Chapter 23: Christmas

On Christmas morning my father's truck turned into Aunt Dot's drive at two minutes to eight.

I watched it from the window with my cast gone and a thin pink scar on my forearm.

"Two minutes early," I said.

"He's been parked at the mailbox since seven-thirty," Aunt Dot said, pouring coffee. "I saw him from the barn. He was waiting for eight."

I laughed, and then I went out in my coat.

Dylan came out of the truck at a run, with Waffle in a red sweater tangled around his legs.

"Merry Christmas! We're doing the lane. Both ways. Dad said I could."

"I said you could," my father said, from the driver's seat, and he looked as if he was still getting used to saying it.

He held up a flat wrapped box.

"Pencils," he said. "I checked. It's under the limit."

"What kind?"

"The good kind. The salesman said so."

"Thank you."

"Open it later. I'm going to see your aunt. I'm going to sit in her kitchen and drink whatever she hands me."

"She's making a lot of coffee," I said.

"I figured."

Dylan and I ran the frozen lane with the dog.

The gravel was white with frost and crunched under our shoes, and our breath went out in front of us in clouds.

Dylan was faster than me by a lot.

He ran the way he'd run the gym, loose and delighted, and he kept circling back to make sure I hadn't died.

"Come on, slowpoke!"

"I draw. I don't run."

"You can do both!"

"I can't."

"You can try!"

I tried.

I made it to the mailbox with the owl, and I stood there with my hands on my knees, wheezing, while Waffle licked my glove.

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