LITMIR.BIZ

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she walked down the steps, Amy crossed her fingers. Let it be Ben next door. Let him be the married one. Maybe she could discreetly ask where Hank was. Find out if he, too, was married. She crossed her fingers tighter.

      Back on the first floor, Amy opened the doors of the fireplace, laid some kindling, then stacked the logs the way she’d seen her father do. She had a fireplace in her California home, but it was gas. She’d used it once and was so disappointed with the effect it created, she’d never turned it on again. Within minutes she had a nice blaze going. In the kitchen she prepared a small salad to accompany the frozen TV dinner she popped into the oven. She uncorked a bottle of wine to let it breathe before she headed upstairs to shower.

      Her first day home.

      Home. Amy closed her eyes and almost swooned at the way the one word made her feel. She literally ran up the stairs, her heart bursting with happiness. She knew, just knew, coming back home to Apple Valley was the best decision of her life.

      In the shower, she sang “Jingle Bells” at the top of her lungs as she washed her hair and showered with her favorite bath gel, a Vera Wang scent she’d been using for years.

      Thirty minutes later, Amy walked through the family room, where the fire was blazing cheerfully, and on out to the kitchen, where her dinner waited for her. She turned on the radio that was mounted under one of the kitchen cabinets. Holiday music invaded the old kitchen.

      She was home. Eating in her old kitchen, using her mother’s old place mats, using the same silverware with the green handles. It seemed the same, but it wasn’t the same. The sugar bowl and creamer weren’t in the middle of the table. Both her parents had always had coffee with their meals, even at lunchtime. Suddenly, Amy wasn’t hungry anymore. She reached for the wine bottle and poured it into her glass. Flo had drummed into her head over the years that “you can’t go home again,” then went on to say some famous writer had said that. It wasn’t until she was in college that Amy learned that the writer was Thomas Wolfe.

      Amy sat down on what had once been her mother’s chair and stared at the fire. She supposed you could go home again physically, but when you got there, you had to be realistic enough to know that time had passed, and it could never be recaptured. And recapture time was exactly what she had hoped to do by making this trip. How foolish she was to even think she could make that happen. The past was prologue.

      Now what was she supposed to do until it was time to go back to California? Should she just eat, drink, sleep, watch television? Should she pretend it wasn’t the Christmas season and ignore everything? Wouldn’t that be a cop-out?

      Maybe she should go next door and talk to Ben or Hank or whoever it was that lived in that house. There was nothing wrong with dropping in on old childhood friends. Was there? She tried to talk herself out of the idea by convincing herself that either Ben or Hank’s wife wouldn’t appreciate an unknown female dropping by—she looked down at her watch—at seven o’clock in the evening. Maybe she would do it tomorrow.

      Before Amy could change her mind, she raced upstairs for her old peacoat. She was surprised that it still fit. She pulled the yellow hat down over her ears, wrapped the muffler around her neck, and was ready to go. A walk to the town square would be nice. She could take her time, look in the shop windows, and by the time she got home, she’d be wiped out and ready for a good night’s sleep in her own bed. Her own bed. Five minutes later she was out the door, the key to the front door in the pocket of her sweatpants.

      It was icy cold, the wind blustery and pushing her along as she walked down the street to the corner. Her feet already felt numb from the cold. No wonder, she thought, looking down at her feet. She wasn’t wearing socks, and she was still wearing slippers, for God’s sake. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Maybe she wasn’t really stupid. Maybe she was just overwhelmed with being home and wasn’t thinking clearly. She continued walking to the next corner, then she decided, yes, she was stupid, and turned around to go home.

      How bleak and lonely Mr. Carpenter’s house looked. Every other house on the street featured colored Christmas lights on their porches and shrubbery. Correction. Every house but Mr. Carpenter’s and her house had colored lights. She made a mental note to get them down from the attic and hang them tomorrow. Maybe she’d hang some on Mr. Carpenter’s house, too. She rather thought Mr. Carpenter would like that.

      The Anders house was lit up from top to bottom. It looked like every room in the house was lit up. She looked around. The other houses on the street looked the same way. Families needed a lot of light, she decided.

      Amy heard the sound when she walked across the lawn in front of the Anders house in a shortcut to her driveway. She stopped and pushed her hat above her ears to see if she could hear better. It sounded like a baby was crying. She listened hard, then heard a whimpering sound. She turned around and there by her front door was the beautiful dog she’d seen earlier. He looked even more golden under the porch light. She whistled softly, and the dog bounded over to where she was standing. “Hey, big guy, what are you doing out here all by yourself? Did you get loose? Like you’re really going to answer me. I think you belong over there,” she said, pointing to the door of the Anders house. “C’mon, I’ll ring the bell, and before you know it, you’ll be warm and cozy inside.” The big dog walked alongside her as she made her way to the front door.

      Amy rang the bell. Once. Twice. On the third ring she thought she heard a voice bellow, “Come in.” She looked down at the dog and shrugged. She opened the door and stuck her head in. “Anybody here?” she shouted.

      “I’m upstairs giving the twins a bath,” came the reply.

      “I brought your dog home. I think he might have jumped the fence. It’s freezing outside. It’s not right to leave an animal out in weather like this,” she shouted again, anger ringing in her voice. As an afterthought she yelled again, “If you can’t take care of an animal, you shouldn’t have one. I’m leaving now,” she said, backing toward the door, partially blocking it with her leg so the big dog wouldn’t bolt.

      The voice from the second floor thundered down the steps. “What are you, some know-it-all? If the dog jumped the fence, it doesn’t mean I can’t take care of him. Stop that! Right now! Now look what you did!” Two high-pitched wails of misery traveled down the steps.

      The golden dog immediately raced up the steps, a white fur ball on his heels, yapping every step of the way.

      “A thank you would have been nice. Doesn’t sound like you’re any great shakes as a parent either.” Amy screamed out her parting shot as she closed the door behind her. “Stupid ass!” And to think I couldn’t wait to see you. Ha!

      Back inside her own house, Amy raced to her room for some heavy warm socks. She could barely feel her feet, that’s how cold she was. Back downstairs, she tidied up the kitchen, poured more wine, then went back to the family room. She pulled at the cushions from the sofa and propped them up by the fire, her legs stretched forward. She added two more logs to the fire and sipped at her wine.

      Two revelations in one day. 1. You can’t have expectations when you go home again. 2. Ben or Hank Anders was not the boy of her youth. Screw it, she thought as she set the wineglass aside and curled up on the old cushions. Moments later she was sound asleep.

      She slept soundly only to be awakened hours later by the sound of her doorbell. Groggily, she looked down at her watch. It was after twelve. Who would be visiting at this hour? She ran to the door, turned on the porch light, and was dismayed to see the huge golden dog slapping at her doorbell. She opened the door, and he bounded in like a whirlwind. He ran over to the fire and lay down on the cushions.

      Amy threw her hands in the air. “What’s this mean? You moved out? What?”

      The dog barked as he squirmed and wiggled to get more comfortable on the cushions. “Does this mean you’re staying here for the night?” The dog barked again, laid his head on his paws, and closed his eyes. “Guess so. Can’t say as how I blame you. He sounds like a…like a…big jerk.”

      Before she made her way to the second floor, Amy bent over to look at the collar on the

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