I see vulnerability and fragility in front of me, and I would do anything to repair what is broken. I just have no idea how, and he doesn’t want to talk. There’s a push-and-pull from him that, if I’m honest with myself, started last summer. He’s either all in or shoving me and everyone else away. And I am left with no clear way to manage this.
“Let’s do something,” he says.
“What?”
“Wanna count stars?” His big smile is back.
“It’s cold out now, silly boy.”
He stands up and pulls down the ladder to the loft. “Through the skylight! How magical to be in a tree house on Christmas, right?”
“Technically, it’s the day after Christmas now.”
“Then, how magical to be in a tree house the dayafterChristmas, right?”
“Right. Let’s count stars.”
“After you, Lady Blythe.”
I scramble up the ladder and dive onto the futon. “I see one!” I say with a giggle.
Sabin rolls next to me and points. “And I see another.” He claps a hand over my face so that I can’t see, and he says excitedly, “And, Blythe, there’s another one! And another one! Oh, look. Another three. So, that’s six for me and just one for you. You’re not having much luck with this.”
“Sabin!” I yell. “You’re cheating! And I didn’t say this was a contest.”
He pulls away his hand. “Oh. So, we can add our stars together?”
“Yes. This is a team effort.”
We spend the next ten minutes counting real stars and making up ones that are not there until we reach an even one hundred, which we decide is a success.
I move to lie on my side and notice something new on one of his shelves. “Hey, what’s that?” I scoot over, take a snow globe from its spot, and return to lying down. “It’s so pretty.”
“Oh, yeah.” Sabin waves a hand. “That’s from Mollie, Pearce’s daughter.”
I feel around it in the relative dark up here and locate a knob that I turn. The globe lights up and plays a twinkly tune. “There’s a horse inside. It looks like Mia, huh?”
He rolls to face me, and I set the globe between us.
“I guess it does.”
“That was very nice of her.” I raise one eyebrow. “How old is this Mollie?”
He shrugs. “Our age, I guess.”
“Any chance she has a little crush going on?”
“Ha! I don’t think so. And she’s real quiet and sort of plain. Nice girl and all, but she’s not exactly my type.”
“Why? Because she’s not a parasitic paralegal paragra—”
“Oh my God!” He laughs. “No. She’s a sweet gal, but that’s it. Not exactly the love of my life.”
“You have one, you know. Somewhere out there.”
He pauses and smiles softly. “I know.” He seems embarrassed all of a sudden, and he looks down at the globe again and picks it up. The lights change from white to red to green to blue. He winds it up again and hums along to the tune. “I guess it is kind of cool, huh? Pearce gave me a pair of cowboy boots. Did I tell you that? Real ones, too. Not junky shit.”
“That was thoughtful of him. I think you’ve made a very nice home for yourself here.”
