Forget-Me-Not Blue, page 21
He helped her adjust her goggles and helmet. She felt like a princess from outer space. And Tommy looked funny, kind of like a bear in goggles. She tried not to smile, but Tommy said, “What?”
She shrugged, letting her smile break free.
He was grinning.
“We should probably make a couple of runs together, then you can go on your own if you want to.”
He sat at the back and motioned her to the front. “Okay, on this run, you’re the passenger and I’m the driver,” he said. “So you keep your feet in. I’ll steer with my heels in the snow. Always use only your heels—otherwise you could break a foot. We won’t go full speed.”
She sat with Tommy’s legs on either side and the curl of the toboggan in front, her knees bent. He shoved them off with his hands and they sailed down the hill.
“Now if I want to slow down, I really dig in both heels.” Which he did. “And if I want to curve left, I use my left heel.” They snaked down the hill that way—left, right, left, right. “Got it?” he said when he braked them to a stop at the bottom.
She nodded. It didn’t seem hard.
They got off and walked up the hill, taking turns pulling the toboggan. She was breathless when they got to the top. The sun was fully out now and she understood why she needed goggles. Otherwise, she’d be snow-blind.
“Okay,” Tommy said, taking the driver’s seat again. “Hop on and we’ll make a real run. Remember, keep your feet inside.”
When she was on, he said, “Ready?”
She nodded.
He shoved them off. At first they didn’t go all that fast, but then it was like the toboggan wasn’t even touching the snow. Wind scoured her cheeks and she felt a scream come out and sail away behind her.
At what felt like the last moment, Tommy made a braking left curve and they came to a stop in an explosion of snow that left them looking like they’d been dusted in glitter.
Tommy got off and offered her his hand. She took it and he hoisted her up. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or dance. She bumped against him and he squeezed her shoulder.
“Fun, huh?” he said.
She nodded. She didn’t have a word for how much fun that had been.
At the top, she was tired and breathless. She lay down and made a snow angel. Tommy reached out a hand and helped her up so it was a perfect angel.
“Well,” he said. “Do you want to try a run by yourself?”
“No. Let’s go together.”
It was more fun with him.
On the ride home, her face tingled in the warmth of the car and she was worn out. She wondered if it had snowed at the prison today. She could email her mom and ask. Maybe she would later.
chapter 40
The heater in the truck hardly worked, so Sofie’s nose was numb with cold as she and Con and Gunner stomped the snow off their boots on the back porch. Inside, Sofie leaned against the wall and pulled hers off. Her bare feet were summertime pink and warm. She loved her boots. She glanced at Con and Gunner and hid a smile.
When her dad had taken her back to buy the boots for Con and Gunner yesterday after school, she’d thrown her arms around him and said, “Thank you so much, Tommy!”
He’d held her face in his hands and grinned. “You are welcome so much, Princess SJ!”
“A package came today,” Gunner said, nodding at the box on the kitchen table. A box like that had arrived from California every Christmas of Sofie’s life. The money inside would be nice. Maybe Gunner wouldn’t have to work so much for a while. But what would they do with the other stuff without their mom to sell it online? Though the box wasn’t as large as usual.
“Why don’t you open it?” Gunner said.
“Go ahead, Sof,” Con said with a shrug. “If there’s anything good you can tell me.”
“Connie. Help me.”
She didn’t need help, but she wanted her brother to do something with her. She didn’t get to see him all that much.
He used scissors to cut the tape, then pushed the box toward her. “You open it.”
When she pulled back the flaps, there was a red-and-white-striped card with Con’s name on it. Beside it was a book with a beautiful cover. A fox was standing in the snow.
She picked it up and flashed it at Gunner, pointing to one of the names. “Look! This is the person who wrote The Underneath.”
“I see that.”
A bookmark poked out from between the pages with something written on it: A signed copy from the personal library of your great-grandmother, the librarian.
“She’s a librarian?” she said to Gunner. Her mean great-grandmother?
“Was. She’s been retired for many years. But like you, Sofie, she has lots of books.”
“Is she mean?” She’d learned from the advocate to ask what you needed to know.
“She was probably mean sometimes. She had to raise and educate two boys all by herself. But Donna is a good person.”
“But she was mean to Summer, right? Mom said.”
Gunner’s eyes were sad. “Summer blamed her mom because I ended up in trouble. For some reason, she thought it was Donna’s fault I couldn’t keep my act together. I wouldn’t be surprised if Donna got a little testy.” He sighed. “Summer and I were two of a kind. Summer and her mom were always a storm brewing.”
Con was looking inside his envelope. He held up two gift cards for video games he and Jade liked to play. He looked so pleased.
This year, the California Christmas box had presents for them in it.
“Gunner, this must be for you.” She handed him a pretty metal box of tea.
His face looked almost young and a laugh exploded. “Lapsang souchong. We drank this the summer we met.” He shook his head. “Kids.”
Under the tea was a green envelope with For everybody—Merry Christmas. Sofie assumed that was the usual money, which would be welcome. And under that, the very last thing, was a large manila envelope with the words California Family.
“Go ahead,” Gunner said. “Let’s see.”
Sofie slid out a color photo of people looking kind of windblown. Sand and rocks were in the background, and shallow waves rolled up on a beach.
There was a tiny old lady, as old as Gunner, as short as he was tall, in the group.
“What?” Con said, coming to look.
Gunner leaned over to point. “That boy on Donna’s right is Jess, our older son.”
He wasn’t a boy. He was old.
“He’s a professor at Berkeley. Never married. Always been good to Donna. Has no use for me. Which I understand. The boy on the other side is Matt. He’s a psychiatrist. Probably because somebody in the family needed to be. It’s hard growing up with a dad who’s an addict and a criminal and can’t stay out of prison longer than a minute.”
Sofie looked up at him. “You’re not like that now.”
He shrugged and shook his head.
“Those three grown kids around Matt are his daughter Ari, his son Chris, and his youngest daughter Molly. The girl beside Ari is her daughter. She’s your age, Sofie.”
Sofie stared. She was looking at her cousin. All these people were her family. They didn’t look at all mean—not even her great-grandmother. The girl her age looked Hispanic like AnaMaria. The names Gunner was saying were running together, but there was a little boy who made Sofie think of Sam from the foster home. And one of her cousins was holding a sweet bundled baby.
“Holy cow,” Con said. “Who knew?”
“My name is mud with all of them, of course,” Gunner said. “But I’m trying to make amends.”
He opened the little can of tea and sniffed it. Sofie saw his eyes tear, but he smiled.
“Donna started sending these boxes a year after Summer died. I was the one who told her about the accident. Your mom thought Donna wouldn’t care. And she did care. She never had the chance to get to know you kids, but she always wished you and your mom well. And she worried. But she didn’t know what to do.”
Sofie could feel Con staring at the photo. Gunner wasn’t their only blood kin. That was good to know.
Sofie lifted the beautiful book to her face and smelled it. It had belonged to the little old lady in the picture, who had given it to her. She was the great-granddaughter of a librarian.
chapter 41
A rustle, a squeak, a thud, and then more soft shuffling tried to tug Sofie awake to a Christmas day as scary and exciting as the dark side of the moon. She curled down deeper into the soft sheets and covered her head.
Last Christmas, they had stayed in pajamas and played spa all day. Con had even let them style his hair. And she and her mom had given each other mani-pedis.
They watched the movie DVDs they’d asked for on the angel tree at the Y. They watched Moulin Rouge twice. And Christmas night they used money from the California box to order pizza delivery to their door like rich people.
Sofie wiped away tears. Last year she hadn’t known Gunner existed, and this morning she felt sure he was the one making noises, and he was doing something he hoped would make her and Con happy.
When she pushed the covers away from her face, a weird smell drew her out of bed.
It was still dark except for the streetlights, but a glow came from the living room. Was it even morning? The icy floor under her bare feet made her think of her cushy new boots. The best part of Christmas would be at her dad’s later, watching Gunner and Con try on their boots for the first time.
The glow in the living room, she saw as she peeked around, was coming from a rope of tiny lights. They were mainly puddled on the floor, but Gunner had already draped a few on the tree. He kept working, not seeing her in the dark doorway.
Was it the tree she smelled? Could it be a real tree? One year her mom had brought home a little Christmas tree, but it was plastic. The ornaments were glued on and the whole thing had been sprinkled with glitter. This tree smelled like the floor of the piney forest in The Underneath. Gunner was the skinny redbone hound, and she and Con were the kittens who had once been loved. And were again.
She slipped through the kitchen and very quietly up to the attic.
Con was snoring as she knelt beside him. “Connie,” she whispered. “Connie.”
He sat up. “Sof?”
“Shhhhh! You need to come and see what Gunner is doing.”
He was quiet. “Is it something bad?” She heard sick dread in his voice.
“No! He’s putting up a real tree. One you can smell. And he’s wrapping it with tiny lights. He doesn’t know I saw. What time is it?”
He looked at his phone. “Five thirty?” He groaned.
“Shhhh!”
“I’ve not been asleep that long,” he whispered. “I need more sleep.” He rolled away from her and fluffed his pillow.
But fairly quickly he rolled back toward her. “The old guy is putting up a real tree?”
“Yes.”
He got up wearing his long underwear, and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. “Take me to your leader.”
Sofie smiled in the darkness.
Later, as the sun was rising, they took their plates of eggs and cinnamon buns and sliced oranges to the couch and sat staring at the beautiful lit-up cedar tree. Turned out, Gunner had bought it for almost nothing as the tree stand was closing last night.
“At home, we always had a cedar tree,” he said. After a while he added, “I wish it wasn’t too late for making amends to my parents and brother.”
He had been spending hours at the table writing letters to his California family, telling them he was sorry for letting them down and hurting them.
“You could still write to your parents and brother,” she said.
“They’ve been gone for years, Sofie.”
She knew that.
After a while, he patted her knee. “But I will write to them.”
When Con finished, he took his plate to the kitchen and came back with a piece of foil and began tearing and crumpling it into a star shape, which he placed in the treetop. When she and Gunner were finished, Con took a selfie of them in front of the tree—all of them with wild hair, Con seeming to be wearing a crooked star on his head. He was in the middle, and he had stretched his blanket like wings and wrapped Sofie and Gunner close.
“Send it to Mom,” Sofie said.
She saw the looks on Gunner and Con’s faces. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned her. But what Sofie wouldn’t give for a hug.
Dorie’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled with happy tears as she flung open the door and hugged first Sofie, then Con, then Gunner. “Never ever did Tom and I think we would have a family to celebrate Christmas with.”
Gunner took a glistening jar of strawberry preserves he and Sofie had made last summer out of his pocket. “Merry Christmas, Claire,” he said, giving it to her.
Her dad rushed from the kitchen. His face was flushed and he had a smear of something at the corner of his mouth.
“Princess SJ,” he said, putting both warm hands on her cold cheeks.
“Merry Christmas,” she said.
Christmas would be here from now on. Forever. A swell of feeling made her throat tight.
Her dad and Gunner shook hands, and Gunner gave him a jar of strawberry preserves from his other pocket.
Sofie couldn’t resist the urge to hug Gunner.
“Professor,” her dad said, pulling Con into a back-pounding hug. Con pounded back, but Sofie caught the almost eye roll.
Con smiled. “Thanks for inviting us over.”
“Yeah, of course,” her dad said. “The kitchen can run itself for a while. Come and see what Santa brought.”
They unbundled from their coats and boots and scarves and followed her dad to a corner of the huge room bright with sunny afternoon snow light.
“Oh man!” Con said, reaching for a pool cue.
“What about you, Gunner?” her dad asked. “Do you play?”
Gunner raised an eyebrow and nodded.
Later, the tok tok of the balls from the pool table mixed with the clatter of Dorie and Sofie cleaning up.
Dorie was packing leftovers into containers for Con and Gunner. Sofie would spend tonight here, and her dad would take her home on his way to work tomorrow.
Sofie and Dorie stood close as Sofie held the container for Dorie to spoon the sweet, sticky, tart cranberry relish into. From years of food pantry holiday donations, Sofie thought cranberries were nasty. But her dad’s cranberry relish, chunky with big toasted walnuts and striped with bits of orange peel, was better than...a book. She kind of hated to see it be spooned into a container for Con and Gunner. But not really.
“You smell good,” she said to Dorie.
Dorie laughed. “Shampoo and soap.”
Sofie didn’t try to explain.
When Jade’s uncle dropped her off at Tommy’s it was dark. Sofie’s dad had turned on the electric fireplace. And the tree, covered with all kinds of ornaments and lights of many colors, made the room beautiful.
“Wow!” Jade said, looking around.
Con introduced her to Dorie. He looked so happy when he said “This is my girlfriend, Jade.”
When he brushed snow gently out of Jade’s hair, Sofie fought tears.
The best moment, as she’d known it would be, was when Gunner opened the big box that said To Gunner from Sofie.
“Put them on,” Sofie said. “No socks.”
He looked a little embarrassed by his socks with holes, but he pulled them off and stepped into the fleece-lined boots.
She watched his face as he stood. She saw in his eyes what a nice feeling it was. He nodded.
“Thank you, Sofie.”
He didn’t look at her dad, which made her happy. He seemed to know that while the money was Tommy’s, the love was hers.
With excitement, Con was ripping open his own big box from her, knowing now what was inside.
“Picture, picture,” Jade said.
And Con and Gunner stood in front of the tree wearing their cushy boots.
The best part of the day was over.
chapter 42
The wind whistling under the back door sounded like a ghost moaning.
Gunner raised his bushy gray eyebrows at Sofie. “Hear that? Old Man Winter trying to sneak in.”
But near the stove, where Gunner was making popcorn over a burner in a pan with the lid on, and Sofie was keeping close watch, the space was toasty warm. Sofie hadn’t known popcorn could be popped in a skillet by just anybody. And she still thought possibly Gunner was wrong.
Con was at a party at Jade’s house, and because it would be so late by the time the new year came in, Jade’s aunt and uncle had invited him to spend the night. He and Jade would probably kiss when everybody jumped up and down and cried Happy New Year! Sofie had never been to a New Year’s Eve party, but that’s what they did on TV. The kissing part looked gross. Maybe Connie wouldn’t do it.
Gunner was shaking the pan over the burner with one hand, clamping the lid down with the other hand, but nothing was happening.
She knew this wasn’t going to work.
Pop. Pop, pop, POP, pop. Pop, pop. Pop, POP, POP.
“See,” he said, as the shaking pan sounded like there was a hailstorm going on inside. “An old dog knows a few tricks.”
She smiled. Wait until she told Connie.
Gradually the popping slowed. Gunner kept shaking the pan until it was quiet except for a couple of last pings against the lid. Then he took it off the heat and lifted the lid. A smell billowed out—nothing like the smell of regular popcorn. This was a fresh kind of woody smell.
Gunner poured a thin stream of melted butter over the popcorn, sprinkled a little salt, and shook the pan a few times, then he dumped it into two big white bowls.
“Wow,” Sofie said, as the first bite dissolved against her tongue. “This is magic, Gunner.”
