Miracles Retold (6 page)

After breakfast, Annie
drove with Grace, Hannah, Carter, and Benji to the pet store. Benji
jumped right into the wagon and sat between the kids in the back as
if he had always been a part of the family. He had obviously been
in a vehicle before, Grace remarked. At the store, while Grace
chose what she wanted for Benji, Hannah and Carter looked at the
animals and walked around the store. Benji got a free treat at the
checkout.

“Hey, Mom,” Hannah said.
“Now that we have a dog, we can go to the dog park. Have you seen
the cute fenced-in area on Hammock Street? There’s even a sort of
playground for dogs.”

“Yeah, Benji would
surfingly
love it!”
Carter said.

“We can’t really say he’s
our dog,” Annie said. “But whatever you want to do today is OK with
me. How about you, Grandma?”

“Let’s do it!” Grace
said.

“Yay!” Carter squealed in a
way Annie hadn’t heard in a long time.

“If we take him to the dog
park, maybe someone will recognize him, or maybe we’ll see a lost
dog sign,” Hannah said. “I didn’t see any at the pet
store.”

“Good point,” Annie
said.

Back at home, Grace filled
Benji’s new bowls with food and water and found that he was fine
with having a collar around his neck
—
a bright Christmas red. As a thank
you to Angel, Grace placed a new dog bed in her room so the cat
would have her own bed back.

The early-morning chill had
warmed to a comfortable temperature, and Annie and Hannah had to
take off their jackets. When she looked for Lon to tell him they
were leaving, Annie found him and Ryder outside, getting ready to
put up lights.

“I thought you said it was
too late to decorate the house,” Annie said. “It’s only a few days
until Christmas.”

Lon grinned. “I changed my
mind. We’ll probably just put up a few strands
—
whatever lights we already own
that are still working. The lights for sale at stores are picked
over by now, I’m sure.”

“It will look fantastic!”
said Grace, who had come outside with Benji.

Annie, Grace, Hannah, and
Carter set off again, this time to the dog park. There were four
other dogs at the park already with their families. The kids
bounded up to the gate, while Grace and Benji followed with Annie
behind.

“What do you think, Benji?”
Grace asked. “How about some play time with some new
friends?”

Benji sniffed all around
the park. He stopped now and then to perk up his ears. The kids
stayed close to him, with Carter repeatedly telling Benji to run up
the ramps, leap through the ring, go through the tunnel and play
with the other parts of the playground. Benji, however, decided on
his own course.

Annie and Grace settled on
a bench. Then Grace suddenly sat up straight and
squinted.

“What is it?” Annie
asked.

“That woman,” Grace said.
“She looks like one of my nieces.” Grace continued to stare.
“Probably not. I haven’t seen the kids since they were teenagers.”
Grace smiled and winked at Annie. “I’m going to get a closer look
just to be sure.”

Grace crossed to the other
side of the park, dodging a poodle along the way. The woman she had
been studying had short, sleek hair and was with a petite girl who
looked a little older than Hannah. There was a retriever with them,
drinking water from a small bowl.

“Is this your friend?”
Grace said with a smile.

“Yes,” said the woman,
running her hand along the retriever’s back.

“Just beautiful,” Grace
said. “I knew a family that had a retriever. They lived in
Dunedin.” Grace shook her head. There were bound to be lots of
families with retrievers in Dunedin. She should have said something
more detailed, she thought, but she pressed on. “I don’t suppose
you ever lived there?” Grace looked into the woman’s eyes and
smiled.

“Yes, a long time ago.” The
woman looked away and shifted her weight. “I’m not sure if my
family had a retriever then, though.”

“Oh.” Grace held out her
hand for the dog to sniff. “After having a stroke, I’m not too sure
of myself sometimes. I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you
were my niece, Lisa, all grown up.” She looked at the girl with
her. “And with her own daughter too. Those are two of my
grandchildren over there, with Benji,” she said, turning her head
to look at them, “and my daughter-in-law there on the
bench.”

“Wait a minute,” the woman
said. She leaned forward. “Aunt … Grace?”

Grace’s laugh burst out of
her body like a canon. “It’s you? It’s really you.” She reached out
to wrap her arm around Lisa’s shoulders. “I can’t believe
it.”

Soon, Annie, Hannah, and
Carter joined them to see what was going on. They met Lisa and her
daughter, Maia. Even Benji and the retriever, Lola, sniffed each
other and wagged their tails.

Grace explained that after
her sister, Marie, had died and her husband Peter took the children
to his hometown in North Carolina, he stopped returning phone calls
and sending cards
—
she didn’t know what had happened to the family. Lisa said
her father had passed away, but her brother and sisters were fine
and living scattered around North Carolina and Florida. Lisa had
returned to Florida to go to college, married her college
boyfriend, started a business and had Maia. They had lived in town
for five years.

“All this time, and you
were living just miles away!” Grace said. “I wish I had known
earlier. Oh, it’s so wonderful to find you!”

“It’s because of Benji,”
Carter said. “This is the first time we’ve had a dog,” he explained
to Lisa and Maia.

“And so it’s our first time
at a dog park,” Hannah said.

“Benji is a great dog. He
even helped me get home last night when I got lost!” Carter
said.

“What a great dog,” Maia
said.

“Yes, but let’s remember we
need to check to make sure another family isn’t looking for him,”
Annie said.

“I guess you could say
Benji found us,” Grace said.

“I have a friend who is a
local veterinarian,” Lisa said. “I can ask if she has heard about
anyone looking for a dog.”

“Wonderful!” Grace said.
“And we should put up some signs around town.”

Annie, Grace, and Lisa
exchanged phone numbers. Lisa said she would call after she talked
to the vet. She hugged Grace and told her they should get together
soon.

“Just wait until my son,
Lon, finds out he has a cousin nearby!” Grace said.

Carter played with Benji
while Grace and Lisa got caught up some more, and Hannah and Maia
chatted about dogs. Annie took in the whole scene, which wouldn’t
have happened if she had stuck to her to-do list. She pulled her
phone out of her purse, curious about what exactly she was supposed
to be doing right now. But did she really want to know? Or would it
just make her feel guilty for not completing some task? She looked
at Grace, Hannah, and Carter, and at Lisa and Maia. Everyone was
smiling. Even Benji and Lola appeared to smile.
No
, thought Annie,
this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing
right now
.

Finding Miracles

Ryder unwound a string of
outdoor lights from a spool. At the other end of the string, Lon
stood on a ladder. He carefully hooked the string on a row of nails
sticking into the wood along the roofline.

“So you put those nails
there? A long time ago?” Ryder asked.

“Yep,” Lon answered, not
looking down. “That’s how I put the lights up. No fancy light clips
for me. Now you know all my secrets.”

“So how do people put
lights over their roof? And how do they time the lights to flash
with music? How do you know how many lights you need? I wish we had
a ton of lights! Let’s do that, Dad! Like the house around the
corner with all the inflatables and the penguins on a ferris wheel
and elves on a see-saw. Can we do that?”

Lon laughed. “Maybe if we
started in June! Not four days before Christmas.”

“Oh. Well let’s do it next
year, then. Can we?”

“We’ll see,” Lon
said.

Ryder groaned. “That means
no, but maybe
someday
….”

Ryder shifted his weight
and tried to make sure there was enough slack in the string of
lights, the way Lon had told him. So maybe his family wasn’t going
to have the best lights on the block. But until today, Ryder
thought they weren’t going to have any lights again this year. Now
he was making it happen. Well, and his dad too. Ryder was happy his
dad asked him to help with the lights. Ryder could have gone to the
dog park with the rest of the family, but he could play with Benji
any time
— un
less
they found he belonged to someone else.

“Putting up lights is
special,” Ryder said then. “I mean, you know. And then you turn the
lights on at night, and it’s like magic. Like Disney World. It’s a
good sign.”

“A good sign? Of what?” Lon
backed down the ladder to move it over a few feet.

Ryder shrugged. “That you
and Mom are happy.” He said it almost like a question.

Lon raised his eyebrows but
said nothing. He climbed back up the ladder.

“It’s because you were
worried about Carter last night, right?” Ryder asked. “You and Mom
are happy he came home.”

“Probably,” Lon
said.

His dad was usually
easygoing, but his mom was often uptight, stressed, and
worried
—
and not
just at Christmas time as she claimed. Today she was different.
Ryder had gotten donuts
and
a compliment from her this morning. Maybe her
good mood would last just for one day, but it was still a nice
change. Now he was putting up lights with his dad, and he didn’t
have school for two weeks. Things were looking up. All Ryder needed
now was a new skateboard and the two video games on his wish list,
and he would be the happiest kid in the world. Or at least the
city.

“Hey, Ry, almost done here
with these lights. You want to go into the attic to look for any
other boxes of decorations?”

“OK.” Ryder went up the
ladder that unfolded from the ceiling of the garage. His dad had
left the light on at the top of the ladder, hanging inside the
attic. If it had been dark up there? No way.

Ryder ignored the spider
webs and smell of mildew. He scanned the row of cardboard boxes and
plastic totes, reading the labels on them that were hand-written by
his parents. None of them were marked “Christmas” or “holiday.” But
Ryder did see a box with his name on it. He sat on his heels and
opened it.

Inside the box were his
old baby toys. Mostly Ryder saw worn-out plush animals. There were
also a plastic barn, a set of stacking blocks, and a few books that
had tiny teeth marks on the frayed edges. Gross! But the chunky,
bright green train is what really caught his attention. It looked
like it would move when you pushed a button
—
but it needed batteries. Ryder
sort of remembered playing with the train. It made train sounds.
And you could put cargo in the train car behind the engine. He
picked it up and opened the train car door. Then he gasped at what
was in his train.

Ryder eased down the ladder
with the train in his hand and held it up to Lon. “Dad, look! This
was in my old toy train.”

Lon squinted into Ryder’s
train car. His mouth fell open. “I’ll be darned. Huh.” He smiled at
Ryder. “This is … so incredible, you have no idea. Thank you, son.”
Lon pocketed the special cargo. “Let’s make this our secret
surprise. Right? Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Ryder said. “I
love surprises! What do you have in mind?”

- - - - -

There were no more lights
or decorations, so Ryder packed away the empty light spools while
Lon put away the ladder. Annie drove up in her wagon a few moments
later.

“Lon!” Grace said as she
hurried out of the vehicle.

“What’s the matter?” he
asked. “You’re out of breath. Take it easy. Are you all right?” His
mother couldn’t be having another stroke, or else Annie would have
been upset. In fact, Lon thought, Annie looked pretty happy at the
moment. So did Hannah and Carter, who were getting out of the wagon
with Benji. “Do you want to sit down?” he asked.