Chapter 24: The Fox Blanket Again

On Christmas Eve Norm dragged the white crib into the living room and stood back to look at it.

He had built it himself, with a star cut into every slat of the headboard.

"It looks better by the tree," he said.

"It looks the same, Dad."

"It looks better by the tree."

Posy slept in it that night for the first time since Marsh Street.

I laid the orange fleece over the rail, white tail hanging down, and tucked one corner under the mattress.

It had been washed twice, and a little of the orange had gone pale at the edges.

I left it that way on purpose.

Ward came in from the kitchen with Daniel against his shoulder and stood beside me.

"You kept it," he said.

"It's hers."

"It's the best-traveled blanket in Michigan."

"I'd say it's earned the crib."

Daniel gave a long yawn, and the black hair at the back of his head stuck out in three directions.

Ward kissed the top of it without thinking.

I watched him do it and didn't say a word.

We opened presents in the morning.

Norm had knitted Posy a hat, badly, with two points on top.

"It's a fox," he said.

"It's a hat, Dad."

"It's a fox hat."

Posy wore it for ten minutes and then threw up on it.

Norm considered the hat and called it a success.

Ward gave Norm a wooden toolbox he had built in the basement, in the evenings, and Norm turned it over and over in his hands.

He ran a thumb along the dovetails.

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