In Broken Places (23 page)

“And please hold the sports metaphors.”

“Well, that eliminates lessons one and two.”

“Trey . . .”

“Things are never as bad outside my brain as inside.”

“That’s a lesson?”

He nodded.

“What does it mean?”

“It means my worst-case scenarios hardly ever happen in real life.”

“Mine usually do.”

“They do not,” he said.

“Marie Fallon,” I said. He raised his hands in an I-give-up gesture. “Tenth grade?” He still wasn’t remembering it. “She invited me to a dance at her house and I refused to go because I was fairly sure I’d make a fool of myself, but you told me I should go anyway. Which I did. And I came out of the bathroom halfway through the evening with my skirt tucked up in my panty hose, and—because you’d told me to be bold—proceeded to dance up a storm in the middle of the floor. Now that, my friend, is a worst-case scenario. Next lesson, please.”

He laughed and didn’t push the issue. Now that I’d jogged his memory, I was sure there were a lot of other worst cases of mine running through his mind. “Fine,” he said. “Second lesson.” He thought for a moment, and then his eyes widened as he figured it out. “Here it is.”

I put on my eager face. “Oh, please, Yoda, your wisdom with me share.”

“The best things in life take risk.”

“Survey says . . .” I made a sound like the
Family Feud
buzzer. “Nope. Don’t like that one. Lesson number three, please.”

“You can’t just pick and choose,” he said.

“Sure I can. What’s number three?”

He thought for a while, and I could tell he was wondering if his lessons would do me any good, given my casual approach to all things requiring an honest assessment of my life. He had a point, but his lessons did make for better conversation than soufflés, so I let him go on.

“My third and final lesson is that you can’t pick what life throws at you,” he said.

“That’s encouraging.”

“But you can pick what you do with it.”

I’d been hoping for something a little more optimistic. Like “You’ll develop miraculous analytical skills and coping mechanisms the moment you turn twenty, and nothing will ever be confusing to you again.” I guess that was asking a bit too much. “That’s supposed to be helpful?” I said.

“Sure. It means you get to determine how much you’ll be affected by things that happen to you.”

I had a vision of my future, dark and ominous, creeping in for the kill. There was no part of me that wanted to determine what to do with it, as Trey had suggested. I just wanted to run from it, screaming. And maybe hide in a closet until it passed. “I don’t think your lessons work for me.”

“I didn’t think they worked for me either.”

“Until . . . ?”

He pulled back his sleeves and showed me his scars.

“Maybe next time I ask you for life lessons, you could recycle an old standard like ‘self-fulfilling prophecy.’ It’s less taxing on the brain.”

“Fine,” he conceded. “Next time, I’ll tell you that if you expect something bad to happen, it probably will.” He looked at me. “Happy?”

“Yeah.” Like a flailing spider circling the drain. But at least this latest lesson required less self-assessment. Life was safer that way. “So there’s a chance I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night sometime in a casket filled with rattlesnakes?”

“You’re like conversation cyanide. You know that, right?”

“And yet you still attempt it. You’re my hero.”

“Just remember me when your prophecies come true.”

I knew what he was getting at. “I like being alone, Trey. There’s less guilt when my head’s in the fridge and less turbulence when I’m trying to sleep.”

“You don’t really enjoy sleeping alone. Nobody does.”

“Well, I do. Except in the winter. But that’s why God created hot-water bottles. They keep your toes warm, but you don’t have to cook for them and they never, ever burp.”

I was used to Illinois winters, where the wind-chill factor decided everything from the undergarments I wore to the moisturizer I used. Winters in Germany were quite a bit milder, and I found myself less prone to weather-induced funks. Which was nice for anyone who had to live with me—namely Shayla. As quirky and scenic as Germany was in the fall, it turned whimsical and ethereal in the winter, particularly in the small towns and villages, where snowplows were scarce and salt was even scarcer. So the beauty was somewhat unevenly balanced with danger. Germans were so intent on protecting the grass that grew along the side of the road from the damage salt might cause that they were willing to sacrifice their cars in the process. I wasn’t quite so generous with my own wheels, and the lack of road upkeep scared me so much that I actually bought myself a large box of salt and sneaked out into the street at night to keep at least my part of Germany safe from slips and accidents.

Shay and I had risked life and limb driving up to Marzell to go sledding on a couple of occasions. Marzell was a small village
fifteen minutes out of Kandern—fifteen
straight up
minutes. Because of the difference in altitude, there was often snow galore in Marzell when it was gray and rainy in Kandern, snow enough for Shayla to wear herself out dragging her sled to the top of a hill and squealing down to the bottom, then dragging the sled back up again. I’d never really understood the appeal of spending so much time and effort climbing only to enjoy a fraction of the time sliding, but Shayla seemed to love it, so I was happy to stand at the bottom, cheering her down the hill and telling her what a great job she’d done when she got there.

Christmas in Germany was a sight to behold. It seemed each of the larger towns in the area hosted elaborate markets that lasted all of December, filled with stands displaying ornaments and other items made by local artisans, wooden toys, live manger scenes, lots of fatty food, and hot spiced wine. We took Bev along to a Christmas market in Gengenbach one afternoon, as much because we loved her company as because we didn’t quite know how to get there. I’d heard that it was one of the more beautiful markets in the area, about an hour from home, so off we traipsed on a sunny afternoon, the three amigos out to conquer the world.

Darkness had fallen by the time we reached the medieval city, and the crisp night air was saturated with sounds and smells that made my heart sing and my mouth water. We walked down narrow cobblestone streets in search of the main square, past crooked homes with half-timbered facades, through alleyways that practically rustled with the whispers of centuries past. It was an enchanting fairyland that drew us in, and we walked slowly, hushed by the mystery and charmed by the simple, otherworldly beauty.

When we reached the town’s historical square, Shay immediately declared that she wanted a gingerbread cookie, which, lucky for me, was a staple of German markets—so were candied peanuts,
waffles, wurst in fresh rolls, warm apple cider, and steaming hot chocolate. It was an overeater’s paradise and I felt right at home. Shayla, however, declared an instant dislike for the hard, nearly tasteless cookie I’d bought her. Fortunately, a kindly gentleman at a bakery stand gave her a free Berliner that reconciled her to the tradition of Christmas markets.

We wandered around for a while, tasting, touching, and absorbing as much of the festive uniqueness as we could. We bought two hand-painted glass ornaments, kept a safe distance from a slightly overzealous Saint Nicholas, watched a children’s choir sing “O Tannenbaum” from the balcony of the town hall that overlooked the square, and finally declared our adventure complete. We decided on the way home that Americans really had a lot to learn from their German counterparts, especially when it came to community Christmas activities.

In other areas, however, Shayla felt they fell a little short.

“Do they know they’re doing it wong?” she had asked on a trip to the grocery store.

“Doing what wrong?” It took so much self-control not to imitate her accent.

“The Christmas stuff. It’s all blue.”

“What’s wrong with blue?”

She’d looked at me like I ought to know better. “It’s supposed to be wed,” she’d said in a patronizing voice. And she was right, of course. Christmas was supposed to be red. But in Germany, where they did things decidedly differently, the decorations were largely blue. So when Shayla and I did dishes to the sound of her favorite Christmas CD, we sang our own words at the top of our lungs, trying to drown out Frank Sinatra’s voice.

“I’m dreaming of a
blue
Christmas,” we’d sing. And Shayla would find it so funny she’d forget to keep drying.

It was on a particularly chilly December evening that we invited Scott to accompany us on a tree-hunting expedition.

“He’s here! He’s here!” Shayla screamed. She’d been kneeling on a chair by the living room window, her nose plastered to the glass, waiting for Scott to appear. She was at the door waiting for him before he’d had time to stamp the excess snow from his boots.

“Ready, Lady Shay?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” She was a little excited.

“How ’bout your mom? Is she ready too?”

I waited to hear Shayla say, “She’s not my mom,” but she’d been saying it less and less these days. I rounded the corner into the entrance hall, pulling on my gloves. “Ready.”

Scott carried Shayla upside-down into the street, then fastened her securely into her car seat.

We spent the next hour trying to figure out how two finicky adults and an overexcited four-year-old could possibly come to an agreement on the shape and dimension of the perfect Christmas tree. Scott liked tall and skinny, I liked short and fat, and Shayla liked anything with a price tag outside my budget. The person running the tree lot finally came to our rescue and virtually ordered us to buy the one he selected for us.

“Schoen! Schoen!”
he said, pointing at the straight trunk and the way the branches sloped down close to it. It was an okay tree, if you liked them shaped like marathoners. I liked mine shaped like sumo wrestlers, and Shayla, apparently, liked hers shaped like dollar bills.

Shayla wrinkled her nose at the tree the salesman held up for us to see, I shrugged my shoulders, and Scott said, “We’ll take it.”

As he’d been holding my hand for a few minutes, I didn’t put up a fight. I was busy trying to keep my neurons firing and my Jell-O legs from buckling.

Scott secured the tree on the roof of my car, installed Shayla in her usual spot, and walked me around to my door, pulling me into him just long enough to say, “We done good,” plant a kiss next to my ear, and assist me into my seat.

When he was settled behind the wheel, he looked at me like he had something to say, but the moment was interrupted by Shayla yelling, “Home! Home! Home!” at the top of her lungs.

And off we went to my apartment, where Scott got a little testy trying to get the tree to stand up straight and Shayla did all she could to distract him from the task. She tried on her ballerina skirt and twirled around him like a top. She told him the story of Rudolph and the Seven Dwarfs. She tried to measure his arm with the tape he’d used to determine how much of the trunk to cut off. And then she brought him the hot cider I’d made for him, which gave him a reason to sit down and contemplate his handiwork.

I joined them in the living room and took a seat on the couch.

“What do you think? Is it straight?” Scott asked.

I pursed my lips and squinted an eye. “No, but I’ve always wanted to see the Tower of Pisa, and this’ll save me the trip.”

“What?” He was out of his chair and standing in front of me, trying to see the tree from my angle. “It’s straight!” he protested.

“Well done.” I smiled.

He pointed at a giggling Shayla. “Don’t laugh, young lady. Your mom’s messing with my mind!”

She giggled some more, so he picked her up by her middle, swung her around in a circle, then plopped down on the couch next to me with Shayla sprawled across him.

He turned his head on the backrest—which meant his face was alarmingly close to mine. I stared straight ahead and tried to concentrate on the marathon-runner tree while the ice-skater in my stomach tried some new, original leaps.

“Wanna go to Riedlingen for supper?” he asked.

I turned my head and looked at him, which took way more courage than, say, wearing a bathing suit in public. Up close and personal, he was no less attractive than from a safe distance, and the fact that my daughter was sprawled across him, perfectly content as she played with the measuring tape, was all the more endearing.

“What’s in Riedlingen?” I asked.

“A museum-café I guarantee your daughter will love.”

His breath was warm against my face. My inner skater slipped and fell—flat on her back, breath knocked out of her. The Russian judge was not amused.

“But will
I
like it?” I tried really hard not to look at his mouth. Really I did. Really.

“The food?”