he was hit by a car on Main Street.”
Tears began to leak again. “We passed by the spot this morning and I . . . then I saw . . . I saw . . .”
“It’s okay, my love, I’m here. Take a deep breath.” His broad chest was a shelter against the onslaught of fresh pain, and she found she could breathe more freely pressed up against it.
“I saw the man who drove the car that struck Gus. He’s here, at the farm.”
“What?” Rhys sounded perplexed. “Why would he show his face here?”
“You don’t understand. It wasn’t his fault. He d-did nothing wrong.” Another sob racked her body. “And he’s here because . . . because my mother hired him.”
She tilted her face up to look into eyes that glowed with the hot blue of a gas flame. “I’m upset because it means she forgives him . . . but she still doesn’t forgive me.”
Rhys seemed to freeze in shock for a moment. “Doesn’t forgive you? What are you talking about, Andie? What would she need to forgive you for?”
Andie had thought that if the occasion ever arose where she had to tell Rhys about Gus, she would feel trepidation—anxiety at the risk of losing his trust. But she was strangely calm as she began to talk about the events of that awful evening.
She told him about shirking her piano lesson and about the giddy mood she and Gus had spiraled into. Gus was prone to hyperactivity even without provocation. He was delightful—smart, funny, sweet—but hard to manage, and from her adult vantage point, Andie realized how Susan must have resented her riling him up.
She didn’t understand why her mother had done it—dragged them into town to run errands. She could still see the grim, determined set of Susan’s jaw as she’d announced that Andie and Gus wouldn’t get to lounge around giggling and shrieking in front of the TV all afternoon. They would damn well come into town with her and behave themselves while she tried to salvage something productive from the day. Christmas was in less than two weeks, and she still had gaps on her shopping list.
“Gus was whining and complaining even before we got to town,” Andie said, her tears still wet on her cheeks. The windshield wipers had carved a small pair of arcs in the freezing drizzle as their headlights cut through the murk. It was already getting dark, but the town glowed as they entered the busiest stretch of Main Street. White Christmas lights twinkled from storefronts, and the streetlamps up and down the street were hung with festive “kissing balls” fashioned from balsam fir, pinecones, glittering baubles, and tinsel. An atmosphere of excitement prevailed, despite the fog and sleet.
“He cheered up when we saw the decorations. They looked so magical, with the tinsel and the lights shining through the fog.”
They’d accompanied Susan into the first store on her list, the prim little stationery and gift shop, Andie explained.
“Susan was trying to pick out some letter-writing paper for Aunt Mary, and she was all uptight about us not touching anything. She’d brought the stroller, but Gus never wanted to sit in it anymore. I tried to buckle him in, but he yelled, so I played with him, trying to keep him quiet. He was hanging off my arms, begging me to spin him around, so I took him into the corner to do it, but he let go of my hands and almost knocked over a cabinet full of china ornaments. Everyone turned around and stared at us.
“Then we had to go to the toy store to get stuff for our cousins, and that was better because there was a train table. But Gus saw a Ninja Turtles play set he wanted and started begging. Susan snapped at him, and he completely melted down.”
Andie winced at the memory of a frantic Gus, blood sugar crashing, melting into a puddle on the floor. Telling Andie to pile their packages into the stroller, a white-lipped Susan had finished paying amid a crescendo of screams, then carried Gus bodily out onto the sidewalk on Main Street, where the drizzle had turned to sleet, and the pavement was starting to become slick.
“I was so relieved to be back outside, away from the comments and the looks from the other customers. I figured we’d finally be able to head home, but Susan had other ideas. She made us stop at the bakery and tried to console Gus with a treat.” Andie had been surprised her mom was offering sugary snacks so close to dinner, but she’d cheered up at the idea of getting to have one of her favorite cider donuts.
Twenty minutes later, cinnamon and sugar still sticking to her jacket and sweetening the corners of her mouth, Andie had slumped a little when Susan announced that they still had to stop at the convenience store to get milk, and the hardware store for a new latch for the rabbit hutch.
Gus veered from sugar high back to sugar crash as they made their way along Main Street, finally reaching the busy corner where the windows of Dolan’s Hardware blazed with holiday finery. Dolan’s maintained a friendly holiday rivalry with Jeffers & Sons Insurance on the opposite side of the main thoroughfare, each vying to outdo the other with their brightly lit, captivating window displays. Andie felt a thrill of pleasure as she moved toward the warm light of Dolan’s window.
“It was incredible,” she sighed. “Dolan’s Christmas window was one of my favorite things.”
But, to Andie’s dismay, Susan had hustled them past the display and into the narrow aisles of the hardware store, where Gus scooped up loose handfuls of shiny screws and bolts from open boxes on the lower shelves and ran them through his fingers, delighted by the sound they made as they cascaded back into their containers. Startled by a warning from Susan, he missed the box he was aiming for and let a shower of steel pieces spray the floor of the aisle. With a calming word, Andie bent to help him gather them up as Susan went to the counter, shaking her head in exasperation.
Finally, they were done, and Andie wrestled the stroller back out through Dolan’s door, onto Main Street.
“I begged for just a minute to stop and look at the window, but Susan was looking at her watch, suddenly all stressed out about getting home.”
The matter was settled by Gus, who—pushed to his absolute limit—refused to either budge from the window or get into the stroller. His feet were tired, he moaned pitifully, and he wasn’t going to walk another step. Every time Susan tried to budge him, he melted down into screams and tears.
Andie, seduced by the lure of the window, was happy enough to stay put. She’d inched closer to the display, a miniature winter wonderland featuring brightly lit cottages, horse-drawn sleighs, a model train, and a tiny skating pond crisscrossed by mechanized model skaters. It was pure magic.
She couldn’t quite remember how the subsequent negotiation unfolded. Susan, spitting mad at their noncompliance, announced she was going to walk the few blocks to the car and pull it around so they could bundle Gus directly in. She extracted a promise from Andie to watch him while the feat was accomplished. At least, Andie must have agreed, as Susan had certainly stressed the fact in the aftermath. In truth, Andie would have been happy to agree to anything in order to prolong her chance of following the mesmerizing figure eights carved by the tiny skaters in the glittering surface of that miniature pond.
“I promised I’d watch him,” Andie said, her voice small.
Gus calmed a little as Susan strode off. Andie remembered looking down at his face, lit by the display. She looped her fingers through his, but he soon wiggled out of her grasp. He was in that testing phase, constantly wanting to assert his independence. Certain he was as transfixed by the window as she was, Andie had allowed herself to focus on the costumes of the skaters, decked out in Victorian coats, hats, mittens, and muffs in rich shades of plum, cherry, and emerald. Ragamuffin children held snowballs poised ready to throw, and courting couples leaned toward one another as they made the pond’s circuit, the smooth arcs of their movement accompanied by the faint chime of carols that poured from a small speaker over the store’s entrance.
“I was so distracted by the scene in the window that I lost track of Gus,” Andie whispered. “I forgot about him.”
Then, like a nightmare, the terrible scream of brakes filled the air, and the music was gone. There was nothing but the sickening thud of Gus’s body and the sound of Andie’s own howls of anguish echoing in her ears. And the pitiful figure of Earl Peterson, retching his shock and remorse into the gutter as his old Buick, driver’s door hanging open, stood skewed across one lane of Main Street.
The minutes and hours that followed the accident remained a blur, Andie told Rhys. Somehow Susan had reappeared. Her stark cries were the most terrifying thing Andie had ever heard, because they confirmed to her that the scene in front of her was real, not just some grotesque misunderstanding. Andie could still remember disjointed images from the hellish tableau. Gus’s small hand clutching a spray of silver tinsel. One rain boot tossed aside, revealing his foot in its white cotton sock.
He’ll be cold, had been her irrational thought as the first responders cordoned off the street. But Gus would never feel the cold again. Or, instead, was it true that cold was all he would feel as he lay in the ground and the years wore on?
“There was a piece of tinsel that had fallen from one of the streetlamps,” she said softly. “And he ran into the road to pick it up.”
Gus, a dark, low, indistinct shape in his hooded navy jacket, must have been practically invisible as Earl Peterson, who—they later learned—had only ventured out to buy a gallon of milk, turned onto Main Street. And, in the space of one awful moment, everything changed forever.
For years afterward, Andie confessed to Rhys, she’d been too terrified to really sleep. Night after night, she would stare at the stained ceiling of her childhood bedroom—frozen in place, too frightened to move her eyes in any direction. Tormented by the idea of Gus laid out in his small casket, his tattered blue baby blanket and his favorite toy nestled by his side, the cab of one small yellow truck containing a secret note she’d tucked inside on the day of his funeral. I love you. I’m sorry.