A Child Under His Tree Read online

  She plucked a clear glass bowl containing the chopped salad out of the box. She could see the carrots in it, which meant getting Tyler to touch it would be impossible. But she would certainly enjoy it. “Looks delicious,” she told Lucy as she popped it on one of the bare shelves inside the fridge. “I’ll get the dishes back to you as soon as I can.”

  “There’s no hurry.” Lucy handed her two more covered casseroles and she slid them inside, as well. “You can warm those up in the oven or the micro—” She broke off, glancing around the kitchen.

  “No microwave,” Kelly confirmed. “This is really great, though, Lucy. Tyler loves macaroni and cheese.”

  “Doesn’t every kid?” Lucy pushed up the sleeves of her pink sweater as she headed out of the kitchen. “Shelby would have starved some days if not for the miracle that is noodles and gooey cheese. Oh.” She stopped short when she reached the couch and saw the pile of quilts that Kelly had left there. “Are these handmade?”

  Kelly hesitated. “Yeah. Well...my mother always told me that her grandmother had made them. I assume that’s true. I found them in a trunk in the attic.”

  “Do you mind?” Lucy barely waited for Kelly’s answer before she pulled the top one off the pile and partially unfolded it. “It looks in perfect condition except for the stain here.” Lucy rubbed her fingers against a faded circle marring the pale pink and blue wedding-ring pattern.

  “Red Kool-Aid,” Kelly told her. “I remember spilling it when I was not much older than Tyler.”

  “You had the quilt on your bed?”

  “No. We used it once when my mom took me on a picnic.” Kelly sat on the arm of the couch, drawing the corner of the quilt over her legs. “I’d practically forgotten that.”

  “Did you do that often? Go picnicking?”

  Kelly shook her head. “Not ever.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking back. “I can’t even remember why we went on a picnic. She just picked me up from school one day. Had the quilt in the car, along with a picnic basket, and off we went. Drove out of town, even. I suppose it wasn’t far, but back then it seemed like it was. She stopped at a spot with a pond and trees.”

  “Sounds like the hole out at the Double C.”

  “Sort of.” Kelly had swum in the spring-fed swimming hole plenty of times with Caleb during high school. “I don’t think it was quite that big. Mama spread out the quilt, and we lay on it after we ate fried chicken and chocolate cupcakes. And she wasn’t even angry when I spilled my drink.”

  “It sounds like a lovely memory,” Lucy said gently.

  Only then did Kelly realize that tears were sliding down her cheek.

  She blushed and quickly wiped them away. “Yeah.” She pushed the quilt aside and stood. “Didn’t mean to get maudlin.”

  Lucy tsked. “It’s not maudlin to remember good times.”

  “Mommy.” Tyler’s voice accompanied the sound of the front door closing. “You always tell me to shut the door but you left it open.” He came into the living room, smiling a little shyly at Lucy. “I’m hungry.”

  Kelly went over to him and tilted up his face with both hands, “Fortunately, Mrs.—” She broke off and looked at Lucy. “I don’t even know your married name.”

  “Ventura,” Lucy provided with a chuckle. “But you—” she crouched in front of Tyler and poked him lightly in the stomach “—can call me Lucy.”

  “Mrs. Ventura brought us macaroni and cheese,” Kelly told him. “Wasn’t that nice of her?”

  He nodded.

  “I also brought ribs and a veggie salad,” Lucy added. “And you’re going to have to help your mom eat up all of it, because I want the dishes empty when I get them back. Okay?”

  Tyler nodded earnestly. “’Cept carrots. I don’t like carrots.”

  Lucy laughed outright. “The hateful carrots. Neither Shelby nor Sunny will touch them, either, no matter how hard I try.” She straightened. “Speaking of... I need to get back into town to pick up Shelby from school. We’re finishing her costume tonight for the carnival tomorrow over at the high school. Sunny’s is already finished. You should bring Tyler.”

  “Tyler saw a poster for the Halloween carnival in town last week,” Kelly admitted.

  “Mommy said we’ll see.”

  “Ah. The dreaded ‘we’ll see.’” Lucy nodded sagely, though her blue eyes were laughing. “It is a school night,” she allowed.

  “Not for me,” Tyler said immediately. His bright gaze zeroed in on Kelly’s face. “Right, Mom?”

  Oh, how she preferred his little-boy “Mommy” over the occasional “Mom” that seemed to slip out more and more these days. “That’s true,” she agreed and suddenly lost the desire and interest in keeping as far apart from the goings-on in Weaver as she could manage.

  At least when it came to a Halloween carnival and her little boy.

  “I guess we’ll see you at the carnival then,” she told Lucy.

  Tyler jumped up and whooped, causing a minor dust storm in the untidy living room. “Can I wear a costume? Can I?”

  She stifled a sigh, glancing around at the mess yet to be dealt with. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m a good robot, right, Mommy?”

  “The best, buddy.” It was the best costume that could be made out of plastic butter tubs and broken-down cardboard boxes covered with two rolls of aluminum foil, at any rate.

  She stopped at the table outside the high school gymnasium and paid their admission.

  The teenager manning the table handed over a long strand of perforated red tickets. “You can buy individual tickets inside, too,” she told Kelly. “If you run out.”

  Kelly laughed wryly. “You mean when.”

  The teen grinned, showing off a mouthful of braces. Then she focused on Tyler. “Smokin’ costume, little man.”

  “I’m a robot,” Tyler said so proudly Kelly just knew his chest was puffed out beneath the square top of his costume.

  “I can tell,” the teenager said, seeming suitably impressed. “Haven’t seen too many robots tonight. Mostly cowboys and princesses. So be sure to enter the costume contest, okay?”

  Tyler nodded so enthusiastically, the foil-covered tub on top of his head nearly slipped off. He quickly righted it and grabbed Kelly’s hand, pulling her toward the gymnasium. “Come on, Mom. Wait until I tell Gunnar about this!”

  It was hard not to be carried along by her boy’s enthusiasm as they entered the crowded room.

  The high school didn’t seem to have changed appreciably since she’d walked the halls as a student. The paint was fresh. But the floors were still covered with the same industrial gray-and-blue-flecked tile they’d always had.

  Inside the gymnasium, the bleachers were collapsed back against the walls to make room for the dozens of carnival booths that had been set up. She’d have thought with the bleachers put away she wouldn’t be accosted with memories of getting detention when she and Caleb were caught making out beneath them when they were sixteen.

  But she was.

  Tyler led her excitedly around the room, stopping at one booth after another. He tossed beanbags through the grinning mouth of a gigantic jack-o’-lantern. He rolled a pumpkin like a bowling ball at stacked pins made out of toilet paper rolls. He shot squirt guns at bobbing balloons and climbed in the inflatable bounce house situated in the far corner of the room while she held his robot hat and the silly trinkets he’d won along the way. And when he finally came out, flushed and sweaty and happy, she steered him to the bingo game where they could both sit for a few minutes.

  “Next game starts in a couple minutes,” she was told when she stopped at the table to hand over more tickets in exchange for two bingo cards and two little bags of candy corn. “Candy corn are your markers,” the attendant—another
teenager—told Tyler. “So don’t eat ’em up until you’ve finished playing your game, okay?”

  He nodded. “Over here, Mommy.” He darted to one of the long lunch tables that were set up in two rows in front of the gymnasium’s low stage. She followed and sat next to him, smiling at some of the familiar faces around them. So far, they hadn’t run into Lucy and her kids. “After bingo I want to bob for apples, okay?”

  “Better you than me,” she told him agreeably. Unlike the bobbing-for-apples game she’d grown up with—a barrel of water with a couple dozen apples floating in it—she’d already seen that tonight’s version involved individual containers of whipped cream in which a small apple might or might not be hiding. Basically, it meant each kid got a chance to dunk his face in his own helping of whipped cream.

  And she’d be cleaning whipped cream out of Tyler’s ears for days.

  “Here.” She peeled open the bag of candy so it was lying flat on the table. “Don’t eat them, or you won’t be able to play. If one of your numbers gets called, you set a piece of candy on it, okay? And this—” she slid a candy into place on the center of the card “—is the free spot you get.”

  He nodded as he studied their two cards. “How come my numbers are different than yours?”

  “Everyone’s is different. When I was little, I used to play at least two cards at once,” she told him. “But we’ll start you out with just one since this is your first game.”

  He wriggled around until he was sitting on his knees on his folding chair. “This is the best carnival I ever gone to.”

  She chuckled. It was also one of the only carnivals he’d ever gone to. Back home in Idaho, he and Gunnar dressed up in costumes purchased at the dollar store and trick-or-treated in their apartment complex. “I bet it is.” She leaned over to tuck his goodies safely under her chair. “After we play bingo, we ought to think about getting you some supper, though. I think they’re selling hamburgers or something in the cafeteria. Then you can bob for apples.” Inhale whipped cream. Whatever.

  “Hey, Dr. C!”

  She jerked upright. Tyler was straining out of his chair, waving his cast wildly over his head at Caleb, who’d stepped up onto the stage and was taking a seat next to the bingo cage on top of a table.

  He smiled and waved back at Tyler, giving him a thumbs-up. “Good luck,” he said, then gave the crank on the side of the cage a whirl.

  “All right, everyone.” He raised his voice to be heard above the general din inside the gymnasium. “Ready to play some bingo? All you need are five numbers in a row. Get out that candy corn, and here we go! Our first number is—” he pulled out one of the balls from inside the cage “—twenty-two!”

  “Where’s my twenty-two, Mom?” Tyler pushed his bingo card in front of her. “Where is it?”

  “Sorry, buddy. You don’t have one.” She glanced over her own card. “Neither do I.”

  He pushed out his lower lip.

  “It’s a game, Tyler. Sometimes you have the numbers. Sometimes you don’t. But you can’t pout. You have to be a good sport whether you’re winning or losing. Remember?”

  His narrow shoulders rose and fell as he let out an enormous sigh. “I ’member.”

  “Next number.” Caleb drew out another ball. “Five. Everyone hear? The number is five.”

  “I got it,” Tyler crowed.

  Caleb heard and gave him another thumbs-up.

  “Put a piece of candy corn on the spot where the five is,” Kelly prompted.

  “I never got to play bingo before.” Tyler wriggled in his chair. “I’m gonna be the best bingo player ever!”

  She laughed softly and brushed his hair away from his sweaty forehead. She made the mistake of glancing at Caleb, though, only to find him watching them. His gaze caught hers, and he smiled slightly.

  Her face warmed. She wanted to squirm in her own chair pretty much the same way Tyler was. She was glad she hadn’t bought two bingo cards. It was hard enough to keep track of her one.

  When someone called out, “Bingo!” after several more draws, she was actually grateful. It had never occurred to her that Caleb might be at the carnival, much less that he’d be manning one of the entertainments.

  “But I need another spot,” Tyler said while the winner read back her numbers to Caleb.

  “It’s a game of chance. Sometimes you’re luckier than others. And look.” Kelly drew his attention to her card. “You have almost a full row, and I’m not even close. But the cool part of this bingo game is—” she popped one of the candy pieces she hadn’t yet used in her mouth “—getting to eat the markers.”

  He giggled, happy enough with the explanation. “I wanna go see Dr. C.” Before she could stop him, Tyler hopped off his chair and darted toward the stage. Caleb had finished verifying the winner’s numbers, and as she watched, he showed Tyler how to dump the numbered balls back into the round cage. When Tyler was finished, they high-fived. Tyler said something to Caleb that had him laughing, and then he was writing something on Tyler’s cast.

  Her son’s smile was enough to light up the state of Wyoming, and her heart seized up.

  He was still beaming as he hopped off the stage again and ran back to her. “I told Dr. C he should name his puppy Bingo, and guess what?”

  Her chest tightened even further. “What?”

  “He said that was the best name ever!” Tyler showed her where Caleb had scrawled his indecipherable doctor’s signature on the cast. “And I get to go see Bingo again if you say I can.”

  “We’ll—” She broke off. He was so happy she couldn’t bear to offer a weak we’ll see.

  “We’ll have to arrange that,” she said instead.

  Tyler was practically vibrating out of his robot costume. “Dr. C has to call more games. Can I play again?”

  “Thought you wanted to bob for apples.”

  “I do. But Dr. C—”

  “—would understand.” They weren’t just words. When it came to dealing with children, she had to give Caleb points. But mostly, she was the one who wanted an escape.

  Cowardly? Sure.

  Smart? Most definitely.

  “Besides—” she retrieved their belongings from beneath the chair “—you still need to eat something for supper. Don’t you want to see the cafeteria where I used to eat my lunches?”

  Evidently, either that—or the prospect of supper—was enough of an enticement to lure him away from the bingo game.

  It didn’t seem possible, but when they reached the cafeteria, it was even more crowded than the gymnasium had been. Fortunately, the line they joined moved quickly, and before long, she’d paid for their selections. Then it was a matter of finding a place to sit.

  “There’s Lucas!” Tyler immediately darted down one row of tables.

  Juggling the tray, Tyler’s robot hat and his various prizes, Kelly swallowed her instinctive protest and followed.

  Lucas, dressed like Superman, was indeed sitting at one of the long cafeteria tables. Along with about two dozen other familiar faces.

  The little boy scooted over to make room for Tyler’s boxy costume while Kelly was besieged by greetings from Lucas’s parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and seemingly everyone in between.

  She pasted a smile on her face that she hoped wasn’t as wobbly as she felt inside and gave everyone a group hello.

  “We’re overwhelming her,” Tabby said with a knowing smile. She was sitting at the far end of the adjacent table. “Come sit here, Kelly.”

  “Tyler will be fine,” Leandra assured her. She was sitting directly across from the two boys. “Lucas has been asking when he’d get to see him again.”

  Sure enough, the two boys were already comparing their carnival adventures. Tyler barely even gave her a glance when she left his hamburger basket and car
ton of milk in front of him before she walked down to squeeze in beside Tabby.

  She unwrapped her plastic fork and unfolded the thin napkin to spread on her lap. “Where’s Justin?”

  “Working at the lab tonight. Great costume for Tyler. He reminds me of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.”

  Kelly couldn’t help but chuckle. “We were aiming for futuristic robot. But I can see what you mean. I drew the line at painting his face silver, but he sure did beg.” She squeezed a ketchup packet onto the waxy paper lining her hamburger basket and dragged a French fry through it before popping the fry into her mouth. “Good Lord, these haven’t improved at all in ten years. Why did we once think they were so great?”

  “Because we were teenagers?” Tabby laughed. “And it’s the same cafeteria staff, far as I know.” She waved suddenly at a slender brunette across the room, who waved back. “That’s Abby McCray,” Tabby said. “School nurse at the elementary school. You wouldn’t remember her. She moved to Weaver after you’d already left.”

  “And snagged Tara’s brother,” Lucy said, walking up behind them. “Tara is Axel’s wife.”

  “Leandra mentioned her,” Kelly said. She looked over to check on Tyler. He was gesturing with his cast and talking with his mouth full. But then, so was Lucas. And Kelly was too far away to correct him anyway. “Abby looks too young to be a nurse.”

  Lucy laughed and patted her shoulder from behind. “So do you, yet we hear that’s what you’ve become. Why is it that nobody is aging but me?”

  “Please,” Tabby said with a snort.

  Kelly felt herself relaxing among them. She even finished the wilted French fries before she realized it. It wasn’t too long, of course, before the children were clamoring to get back to the gymnasium for more fun. Tyler donned his butter tub hat long enough to be judged in the costume contest, then he shoved it into her hands and ran off with Lucas and a fistful of red tickets to try his luck bobbing for apples.

  “Does he know how hard it is to find an apple lurking in a bowl of cream?”

  She’d stiffened the moment she heard Caleb’s voice. “He’s five years old and faced with enough whipped cream to fill two pie pans. Do you really think he cares?” She slid a look Caleb’s way. Despite everything that had happened since, it was impossible to stand there in the school gymnasium and not think about the past. Especially when he looked frustratingly appealing in his lumberjacky plaid shirt and blue jeans. “He told me about naming the dog.”