How I Came to Sparkle Again (22 page)

He looked back up at Jill. She was looking down at the sink. It was so nice to come home to her. It was. She was warm and kind. He could appreciate her beauty without being sucked into a dangerous situation. He could. From his safe place, he could simply sit and admire all the ways she was beautiful.

As they sat at the little table in the kitchen, she told him about the hearing, about how her husband’s lawyer tried to make her look crazy, about the judge’s ruling, about watching her husband get into a car with the brunette afterward, about going back to her house for her stuff, and about having to go back in a few months for the actual divorce court. She looked weary. Still, when he looked at her, what he saw was this: goodness. And it was beautiful to him. He didn’t need to get involved in it. And although he wondered who this husband was and what kind of dirtbag would put her through more suffering, he didn’t need to take it on. He could simply sit in his chair and appreciate her beautiful goodness.

chapter eighteen

SNOW REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 13

Current temperature: 28F, high of 31F at 2
P.M.
, low of 27F at 5
A.M.

Snowing heavily, winds out of the south at 15 mph.

81" mid-mountain, 90" at the summit. 22" new in the last 24 hours. 38" of new in the last 48.

Somehow Jill’s body made it through another brutal day of hiking across ridges in waist-deep new snow to do avalanche control and then digging out lift towers for the rest of the day. Another patroller had a rotator cuff injury that was acting up, so he needed Jill’s spot in the FAR, and Jill therefore was recruited to step up her duties. Fortunately, almost three months on the mountain sweeping runs at the end of every day, and skiing on all her days off, trying to keep up with Lisa, Eric, or whoever wanted to join her for a few runs, had transformed her. She hardly recognized herself.

She was uneasy doing control work, but Tom had made her his partner, and while she learned the ropes, they bombed and ski-cut the easiest places that needed it.

When four o’clock rolled around, she hobbled to Cassie’s house. It was one of those cold days where the snow squeaked under her boots and her breath stuck to her eyelashes and froze. It was the day before Valentine’s Day, and everywhere she looked there were reminders of a holiday that she would have rather forgotten.

Cassie had about forty-five minutes of being alone from the time she got home from school to the time Jill arrived, and in that time, she usually got her homework done. When Jill arrived, she was bursting with anticipation. “Oh, Jill!” she sang.

“Cassie, I can tell you’re up to something,” Jill sang back.

“Uh-huh!” Cassie replied excitedly.

“Could it be what’s for dinner?” Jill asked, sniffing the air.

“That’s part one!” Cassie replied. “I hope you know how to use chopsticks!”

“We’re making something from the Orient?” Jill asked.

Cassie just nodded with her very best wait-and-see smile.

“Part two?” Jill asked.

Cassie nodded again. “Oh yes, part two: I found an old sleeping bag in the thrift store Dumpster that we can use for the hang glider on our downhill dummy, and we can use the stuffing to stuff the rag doll.”

“Excellent score, Cassie. Well done. Your father will be so proud that I turned you into a Dumpster diver,” she joked. A week earlier, they had pulled some worthless old skis out of the thrift store Dumpster.

“Yeah, not so much,” Cassie replied. “But we don’t have to tell him.”

Jill just laughed. “What first?”

“First we sew,” Cassie said, and led Jill out to the garage.

They had been constructing a dummy that looked like Cassie on a hang glider. PVC pipes were used to make the frame of the hang glider. Two poles rested in concrete that they had poured into outdated ski boots. The boots were mounted to the skis, and the skis were secured a couple feet apart by two pieces of plywood that they screwed to the tops. Now Cassie stuffed the rag doll that was going to hang from the bar, while Jill sewed the nylon onto the frame of the hang glider.

Socks found his way into the garage and rubbed up against Cassie.

“Someone sure loves you,” Jill said.

Cassie leaned over and Socks rubbed her cheek against Cassie’s. “You should get a pet,” Cassie said, and went back to stuffing the doll.

“Hm,” Jill said. Just three months ago, she would have said pets were germy parasite carriers, leaving behind a trail of dander and dust mites. Lately, though, they didn’t seem as bad as she thought. The Kennel dogs had grown on her.

When they finished working on the dummy for the night, they went to the kitchen. Cassie instructed Jill on how to cut the vegetables and then went on to measure rice and water. After that, she set about measuring ingredients for a spicy Thai peanut sauce.

Jill turned on the radio in the kitchen so they could listen to reggae while they cooked. Cassie stopped what she was doing and turned it up louder.

When they finished cooking, they sat at the table together. Jill sat in Mike’s chair, took one bite, and said, “You know, I think you have a gift. Maybe after you win the Olympics, you’ll open your own restaurant.”

“That would be awesome!” Cassie said.

“Hey, we should bake something for Valentine’s Day. You could surprise your dad,” Jill suggested. Thinking of her husband spending a romantic Valentine’s Day with his new love was a really difficult pill to swallow. Her spirits were low. And she thought if she had been feeling low, Mike had likely been feeling even lower.

“Yeah,” Cassie said, but her demeanor changed.

“When we finish dinner, we’ll go to the store and get a vision,” Jill said.

“Sure,” Cassie said.

*   *   *

Cassie and Jill walked down the baking aisle, trying to decide between making a cake or heart-shaped sugar cookies, but it was getting late, so they decided on a cherry cake. They picked out a can of pink frosting and a tube of red so Cassie could write a Valentine’s Day message.

As they looked at Red Hearts candies in a little bottle and contemplated whether artificial cinnamon flavor would go well with the cherry cake, Cassie heard her mother say,
Look down
. At first she saw nothing, but she squatted anyway, as if she had to tie the lace on her boot. From that angle, she could see a single Sweethearts candy hidden just under the bottom shelf. As she blew the dust off the white candy, she could see that it said “Forever” in pink letters. Cassie closed her hand around it, took a big breath, and blew it out slowly. As she stood, she put the candy in her pocket. Her eyes teared up, but she collected herself before anyone saw.

While Cassie and Jill walked home from the grocery store, they talked about their vision for the cake they would make. But half of Cassie’s mind was on her father’s sadness. It was like a lead apron at the dentist. His sadness was so heavy that she couldn’t begin to lift it, no matter what she did.

She remembered all the people at her mother’s service, most of them her grandparents’ age, who said, “Oh, don’t cry,” or, “Be strong for your father.” She had tried. She had really tried. She had tried not to burden him with her tears. She had tried to be strong for him. She made him paper snowflakes and learned to cook healthy dinners. Now she would make him a cake, and even though she would put her whole heart into it, she knew he would still feel sad. It would be his first Valentine’s Day without her mother, and there was no way around the reality of it. She could make him the greatest cake in the world and it wouldn’t begin to lift his great sadness. Something about it all made her tired now. She wondered how much longer she could keep trying, how much longer she could hide the depths of her own sadness, how much longer she could just put on a happy face and make a happy cake.

It was at that moment she saw Socks lying on his side in the road, mouth open, body bent at an impossible angle. She screamed, “No!” and ran down the slippery sidewalk, too blinded by horror to care if she fell. She picked up his broken body and fell to her knees, shaking. Everyone was dying.

Then Jill’s arms were around her, holding her against her chest, rocking her gently. Cassie’s mouth gaped for air. She was slightly aware of the animal noises that escaped her and of the snot that poured from her nose and froze to her upper lip. And soon the weight of her dead cat was noticeable. She let her hands rest on the road underneath it, looked to the sky, and howled. She wanted her mom. She let her mom see how devastated she was. As much as she hadn’t wanted to burden her mother, she could no longer shoulder it alone.

Then Jill was lifting her as headlights approached and slowed. Socks’s head and tail hung down, still limp in Cassie’s hands. The car pulled off to the side of the road and parked. Tom got out. “Jill? What happened?”

“We just found Cassie’s cat. He’d been hit by a car,” Jill answered.

Tom put his hand on Cassie’s shoulders and said, “Cassie. Cassie, can you look at me?” She felt her eyes roll over to him and look at his face. “I’m going to bury your cat for you.” He slipped his hands under Socks and took him from her. Her wailing escalated for a moment as she realized this was the last time she would ever see her friend. “Take her inside and get her warm,” he said to Jill.

“Thanks, Tom.” Jill set Cassie’s feet on the ground but continued to hold on to her. “Come on, sweetie,” she said gently, and led her into the house. She let go of Cassie, then took off her bloody gloves, coat, and snow pants and set them in a pile near the door. Finally she guided Cassie, still wailing, to the couch near the woodstove.

Tom crept in, relatively unnoticed, for matches and newspaper.

Cassie, no longer worried about burdening anyone with her sadness, unleashed seven months’ worth of tears in Jill’s arms until at last, exhausted, she slept.

*   *   *

After Cassie fell asleep, Jill looked out the window and watched Tom with a shovel in the back of the yard near the alley. He shoveled aside the flaming logs and dug deep where the fire had softened the frozen soil. Then he buried the cat and shoveled snow on top of the fresh grave.

Jill waited for him to come in, but he didn’t. He just walked back toward his car and drove away. She wasn’t sure how to thank him but thought warm leftovers and hot cocoa might have been a good start.

It struck her hard how it was often the ordinary acts that were angelic. Maybe there were angels in the sky and maybe there weren’t. Maybe angels helped arrange for Tom to be the one to drive along right at that moment. She didn’t know. But what she did know was that there were angels on the ground. She did know that Tom stopped the car, got out, and buried a kid’s dead cat. He didn’t have to, but he did. It was a small act, but it was huge. And that made Tom an angel to her, one no less divine than any angels that might be in the sky.

*   *   *

Tom drove the two blocks from Mike’s house to the Kennel. Next door, Lisa was shoveling the huge pile of snow the snowplow had left all around her car. He parked, and for a moment his headlights shone on Lisa. She started disco dancing.

As Tom got out, she shouted, “
American Bandstand
spotlight dance! Woo-hoo! So, Thomas, been out prowling?”

He wasn’t in the mood for it. “Nah. Hey, hang on a sec,” he said, subdued, and then went up to his own door to get another snow shovel. He walked back over to her and helped her dig out her car.

“So, what … no boob report?” Lisa heckled.

He stopped shoveling for a moment and just looked at her.

She noticed, stopped, and looked back. “What?” she asked.

“I just spent the last few hours thawing out a part of Mike’s yard so I could bury his daughter’s cat for her. I’m a nice guy, Lisa. I’m a good guy. But you treat me like I’m this big asshole, like I’m
no prize
. Weren’t those your words?”

“We’ve heckled each other like this for years, Tom. What the hell? I don’t understand,” she said.

“No, you don’t.” He started shoveling again.

She walked closer to him. He kept shoveling. She reached out and touched his arm. He froze.

“Hey,” she said. He still didn’t look at her. “Hey,” she said again.

He stood up straight and met her eyes. “Lisa, I…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish. He looked down at her looking up at him, concerned and confused. He put a gloved hand behind her head and kissed her softly. He pulled back only a little and looked up from her lips to her eyes. She looked up from his lips to his eyes, and she didn’t seem angry, so he kissed her again, this time longer. And instead of just letting him kiss her, Lisa kissed him back.

He was afraid to break away, even just for a moment, afraid that if he gave her an opening, she’d bolt. He was afraid to say anything that might wreck the moment. But he didn’t want to overwhelm her with his passion, either. He wanted her to know what was in his heart. He wanted her to know that he would treat her with tenderness. He wanted her to see a side of him she didn’t know existed.

Lisa’s kiss grew more urgent, and Tom wasn’t sure if it was him or if she was letting herself go on autopilot. He pulled his lips away, rested his forehead against hers, summoned all his courage, and looked into her eyes.

He saw uncertainty.

He let his hand slide from behind her head down her arm to her hand. He took a step back and placed her hand on his heart, covering it with his own hand. He closed his eyes and hoped she could feel it, because he couldn’t find the words.

When he opened his eyes, Lisa looked worried. He looked down, let go of her hand, picked up his shovel, and walked back to the Kennel, feeling somewhat defeated but not completely hopeless.

chapter nineteen

SNOW REPORT FOR FEBRUARY 14

Current temperature: 22F, high of 28F at 2
P.M.
, low of 18F at 5
A.M.