Miracles Retold (2 page)

“Then let’s just get a
smoothie,” Lon said, hoping the third time would be a charm
—
and doing his best to
lay on the charm. “You and me. I know you can’t resist the sweet,
fresh goodness of a strawberry-banana-peach concoction. Come on,
while the kids are in bed and Mom is here to watch over
everything.”

“You’re trying hard, and
I’m sorry,” Annie said, looking up at Lon. “I’m just wiped out
tonight. And I’m … not feeling up to Christmas this year. I’m the
Grinch.”

Lon pushed his dark blond
hair back from his forehead. His hair was getting wavy over his
ears and made it look as though he had wings. He would need to get
a cut before Christmas. “Let’s try for tomorrow night then?” Lon
asked. “Maybe you’ll feel like it then. Tree, shopping, smoothie
date … Broadway show, paintball, karaoke, whatever you
want.”

Annie giggled, then sighed.
Lon liked the sound of Annie’s laughing, and he liked that he had
made her laugh. “OK,” Annie said. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll have more
Christmas spirit.” Then she snuggled back into her
pillow.

That was the problem with
Christmas spirit, Lon thought. It seemed to be a feeling. Christmas
spirit could come and go. Some people had a lot of it; others never
had any.

Christmas spirit could be
contagious, too, and right now Annie wasn’t catching it from
Lon.
How did the holidays become so
complicated?
he wondered. Here they were,
halfway through December, and they didn’t have any decorations out
and only a few presents to give. Annie hadn’t had the time for
holiday prep yet, and he had been busy too. Were things different
this year because his mother was living with them? Because the kids
were different ages, all doing different extracurricular
activities? Then again, maybe this Christmas wasn’t different from
last year. Except … Lon couldn’t remember last Christmas. Good
grief, he couldn’t even remember what the family had done last
year, or any of the gifts the family had exchanged. Was there even
a Christmas video file stored on the computer?

Lon slumped down next to
Annie. If Christmas spirit were contagious, it might work the
opposite way too. Instead of Annie
catching
his, her lack of Christmas
spirit could bring his down.

If only they could fast
forward to the second week of January and pass by the stress, or
whatever it was, that was weighing her down. On the other hand, Lon
didn’t want to wish away the holidays, for the kids’ sake. They
deserved a chance to make fun childhood memories. And Lon deserved
the opportunity to watch them making those memories.

Lon thought about each of
his three children: Hannah, who looked so much like him and was
kind and easygoing; Ryder, who looked like Annie and had always
been their little fireball; and Carter, who looked like both of
them and was five going on thirty-five. He enjoyed watching them
grow up, and he was grateful they all had one another. Lon had been
an only child, and after his dad died, it had been just his mother
and himself. He didn’t have much other family around while he was
growing up. Now his family was six people strong
—
and he loved
it.

Thinking about his family,
Lon dozed off. Soon he was dreaming of being on a boat, fishing,
gazing out over pale aqua water. Ryder and his mother were fishing
with him, and Annie was playing with Hannah and Carter on the beach
in the distance. All the stresses were just small islands far, far
out along the horizon, and everyone was at peace.

Walking with
Benji

It was six days until
Christmas when Grace had said goodbye to the family for the
day
—
the
children’s last day of school before the winter break
—
and finished her
morning news shows and coffee.

It was her routine to take
a walk around the block at this time. Her physical therapist had
said it would be good for her. With the exception of a few stormy
days that typical Florida summer weather brought, Grace had made
her daily walk a habit. It was hard to endure at first, but now her
walk was something she looked forward to.

Recovering from the stroke
hadn’t been easy, and she still had a way to go to get the full use
of her arm back.
If
she ever got it back, she thought. Even so, Grace knew she
was lucky, and that many people who had strokes never walked again.
Some even died.

She was grateful for Lon,
Annie, and the grandchildren for making room for her in their home.
Now that pretty much everything except that arm, and half of her
smile, worked, she could probably live on her own again. There was
always that
what if
in the back of her mind, though. What if she couldn’t reach
something … what if she took a misstep and fell … what if she had
another stroke? The doctor said it was a possibility. If she needed
help, Lon and Annie weren’t far away at their jobs and could come
home. Here, she was also closer to good physical
therapists.

Those were all practical
reasons for living with her son’s family, but Grace knew without a
doubt that being around her grandkids had helped her heal. Their
love and attention had buoyed her spirits, and, well, you can’t
improve your health by being negative, can you?

There was someone else who
had helped raise her spirits, and she hadn’t told anyone about
him.

For the past four weeks,
since before Thanksgiving, a dog had accompanied Grace on her
morning walk. She first started seeing him at the end of the
street, or after she turned the corner. He would walk with her
around the block and back home, and then Grace would say goodbye
and go inside. After a while, the dog started meeting her closer
and closer to home. When Grace started carrying treats on her walk,
the dog began waiting for her at the front door.

Today, it was a few slices
of bacon that Grace took outside with her.

“Benji!” Grace greeted him
with the name she had given him. Benji gently took the bacon from
her hand, then gulped down each slice.

“Did you even taste it?!”
Grace said and laughed. The corners of her hazel eyes
crinkled.

The mixed-breed dog
definitely had some terrier in him. The dog reminded her a little
of the one in the Benji movies that were popular before Lon was
born. They featured a mutt down on his luck who turned into a hero.
Back then, she had been the “cool aunt” who had taken her older
sister’s children to the movies, the beach, and the ice cream shop.
But her sister had passed on, and those children who once loved her
were strangers to her now. Her nieces and nephew probably had their
own children now
—
maybe even children in college. Grace’s chest felt heavy just
thinking about how her sister wasn’t around to see how they had
grown, and how Grace herself had no ties to the children
anymore.

“Can’t go around being sad,
can we?” Grace asked Benji. She smoothed her bob, which over the
years had faded to a grayish beige. “We’ve got some living to do …
as long as we are around to live it. Let’s walk!”

Benji looked at Grace as if
he understood every word.

Grace had thought about
making “Dog Found” signs to put up in the neighborhood and at local
stores, but it was something she remembered to do only when she was
walking with Benji and not after she got home. He didn’t have a
collar but was probably a neighbor’s dog, anyway, because he seemed
to stay in the neighborhood.

“It’s too bad you’re
someone else’s doggy,” Grace said as they ambled up the street.
“I’d love to have you.” Grace sighed. “Then again, Lon and Annie
would probably say no. They already have Angel. I hate that cat!
Her name should be Devil.” Angel had hissed at Grace every time she
had come for a visit to the house, and for about a week after she
moved in. “She just … looks at me funny. And she’s always dashing
outside when she knows she doesn’t have any front claws to protect
herself, and someone has to go hunt her down.” She took in a deep
breath. “Terrible thing to do to a creature
—
remove its claws. That’s how she
was when they got her, though.” Grace laughed. “Yep, here I am,
complaining about a cat I live with, to a dog that I
don’t.”

Grace had lived in Florida
all of her life, and she loved the cooler months of December,
January, and February. The relief from the heat was refreshing. She
had spent 60-odd Christmases on Earth right in the same beautiful
place. “Nothing but blessed,” she told Benji, as though the dog
could read her thoughts. And to Grace, looking at those melty brown
eyes of his, it almost seemed like he could.

One Christmas as a girl,
her parents had given her a beagle puppy. Of course, she just had
to name her Snoopy, even though the dog was a female. Since then,
Grace had had a dog (or two) in her life until a couple years ago.
Her dachshund Rufus had passed away, and she just hadn’t gotten
around to finding another dog to fill the void.

“I miss Rufus,” Grace told
Benji. “And Carmela, and Lucy, and John Boy. And George. George
Burns.” Lon’s late father had said because she was his Gracie, they
needed a George to have their very own Burns and Allen show, a
popular TV show in the 1950s. “And … I miss my husband too. Still.”
She took a few more steps with Benji at her side. “Darn it, Benji,
I hate getting nostalgic. I just have too much time to think! I
need something to
do
. When I get home, I am going to find something to
do.”

On a day like today, before
the stroke, she might have been substitute teaching. She would have
been gardening: pulling stray vines off the fence, getting rid of
weeds, planting amaryllis bulbs, and admiring her blooming
camellias. She might have chatted with her neighbors, looked up
yard sales happening that coming weekend or met her friends for
lunch. Many times, Grace would be at the local church to pack boxes
of food or bags of toiletries for donations to local shelters. A
friend had also talked her into yoga and tai chi classes at the
YMCA. She missed that life, ended by a terrible blank moment five
months and two counties ago. Grace stopped walking for a few
seconds, clenched her teeth, and tried to focus on just
breathing.

Benji nudged Grace, then
sat back next to her on the street, waiting for her to go on. Grace
finally bent over to stroke the dog’s head. “You’re such a sweet
boy,” she told him. He gazed up at Grace expectantly. Then they
started walking again.

Benji ambled beside Grace
for the whole block and back home again. “Well, this is it, boy.
Same time tomorrow? I’ll bring the snacks, you bring the attitude.”
Grace rubbed Benji behind the ears. “Don’t forget.”

She hated closing the door
on Benji’s cute little face, but what could she do? He was someone
else’s dog.

Hide and Seek

Hannah closed her school
locker door for the last time that year. The days right before
winter break had dragged by. Sure, she had done her homework,
turned in that ridiculous gorilla diorama and studied for her final
tests, but really all she could think about was spending time off
from school and doing what she wanted to do.

Mainly, Hannah wanted to
spend time with her friends. Except … she wasn’t sure they wanted
to spend time with her. The first thing she thought about after
waking up each day in December was that Allison might invite her to
the Keys house, as Allison called it
—
her family’s vacation condo in
Islamorada in the Florida Keys. Was it too much to expect a friend
she had grown up with to invite her? Apparently it was. Allison had
invited Macy last summer and winter, and Sheeka had gone with her
this spring. Maybe other friends had been to the Keys house too,
and Hannah didn’t know it. Maybe she was the
only
one in their group of friends
who hadn’t gone. Hannah’s shoulders slumped at the thought. Hannah
wanted Allison to think of her as one of her closest friends. But
here it was, the end of the day on the last day of school, and no
word from Allison. Hannah was too shy to be upfront and just ask.
She shifted her backpack into place and headed for the school exit,
hoping to
not
run
into any of her friends right when she felt like an outcast. Hannah
wouldn’t be going to Allison’s, and she didn’t want to know who
would be going.

Now Hannah was faced with
two long, dull weeks of listening to her brothers drone on about
video games, having Ryder mock her about how much time she spent
getting ready in the morning, and seeing her parents’ blank, tired
faces as usual. What kind of holiday was that? Hannah sighed as she
walked the three blocks home.

If there was anything good
to look forward to, it was spending time with her grandmother. Now
that Grace was living with them, Hannah and her brothers would have
more fun things to do. Their parents certainly didn’t have the time
for anything fun. With Grandma, they would watch holiday movies and
make Christmas goodies and decorate the house
—
not just stop at putting up a
Christmas tree the way Mom and Dad did. Her parents hardly ever
watched a full movie on DVD. Mom and Dad rarely wanted to cook or
bake. Their house was the only one on the street without so much as
a wreath on the front door or a menorah in a window. Even with one
good arm, Grace could do most of those things. More importantly,
she had the time to do it.