Your Dream And Mine

“Magnet-Man. He’s the guy who’s going to clean house on those toy heroes you two have been collecting.”

“Nuh-uh!” said Winny, jutting out her lip.

Trace shrugged and tossed a pile of clippings into the wheelbarrow. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”

“You’re fibbing,” accused Winny. But the seed of planted doubt bunched her face into a pout. “Come on, Pauly. We’ll tell Momma.”

Trace leaned down to reconnect the trimmers, then straightened to find Thomasina standing a few feet away. Her gaze followed the children cross the yard where they disappeared through a narrow path in the hedge.

“Hi,” said Trace. “How’s the move going?”

“So far so good.” Her mouth tipped in response to his smile. “Who do I call about getting the paper delivered?”

He gave her the paperboy’s name, and offered to let her use his phone.

“Thanks. But I’ve got one in the car. By the way, I saw the tree at Mary and Milt’s is still standing. I’m glad. Mary’s partial to it.”

“Milt didn’t mention that to me.”

“She didn’t tell him. She doesn’t want to be the fly in the ointment.”

“That so?” he said.

Leaving well enough alone, Thomasina crossed to the curb for the sack of doughnuts she had left in the car. Someone had beat her to it. It was no mystery who. There were chocolate child-size fingerprints all over the seats, on her moving boxes and even on her cellular phone. She wiped the phone off only to find a dead line. On closer inspection she found the battery was missing.

Thomasina retraced her steps to where Trace was rolling up the extension chord. “On second thought, I’ll take you up on the phone offer. Mine’s not working.”

“If you’re going to leave your car out, you might want to lock your doors,” he said.

“I thought leaving doors unlocked was one of the perks in small towns.”

“Maybe in Mayberry. But the Penn kids are loose in Liberty Flats.”

She folded her arms. “Fine way to talk about your little helpers.”

“Helpers?” He laughed, his face shiny damp. “Good argument for staying single, don’t you mean?”

“Shame on you.”

Unrepentant, Trace dragged a brown forearm across his brow, then tossed the coiled extension cord on top of the hedge trimmings. “Anything else I can do to make moving day less of a hassle?”

“I noticed there isn’t a restaurant in town. What do people around here do for eating out?”

“You can get a sandwich made to order at Newt’s Market on the square. Pretty good one at that.”

“Great. The cupboards are bare.”

“Your doughnut sack, too,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t get it away from them before they made such a mess of your car.”

“You caught them in the act, huh?”

“Chocolate-fisted.” At Thomasina’s smile, he added, “They live in the little yellow house on the other side of the hedge if you want to take it up with their mother.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she said.

“I was planning on grabbing a sandwich before work myself,” said Trace on impulse. “You want to come along?”

“That’s nice of you. Sure,” said Thomasina, appreciating the welcoming gesture.

“Let me put this stuff away. You can make your phone call while I shower, and then we’ll go.” He collected his remaining yard tools. “The phone’s this way.”

Thomasina trailed after him as he trundled the wheelbarrow to a shady old two-story stone carriage house. It had been converted to a two-car garage and a shop. There were windows. But the trees diffused the sunlight. It was shadowy inside, and several degrees cooler.

“There’s room in here if you want to park out of the weather,” he said as he led her past his pickup truck. “I keep the doors locked, so you won’t have to worry about the kids playing road trip in your car.”

“So that’s what they were doing.” Thomasina chuckled. “Creative of them. Thanks for the offer. I’ll take you up on it, come winter.”

“I’ll have an extra key made, then.” Trace led her to his workshop at the back of the carriage house and switched on a light. “Phone’s on the wall over there.”

“Thanks,” said Thomasina. “I’ll call about getting a phone, too. What’s the address again, in case they ask?”

Trace wrote it on a matchbook, then left. Thomasina picked her way to the phone through a maze of toolboxes, free-standing cabinets, saws, drills and other power tools. She phoned her supervisor first and got her work schedule for the following week, then called about having the phone line turned on.

The blended scent of sawdust, drying wood and oiled tools stirred poignant memories of her foster parents. Much of their nurturing had been done in a shop similar to this. Thomasina picked up curled wood shavings and held them to her face, her thoughts reaching back in time. Flo loved flowers and Nathan, and Nathan loved Flo and woodworking, and together they loved Thomasina after abandonment by her own mother and a winding road of short-term foster homes had placed her with a family next door to them.

“Thomasina Rose. What a beautiful name,” Florence had called when Thomasina dropped over the fence that first day. “A name to grow into. Do you like roses? I’ve got aphids on mine. Have you ever seen aphids? They’re like fear in a human heart—hard to see, but oh, my! What a lot of damage they’re capable of doing. Don’t be shy! Come have a look, dear.”

That summer, over lemonade and cookies and Bible stories, Florence introduced Thomasina to much more than aphids and gardening. She had introduced her to God.

“The world is His garden, my dear,” she had said one day, a trowel in one hand, a young plant in the other. “Sometimes He transplants His flowers. No one knows why. But I’m thankful He’s sent such a sweet rose to ramble over our back fence!”

After getting to know them, Thomasina was scared she’d get shuffled again and lose Nathan and Flo. Her social worker saw the change in her. She convinced Flo that she and Nathan were the very kind of people so desperately needed in the foster care system.

Soon thereafter, the switch was made. Nathan and Flo were walking talking funnels from heaven to earth, spilling all the love God gave them into restoring Thomasina’s lost childhood just as most teens were relinquishing theirs. But Thomasina’s thirsty heart was in no hurry for independence. She stayed with Nathan and Flo through two years of junior college and nurse’s training. More than foster parents, they became her heart-parents, her model for good neighboring, and at the core of her wish to establish a camp where wounded, broken children could be led to God, and find help.

Hearing children’s hushed voices in the carriage house, Thomasina snapped out the light in the shop. “Hello.”

The twosome who had made such havoc of her car stopped short at the sight of her, and traded wary glances.

“I’ve got boxes to carry inside and not enough hands. I wonder where I could get some good help,” said Thomasina.

“Are you moving in with Trace?” asked the little girl.

“No, I’m moving into Mr. Austin’s apartment.”

“What’s a ’partment?”

“It’s more than one home under a single roof. When I get moved in, will you visit me?”