A Child's Wish

“Door.” Kelsey turned around to grin at her father. “We know the rules, Daddy,” she said with only a hint of condescension.

“Then give me a hug so I can get lost, as you two are obviously eager to have me do.”

Meredith’s throat grew tight as she watched Kelsey jump up and throw her arms around her father’s trim waist. Mark held on for a long moment and then let her go, glancing over at Meredith.

“I don’t know how late I’ll be.”

She didn’t want to think about why—it was kind of embarrassing—but at the same time she was glad to know that Susan was intimately involved. Her best friend was slowly but surely coming back to life.

“Tell Suze I said hi and I love her.”

With a nod, Mark was gone.

An hour later, the muscles beneath Meredith’s rib cage still had not relaxed.

“You feeling okay?” she asked Kelsey. Tongue peeping out one side of her mouth, the girl was intent on following the pattern of squares and colors that Meredith had placed on the table in front of her.

“Fine,” Kelsey said, her needle going through the plastic canvas with quiet deliberation.

Meredith had assumed that as soon as Mark left she’d relax. She’d been fine before she arrived. So what was making her tense? Her own internal radar? Someone else’s?

The fact that Mark and Susan were doing what adults do when they’re alone together—while she spent her Friday evening stitching butterflies with a fourth grader?

“You and Josie getting along okay?” The girls might be suffering from too much togetherness, now that Mark had agreed to let Kelsey go to Josie’s every day after school in exchange for summer care for Kelsey’s friend.

“Yep. We’re best friends now.”

Meredith’s yarn knotted. She hated it when that happened. “You used too long a piece,” Kelsey said, glancing over and then looking back at her own work.

“I know. I make a better teacher than a doer.” She dropped the needle and canvas on the table. “You want a snack?”

“Ice cream?”

“Of course. What weird flavors did your dad buy this week?”

“Butterfinger and rocky road.”

Grabbing three bowls and two spoons, Meredith pulled open the drawer where Mark kept his ice cream scoop. “So what’ll it be for you, young lady?” she asked, scooping a bit of vanilla into the first bowl for Gilda, the cat, who was purring at Meredith’s ankle.

“What are you having?” Kelsey asked without looking up.

“I guess I’ll try Butterfinger. I’ve never had it before.”

“Then that’s what I’ll have, too.”

“DO YOU THINK judging a book by its cover is the same as knowing about people?”

It was five minutes to ten and Meredith was tucking Kelsey into her white-painted canopy bed, pulling up the new comforter. Though it’d been in the fifties all week, the temperature was supposed to drop down to near freezing that night.

“What do you mean?” Meredith asked, sitting on the side of the bed, careful not to disturb Gilda, who’d already curled up and was sleeping soundly. She tried to ignore the tightness in her stomach—too much ice cream, she told herself.

“If a book looks bad that doesn’t mean the story inside is bad. So if people look bad, should we still think of them as good?”

Meredith forced herself to focus carefully on the nine-year-old’s questions and ignore the increasing pain in her gut.

“That’s not a yes or no question, sweetie,” she said. “No, you shouldn’t judge people just by how they look, but people put out messages about themselves—messages you need to learn to read as you go out into the world and deal with strangers.” The words rolled off her tongue without conscious thought.

Kelsey nodded, but her eyes were full of confusion.

“Say, for instance, you see someone who has wild clothes on. That wouldn’t mean that the person doesn’t have a good heart. It might just mean that he or she has artistic taste.”

“What if they have tattoos?”

A few years ago the question might instantly have been a cause for concern. “Lots of people have tattoos these days,” Meredith replied. “It’s kind of the in thing for college students, and lots of moms are getting little ones on their ankles and other places. And you’ve seen girls at the mall with them on their lower backs, haven’t you?”

The girl nodded, her hair falling around her shoulders.

“It’s more accepted now, so people are changing their opinions about tattoos and a lot of quite regular people are getting them.”

“They might be good people?”

“Right.”

“And say, maybe, someone was greasy and dirty looking… It could be that he was just working in the garage, huh?”

“Could be. But unless you know that he was in a garage, I’d be careful there. Someone who doesn’t have good hygiene might be wonderful inside, but it might also be a sign that he or she is down on his luck—which could make him desperate. Or it might mean he has no respect for the human body, in which case you don’t want to go anywhere near him.”

Kelsey’s features relaxed, but Meredith’s stomach didn’t.

“Okay?” Meredith asked.

Kelsey nodded, sliding down until the covers were up to her chin.

“You have some stranger bothering you?” Meredith had to ask.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I just heard someone talking about judging people and it didn’t really make sense to me, is all.”

Thank God for that. Kelsey Shepherd had already been through enough in her young life. And so had her dad.

AT TEN AFTER TWELVE Meredith heard Mark’s automatic garage door start to open. She yanked on her ankle-length hikers, tied the laces and grabbed her bag, which was packed and waiting. And then she reached for the remote control and turned off the TV.

“Hi,” Mark said, coming in and dropping his keys on the brass plate on the counter.

“Hi.” Meredith looked at the keys rather than at Mark. If his hair was mussed or he had that satisfied look in his eyes, she’d die of embarrassment.