All-Season Edie by Annabel Lyon Page A

nearly as sick as I was in the days immediately after I fell off my chair in the coffee shop and woke up in a bright white room. Mom and Dexter and a man I didn’t recognize were leaning over me with worried looks on their faces. “Mommy,” I said.
    â€œHi, sweetie,” Mom said. I could see the worry lines on her forehead and between her eyebrows.
    â€œI saw Zeus and Mercury and Ganesh and the Buddha,” I said. “Grandpa’s in the underworld. Next time I want to try coffee instead of a Julius, like Dex.”
    â€œShe’s delirious,” the strange man said. Afterward, Mom told me he was in charge of the mall, and we were in the first-aid room, next to the cinemas, which most people never get to see.
    â€œNo she isn’t,” Dexter said, looking at me closely, but not in a mean way.
    After I fainted, the Indian women quickly arranged their coats for me to lie on and put something soft under my head. The big man returned with two security men and a stretcher, and they took me to the little room, where Mom and Dexter had been waiting. They had gone to security as soon as they realized I was missing. After we got home, I had a fever for a few days and got to drink lots of soup and ginger ale, which came out about as fast as it went in. For the first time in the history of the world as I knew it, I didn’t help decorate the house but watched from the sofa until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I also fell asleep during my favorite videos, card games, stories and meals.
    Still, I slowly got better. My temperature came down and I was finally able to explain coherently about the various ancient gods in the mall. I reassured Mom that I knew they weren’t really gods (just as the witches had not really been witches), though they had certainly seemed like gods at the time. Mom seemed to understand. Even Dexter listened to me with unusual attention and refrained from making fun of me. When I quietly pointed this out to Mom, after Dex had gone for one of her sessions in the bathroom, Mom told me I had really been pretty sick and had given everyone Quite A Scare. No one ever asked me what I meant about Grandpa being in the underworld, which made me kind of glad. In the end I just signed my name to the card our whole family sent, to go with a collection of old records Dad found in an antique store. They were a kind of music called swing that Dad said Grandpa loved and would help him remember good times. So I’m not the only one who thinks about these things.
    By Christmas morning even my voice is back to normal and all I am is tired. So gift giving, this year, is a staid and proper affair. Gifts are unwrapped decorously, one by one, exclaimed over, and the paper refolded for next year before the next gift is handed out. My favorite gift comes from Dex. This in itself is not all that unusual since—whatever her other faults— Dexter gives considerate presents. But this year, when she hands me a plain envelope, quite small, with just a little drawing of holly in one corner, at first I’m disappointed. What can something as small as my hand and as flat as a sheet of paper possibly contain?
    It turns out to contain exactly that: a sheet of paper. Specifically, it’s a coupon for a free drink at the coffee shop in the mall.
    â€œWhat’s a lat?” I ask.
    â€œLatt ay ,” Dex says, watching my face to see if I like it. “It’s spelled l-a-t-t-e. You pronounce the ‘e’ like an ‘a.’ It’s coffee with milk, like I always get. You said you wanted to try one like mine next time.”
    I smile, and Dexter smiles too. Then we go back to ignoring each other because that’s less embarrassing.
    â€œI almost forgot,” Mom says later, when she’s tidying up the last of the ribbons and cards and wrap. “This came for you while you were sick.”
    It’s a Christmas card, still in a sealed envelope, with my name and