The Final Tap by Amanda Flower Page B

date?” he asked.
    â€œOur date? We’ve never had a date,” I said.
    He gave me a sideways grin. “That’s what I was hoping you would reconsider.”
    Before I could answer, he leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kelsey.”
    I closed the door behind him and told the butterflies doing backflips in my stomach to knock it off.

twelve
    The next morning at seven thirt y, Hayden and I stood at the end of Barton Farm’s long driveway and watched as the elementary school’s lumbering old school bus crested the hill. H ayd en jumped in place. He loved school, and I was so grateful for that.
    The bus stopped in front of us, and Hayden turned and threw his little arms around my waist, giving me a mighty hug. I hugged him back. I relished every squeeze and felt heartsick when I thought of the day when he would no longer want to hug me in public.
    â€œI love you,” I said. “Have a good day.”
    â€œLove you, Mom,” he said and galloped to the bus door.
    The bus driver greeted him by name with a great big smile and waved at me.
    I watched as Hayden made his way to the back of the bus and fell into a seat next to one of his classmates. I waved until the bus disappeared. Then I crossed the street into the village.
    The village was closed up tight for the winter and wouldn’t officially reopen until mid-May . However, many of my seasonal workers would return in early April to begin the long process of cleaning and repair needed to make the village ready for another season.
    A striking red cardinal bounced on a maple limb beside the pebbled path and cocked its head to look at me, as if asking why I was coming into the village at this time of year. What the cardinal didn’t know was that I walked through the village every day, sun, rain, or snow. As the live-in director of the Farm, I felt it was my duty to keep an eye on every aspect of it. That included Jason.
    As I walked to the two-hundred - year-old barn just on the other side of the street, the two oxen, Betty and Mags, stared at me from the pen beside the barn. Jason hadn’t yet walked them across Maple Grove Lane to the large pasture. In the cold, they were the only two animals tough enough to be outside. I saw that the Farm’s milking cow didn’t even bother to stick her nose out the open barn door.
    â€œJason?” I called as I stepped inside the dim barn. I didn’t want to startle my farmhand. He could be as skittish as a colt.
    There was no answer. I hadn’t really expected one. Jason was a nineteen-year -old young man of few words.
    I found him in the middle of the barn measuring feed into pails. The three sheep baaed when I walked by. I suppose they expected me to feed them. They would have to wait for Jason.
    Miss Muffins, the barn’s calico cat, jumped onto a hay bale and held out her neck asking to be petted. I gave her a good scratch. “Hey Jason,” I said. “How are the animals today? I know winter can be hard on them, and we’ve had a bad one this year.”
    He didn’t look up from his measuring. “Everyone is fine. Some of the sheep had a tough couple days, but they’ve snapped out of it now that the weather is warming up.”
    â€œGlad to hear it.” I picked up Miss Muffins and cuddled the calico under my chin. How much I wished that Hayden had wanted a cat like her to bring home instead of Frankie the Destroyer. “And how’s your trailer?”
    â€œGood.” Jason looked up from the feed pail that he was filling. “I’m grateful to have it.”
    Last summer, I’d learned that Jason was sleeping in the barn most nights. He claimed that he wanted to be close to the animals. I’d tried to convince him to move off the grounds, but I continued to find him on Farm property at all hours. After some prying, I learned that he had nowhere else to go. He was a former foster kid with