say.
“Yeah, from that album. How’d you know?”
“I heard it.”
Ben makes a face, but he continues with the confession.
A mile or two passes before he turns onto an open stretch of country road: no hills, no stop signs, and not much traffic. If homeowners glanced out their windows as the car passed, all they would have seen is the red glow of his taillights.
“When the speedometer hit ninety, I wasn’t afraid or sad. I felt free.”
I clasp my hands together, willing them to stop shaking, and then ask, “What made you slow down?”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“It was Dad.”
Ben tells me that he and Robert, in unison, spotted a deer leap across a fence and stop in the road just ahead of them.
“I could hear Dad’s voice telling me to downshift and hit the brakes. Then as fast as that deer appeared … it was gone. There was no crash, just twenty feet of tire burn. Dad was there in the car with me, Mom, just like before.”
I wrap an arm around Ben and pull him close. This time, I know what to say.
“Your Dad is always going to be with us. He’s probably listening right now and wondering if I’m ever going to give you back these car keys.”
We sit quietly for a few minutes, but Ben wants an answer.
“So, are you?”
I toss the keys up in the air just out of his reach, and I catch them.
“Red Baron’s grounded until the first of the year, then we’re going to have a talk with the guidance counselor at the high school.”
Ben starts to argue, but changes his mind.
We talk a while longer, but our conversation turns into a duel of yawns.
“Bed?” I ask.
While I lock the front door, Ben notices the empty tree stand in the corner.
“So the tree shopping was a bust?”
“Not with your aunt Char in change. It’s in the garage thawing.”
“Out there with our busted tree stand?”
No use lying. I am caught.
“You saw that?”
“One of the legs wasn’t completely smashed. Ran over it a couple of times myself.”
For the first time, maybe ever, my teenage son and I understand each other.
We head off to bed laughing.
I wake to the aromas of a picnic in the woods: fresh pine and frying bacon. It’s only been a few hours since Ben and I retired for the night, but a whispered conversation up in the kitchen clues me in to the fact that my eldest son and his little sister are awake. The two of them are cooking up something that Ben doesn’t want me to know about.
“Keep it down. You’ll wake her,” he says with a voice so deep it bellows down the stairwell. Megan giggles.
“I can’t wait for her to see it. I just can’t wait,” she says.
Figuring I’m about to be served breakfast in bed—or, on couch, such as it is—I close my eyes and relax, until they decide it’s time to eat. I figure Ben is trying to earn back his car keys. I won’t tell him it’s not going to work until after the meal. I close my eyes and drift back to sleep.
A half hour later, Megan holds a slice of cooked bacon under my nose.
When I open my eyes, she eats the meat and then runs back upstairs hollering, “Breakfast.”
Upstairs, it’s not the eggs, or the bacon, or even the toast thatsurprises me. It’s the tree. Our somewhat lopsided evergreen stands in front of the living room window, covered in strands of tiny white lights.
“Who did this?”
Megan beams. “It was Ben.”
Beside the tree, a box labeled “Dad’s stuff” stands empty, except for Rick’s measuring tape.
Rick had been the tree-lighting aficionado of the family, with arms long enough to reach to the very top of any tree, a feat he ensured before the purchase of a pine. He painstakingly untangled the mess of twisted strands that I had hastily packed the previous year. Once assured every bulb lighted, Rick measured the distance between light strings as he wrapped them around the tree. He would have measured the distance between ornaments if I had let him
.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, Ben was
“Yeah, from that album. How’d you know?”
“I heard it.”
Ben makes a face, but he continues with the confession.
A mile or two passes before he turns onto an open stretch of country road: no hills, no stop signs, and not much traffic. If homeowners glanced out their windows as the car passed, all they would have seen is the red glow of his taillights.
“When the speedometer hit ninety, I wasn’t afraid or sad. I felt free.”
I clasp my hands together, willing them to stop shaking, and then ask, “What made you slow down?”
“You won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“It was Dad.”
Ben tells me that he and Robert, in unison, spotted a deer leap across a fence and stop in the road just ahead of them.
“I could hear Dad’s voice telling me to downshift and hit the brakes. Then as fast as that deer appeared … it was gone. There was no crash, just twenty feet of tire burn. Dad was there in the car with me, Mom, just like before.”
I wrap an arm around Ben and pull him close. This time, I know what to say.
“Your Dad is always going to be with us. He’s probably listening right now and wondering if I’m ever going to give you back these car keys.”
We sit quietly for a few minutes, but Ben wants an answer.
“So, are you?”
I toss the keys up in the air just out of his reach, and I catch them.
“Red Baron’s grounded until the first of the year, then we’re going to have a talk with the guidance counselor at the high school.”
Ben starts to argue, but changes his mind.
We talk a while longer, but our conversation turns into a duel of yawns.
“Bed?” I ask.
While I lock the front door, Ben notices the empty tree stand in the corner.
“So the tree shopping was a bust?”
“Not with your aunt Char in change. It’s in the garage thawing.”
“Out there with our busted tree stand?”
No use lying. I am caught.
“You saw that?”
“One of the legs wasn’t completely smashed. Ran over it a couple of times myself.”
For the first time, maybe ever, my teenage son and I understand each other.
We head off to bed laughing.
I wake to the aromas of a picnic in the woods: fresh pine and frying bacon. It’s only been a few hours since Ben and I retired for the night, but a whispered conversation up in the kitchen clues me in to the fact that my eldest son and his little sister are awake. The two of them are cooking up something that Ben doesn’t want me to know about.
“Keep it down. You’ll wake her,” he says with a voice so deep it bellows down the stairwell. Megan giggles.
“I can’t wait for her to see it. I just can’t wait,” she says.
Figuring I’m about to be served breakfast in bed—or, on couch, such as it is—I close my eyes and relax, until they decide it’s time to eat. I figure Ben is trying to earn back his car keys. I won’t tell him it’s not going to work until after the meal. I close my eyes and drift back to sleep.
A half hour later, Megan holds a slice of cooked bacon under my nose.
When I open my eyes, she eats the meat and then runs back upstairs hollering, “Breakfast.”
Upstairs, it’s not the eggs, or the bacon, or even the toast thatsurprises me. It’s the tree. Our somewhat lopsided evergreen stands in front of the living room window, covered in strands of tiny white lights.
“Who did this?”
Megan beams. “It was Ben.”
Beside the tree, a box labeled “Dad’s stuff” stands empty, except for Rick’s measuring tape.
Rick had been the tree-lighting aficionado of the family, with arms long enough to reach to the very top of any tree, a feat he ensured before the purchase of a pine. He painstakingly untangled the mess of twisted strands that I had hastily packed the previous year. Once assured every bulb lighted, Rick measured the distance between light strings as he wrapped them around the tree. He would have measured the distance between ornaments if I had let him
.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, Ben was
Similar Books
