Kids by Christmas

“When he was real little, he climbed on top of a dresser and freaked Mom,” Sophia said. “And he used to get out of his crib. I remember that.”

“In the summer, I eat out here sometimes,” Suzanne said. “The patio furniture is in the garage. But we can go in that way.”

The sliding door led directly into the dining area and kitchen. The kids crowded behind her, craning their necks again.

“It’s not very big,” she began apologetically, before seeing the expressions on their faces.

They looked as excited as if her modest house was a mansion.

“Pretty.” Sophia touched the quilted runner on the table. “You even have flowers.”

She’d bought the bouquet on impulse at the grocery store yesterday, a spray of showy blooms in yellow and lime-green and hot-pink. They weren’t fragrant the way flowers from her own garden were, but Sophia was right. They were pretty.

“And here’s the living room.” Suzanne trailed behind them.

Sophia sat briefly on the sofa and bounced. “Your TV is little.”

“I don’t watch very often.”

She received two identical, dumbfounded stares.

“Mom had it on all the time.”

“But she was bedridden, wasn’t she?”

“She didn’t ride anything.” The ten-year-old looked at her as if she were stupid.

“I mean, she was in bed most of the time. So she didn’t have much else to do.”

“I guess not.” She lost interest. “Can we see the bedrooms?”

“You may.”

She’d expected them to race down the hall. Instead they went slowly, wonderingly, Sophia touching the frames of pictures she had hung on the wall, then hesitating for a moment before turning into the first open doorway.

This bedroom was at the front of the house and was slightly the larger of the two.

“I used to store yarn in here, until I opened my own yarn shop.”

“Can it be mine?” Sophia asked. She turned in a circle, taking in the bare, off-white walls, the empty closet, the scuffed wooden floor.

“You haven’t seen the other one yet.”

“I like this one.”

“Then if everything works out, this one will be yours.” Suzanne smiled at Jack. “Let’s go look at the one right across the hall.”

She could tell he didn’t want to leave his sister, but he did follow Suzanne. “I’ve used this one for my guest room,” she told him, “so it already has a bed in here. You’d probably want a twin size instead, so there’d be more space to play in here. And for a desk and a dresser and…”

He’d gone directly to the window and looked out. “I can see the tree. It’s practically touching the glass! I like this room.”

“I’m glad. If you could pick any color for the walls, what would it be?”

He turned, thin face serious. “Green is my favorite color in the whole world.”

“I like green, too.”

Sophia jostled past Suzanne. “This room is way cool, too!” Her eager gaze turned to Suzanne. “Can we decorate our own rooms the way we want?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”

“If you decide to adopt us,” Sophia said, “can we decorate our bedrooms the way we want?”

“Within reason,” Suzanne agreed. “What’s your favorite color?”

She pursed her lips. “Um, let’s see. Some days purple is. And some days pink.”

Pink and purple. Well, that was reassuring. Suzanne had half expected her to say orange and black. At least in this way, she marched in step with all the other girls her age.

“You two would share the bathroom next to this room.” They followed and she pushed open the door.

“My bedroom.” Suzanne continued the tour, letting them wander to her dresser and look at the framed photos, stroke her coverlet and the hand-knit salmon-colored throw that lay across the foot of the bed, and rock experimentally in the maple-and-caned rocking chair that sat on a rag rug by the window. They even peeked in her bathroom.

“In the other direction,” she said, “there’s room to keep bikes or whatever in the garage. I keep meaning to have a garage sale so I can park the car in there, too.”

“I bet we could do lots of the work,” Sophia said. “We could put stickers on everything, and take money, and try to talk people into buying stuff.”

“I’ll need all the help I can get,” Suzanne said noncommittally. She glanced at her bedside clock. Her time with the kids was expiring rapidly. “Have you had lunch?”

They nodded. Jack was getting braver, because he volunteered, “Mrs. Burton made us eat before we could come.”

“Well, how about a snack? And we can talk a little.”

“Do you got cookies?” Jack asked.

“No, but I made a coffee cake.”

His face scrunched up. “Coffee is gross.”

She laughed. “It doesn’t have coffee in it. It’s a kind of cake that tends to be eaten during a coffee break. This one is lemon. I promise, it’s good.”

They came with her, both stopping to take one last, lingering look at the bedrooms that would be theirs, before bouncing along to the kitchen.

“I like your house,” Jack confided. His face was flushed, and he was increasingly animated. “Sophia does, too. Huh, Soph?”

“Of course I do, dummy!”

Unoffended, he said, “See? We both like it.”