Dancing Through the Snow (18 page)

18

“Y
OU KNOW WHAT, JESSAMYN,”
Jess said a few days after the concert, “I think we get along almost too well.”

Min, who was busy drawing a picture of the dogs, was startled.

“What …?” she began.

“Well, I read once that Anne Shirley is much too sunny to have gone through such an unhappy time before coming to live with the Cuthberts at Green Gables,” she said. “The writer claimed that Anne showed no trauma, and she should have. But you and I are happy too. Maybe we are about due some trauma.”

Min snorted and went back to her picture. Anne Shirley was a bit of a nut, she thought, always mixing up bottles. She was fun, though, and Min liked her being happy-go-lucky.

“If Anne were real —” Jess began again.

“She seemed real to me,” Min said and held up her drawing for an opinion.

At the end of the first week in March, Jess told Min that Toby and his family would be coming over for supper on Saturday.

“It’s the twins’ birthday,” she said. “Laura plans and runs the children’s party and I put on a family dinner afterward. They’ll be five this year. She’s done a Year of the Horse theme for them at home, with a pair of those big, bouncy rocking horses on springs for presents, a cake with a horse on top and a bunch of horsey videos. I’ll bet you’re broken-hearted that you and I weren’t invited.”

Min laughed, but she felt a pang of disappointment too. She probably would have found it babyish, but she had never attended such a party. In all her several foster homes, she had somehow missed out on them and she herself had no idea what her own birthdate was. The Children’s Aid had given her August first, the date she was found. But, to Min, it was the date on which she was abandoned too, and she hated it. She had never felt it was a day to celebrate, although by the time she was old enough to have explained this to Mrs. Willis, she knew she would be invited to choose another one, and there was no other date she felt was special.

I don’t even know if my mother bothered to take me home from the hospital, she thought bitterly. I’ll bet she didn’t.

As she helped set the table for the twins’ dinner, Min felt a small seed of resentment take root inside her. She stamped it under and began to fold the special napkins. They had prancing ponies on them, she noticed. So Jess wasn’t as scornful of Laura’s decorations as she pretended.

She asked Jess if Grace and Margaret could be trusted not to terrorize Emily, and Jess said they definitely could not.

“Take Emily and her bed up to the attic. She can stay there until they’ve gone,” she said. “We can hook that door shut — they aren’t tall enough to undo it. We had it put in as soon as they began to toddle about.”

Emily struggled, but once she was put in her own bed, she settled down and lay still.

“I’ll come for you the moment they go,” Min promised and went back down.

Everything went as well as could be expected. The little girls, in ruffled dresses, were smiled at and fussed over. The rocking horses had been an enormous success, although Laura claimed that, if she had known they neighed, she would have looked for something quieter.

“They make a racket when they are bouncing backwards and forwards too,” Baxter remarked, gazing at his lovely but noisy daughters. The twins ignored this and continued to make a huge mess of the table, spilling juice and mushing up the devilled eggs they were supposed to adore.

“Min and Toby will clear away the dishes and bring in the dessert,” Jess said. “You’d better stay on your chairs, girls, if you want some ice cream.”

Grace and Margaret, who had been sliding under the table, scrambled back up and resumed their angel faces. They spilled ice cream and they crumbled cake. Nobody said a cross word to them. Min, who could tell they were being bad on purpose to embarrass their parents, longed to smack them, but knew she would never be forgiven.

“Maggot is
so
bad,” Grace said after Margaret dipped her finger in the chocolate syrup and tried to draw on the tablecloth with it.

Everyone but Min laughed.

After the candles were blown out and the feasting was over, Toby and his stepfather drove the twins, kicking and screaming, home to their babysitter, and went on to attend a peaceful basketball game. Min was left at home with Laura and Jess.

“Let’s go and gab in the living room,” Jess said to her friend. “Min can deal with this mess.”

Min did not mind usually. She knew how to operate the dishwasher, and the dishes they had used for the first course were already in the kitchen. She would only have to clear away the ice cream bowls and cake plates.

But she caught the look Toby’s mother shot at her, as though she had doubts about trusting Min with the job. She also did not like the way Jess had announced she would take care of things. As though there was no need to say please, no need to ask.

Now I’m a scullery maid, she thought, like poor Becky in
A Little Princess.
Ever since she had read the book last year, she had felt Becky and she were fellow sufferers.

As the women left, she began to clear away the dessert bowls, making as much noise as she dared. Then she remembered Emily shut upstairs. Leaving the dishes half stacked, she climbed to the attic. Emily looked pleased to see her. Min lifted her out of the small fleece-lined bed and ran down to Jess’s room with it. An instant later, she was back to collect Emily before she could panic. The little dog was so relieved to see her that she did not even struggle to jump out of Min’s arms, but licked her ear fondly on their way down the stairs.

Min left her back in the bed. Putting off the dishwashing job a few minutes longer, she tiptoed up the hall to check on Cassie, who had been asleep in Min’s room after fleeing from the Dittos’ overly rough petting. She moved as quietly as she could, not wanting to interrupt the women gossiping.

As she neared the door into the living room, she stopped short. She had just heard Laura’s cool voice say, “I still don’t understand what made you take in that girl, Jess. I remember clearly that you said you had no intention of adopting a baby after Greg died. If you wanted household help —”

“Min is not here to give me household help,” Jess snapped. “Neither is she a baby, in case you haven’t noticed.

Min did not want to eavesdrop on this conversation but, as she eased backwards, she could not help catching the next few words.

“I know her story,” Laura said frostily. “Tobias is up in arms about it. But it still seems risky. You know nothing about her background.”

“You sound just like Mrs. Lynde in
Anne of Green Gables
,” Jess said, decidedly annoyed now. “Next thing you’ll be telling me she’ll murder us all in our beds, too.”

Min stood in the shadowy hall fighting for breath. Then she silently opened her bedroom door, slid through, closed it behind her as soundlessly as she could and lay face down on the bed.

“I won’t clean up their mess,” she hissed into Cassie’s sympathetic ear. “I won’t and she can’t make me. I hate that Laura. I’m not Jess’s slave. I am tired and I didn’t invite them over. I don’t feel like cleaning up after such brats. Why should I?”

She lay curled into a ball, silently fuming at everyone she knew. A few minutes later she heard the two women laugh and she was positive they were laughing at her. She gritted her teeth and waited for Laura to leave. Finally, she heard the front door open and Jess calling farewell. She turned her back to the door and closed her eyes tightly. Let Jess come in and check. She, Min, would be sleeping.

Jess knocked softly.

Min did not stir. Cassie gave a short yip, but hushed.

Jess opened the door a crack, peered in and without speaking or coming in further, closed it quietly.

Min still did not move hand or foot but she strained her ears. What would Jess do next? Time crawled by. There was no clink of dishes, no whir of the dishwasher. She sneaked a quick look at her watch and went on waiting. At eleven o’clock, feeling her eyelids growing heavy, she could not stand it another minute. She slipped out her door and peered across the hall into the living room.

Jess was sitting in her reclining chair, still fully dressed, and she appeared to be sound asleep.

Min stood and stared at her. Was she faking — the way Min herself had done earlier? Apparently not. After another full minute, Min tiptoed down the hall. The dirty dessert dishes still sat on the dining table just where she had left them.

Moving without a sound, Min carried them out to the kitchen. Then she loaded the dishwasher. She put in the detergent. She almost turned it on and decided the noise would wake Jess. She went back to check on her.

The reclining chair was empty. Min stood stock still and stared at it for a long moment. Then she went back down the hall to Jess’s bedroom door and opened it a crack. Jess was in bed. Her back was turned to the door. Min could have sworn she was not asleep, but she was doing a good imitation, breathing deeply and evenly. Then she gave a gentle snore.

That snore was definitely phony.

Choking with laughter, Min backed out and took herself to bed. She was asleep again before she had a chance to think the evening over. The only thing she noticed was that she had stopped being mad.

She woke when Jess called her to breakfast. Min hesitated, then went down the hall to face her foster mother.

“Good morning, Jessamyn,” Jess said.

Their eyes met.

And, the next instant, they were collapsing in a fit of mutual laughter.

“But I am
not
household help!” Min got out.

“That’s what I told Laura,” Jess said. “But you
were
, you know! Thank you so much. You worked like a Trojan — and so silently.”

And the hug she gave Min made up for everything.

A little later, as they ate, Jess said in a voice that was both serious and amused, “Do you think we’ve done it now?”

Min took a spoonful of raspberry jam and then looked up. “Done what?”

“That trauma we were failing to have?”

Min put down her knife and stared straight at her. “Maybe,” she said steadily, “but Laura doesn’t like me — and I am not keen on her either.”

“Laura gets mad at me too. She feels I somehow stole her baby from her, even though she did not want him at the time. I suppose she now thinks you might be stealing me from Toby. Oh, who knows? She’s not an easy friend to have. But, prickly or not, I’m stuck with her unless I want to lose Toby.”

Jess’s voice halted. Min bit into the toast while she thought over what she had just heard. She found she knew exactly what Jess meant. She didn’t want to lose Toby either.

“I guess we’re both stuck with her then,” she said quietly.

Jess rose and leaned over to give her a swift hug. Her words, when they came, were husky.

“Bless you, my Min,” she said.

19

M
ARCH WAS ALMOST OVER
when Jess mentioned, in a quiet, steady voice, that Emily was looking much better.

“While you were at school, I took her to see Jack,” she said, reaching to stroke the little dog curled up next to her chair. “She weighs almost ten pounds now and her mouth is healed. No more colitis. She’s eating like a regular dog too. I actually offered her a bite of egg this morning and she gobbled it down.”

Min stared out the window and said nothing. She knew what Jess meant. She had been expecting it. But she wasn’t ready.

“She’s still strange,” she got out after a couple of minutes had crawled by.

“Perhaps she always will be,” Jess said. “But she is very lovable, isn’t she? It’s up to you, Min. You found her and it is because of you that she’s well now. But you do have Cassie and I think Miss Hazlitt is lonely. She would doubtless deny it, but that is my guess.”

“What if Emily ran out again and got caught by those people or by a coyote …?”

“I thought we could make sure that Miss Hazlitt’s backyard is fenced to keep Em safe. You think about it, honey. There’s no rush. Remember, Miss Hazlitt still has no idea we have her.”

Min thought about Cassie suddenly. What if her darling Cass was lost and, instead of returning her, the people who found her kept her? She loved Emily, but Cassie was hers in a way Emily had never been. Cassie knew Min was her person.

Did Emily feel that way about the old lady?

Min remembered how Miss Hazlitt’s voice had cracked when she spoke about Daisy. She knew then that it was settled. Daisy was going back.

They called to make sure Miss Hazlitt would be home the following day. Toby wanted to come. When he told his family, the twins begged to be included.

“Definitely not,” Toby said.

“I think not,” Jess said when he told them. “It’s going to be stressful enough without their shenanigans.”

Min wondered if it was really settled, but hoped for the best. Then Laura called Jess to ask if she could possibly take the little girls for the afternoon because she had been invited to go to a book club. Min could hear her voice, sweet as pie. “I can’t think what the fuss is all about, but whatever you are planning, they are dying to be included. And their regular babysitter is away, I’m afraid. I can stay home, of course, but …”

Jess sighed and gave in.

“I know when I’m beaten,” she told Toby and Min, who were watching her with accusing eyes.

“How did the twins find out?” Min asked.

Toby growled that trying to keep anything secret at his house was absolutely impossible. “They eavesdrop,” he said as though that were the worst sin he could think of.

Min’s eyes met Jess’s and they both smiled.

Jess went on to say she thought maybe Laura really did need a break.

“Miss Hazlitt enjoys children,” she added, grinning at their matching scowls. “And you’ve told her so much about the twins’ exploits. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

Min got out of the van and began to carry Emily to the cottage, with Cassie trotting at her heels. Toby followed her, leaving Grace and Margaret playing outside for the moment.

“Remember,” Jess said, “you promised to do as you are told. Toby will come and fetch you when it’s time.”

When the door opened, the old lady stared at the fluffy little dog cradled in Min’s arms. She did not speak until she had reseated herself in her armchair.

“That looks like Daisy,” she said then, in a voice that was almost a whisper. “At least, her face does. Daisy was mostly bones.”

Min took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She looked at Jess and then at Toby, who had picked up Cassie and now held her fast against his chest. Cassie was given to fits of jealousy when Min showed too much fondness for Lady Emily.

Finally, Min burst out with the speech she had been rehearsing inside her head all the way there. “She is your Daisy,” she whispered, unable to speak aloud and keep her voice steady. “She never meant to leave you. She’s just beginning to learn the world is a good place … and you … you were her first teacher.”

She stepped forward and put the quivering dog down on the old lady’s lap. Emily astonished everyone by tucking her head under Miss Hazlitt’s arm and wagging her tail like a wildly excited feather duster.

“Look at her! She’s so happy,” Jess said, trying to be brisk, and failing. “And she has done a great good work with all her suffering — she has led the authorities to clean up that … that miserable hole where she lived at first.”

“Oh, Daisy …” Miss Hazlitt said, her voice husky with tears.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” Toby broke in, his tone low and ominous, “but the Dittos are advancing. I heard them plan their strategy. They are going to claim to have frostbite from having to stay out in the cold. Shall I try to turn them back? It’s like attempting to reverse Niagara Falls, but I’ll give it my best shot if you say so.”

Shrieks sounded outside the cottage door. Emily burrowed deeper into the wide chair so that only the tip of her tail end was visible. It no longer waved so joyfully and she had begun to tremble.

“Oh, the poor darlings, let them in,” Miss Hazlitt said, all smiles. She had not yet met Grace and Margaret, only heard tales of their wickedness.

She would soon see, Min thought.

“Tobe, put Cass down,” she yelled. “She’ll distract them for a minute at least.”

Toby bent and released a frantic Cassie, who whipped around and raced to meet the twins, yapping bossily and letting herself be mauled in place of her timid friend.

Jess had gone out and now returned with a pot of six daffodil bulbs just coming into bloom.

“Spring is almost here,” she said, “so we’ll celebrate. All animals celebrate new families in spring.”

But it wasn’t quite spring yet.

Going home without Emily robbed the afternoon of most of its magic. For such a small, quiet dog who seldom stirred, her absence left an enormous hole in their lives. For Emily it was a happy ending, and they kept telling one another so. But Cassie searched for her often and watched for her return at the front window whenever Min was absent. Even Jess kept reaching down her hand to stroke the soft ears and looking bereft when her fingers found only space. Only Miss Maude Motley seemed untroubled at the disappearance of Lady Emily.

“Don’t you miss her, Maude?” Min asked.

Maude purred and licked her whiskers and kept her feelings to herself.

“I don’t think there is such a beast as a sentimental cat,” Jess said, looking down at her. “Never mind. Hard hearts are restful. No need to mop up Maudie’s tears.”

Min laughed, but all the while she was fighting to quell a fear that had crept into her heart. Jess had made that solemn promise. But what if Jess found another foundling, someone needing her desperately?

Ask her,
she told herself.
Why not just ask her outright?

But she couldn’t risk it.

The weather began to warm a little and the wind had the smell of earth and growing things. Then, in April, fresh snow fell. Everyone groaned as usual, everybody but Min. She stared out the front window at the starry flakes swirling down, and smiled.

It had been snowing just like this the day she had gazed up at the family statue in the square and, minutes later, had snatched Grace before she dashed out into traffic. It was snowing still when Jess had kidnapped her and taken her home and she had had her first real Christmas.

Standing at the window, watching the feathery flakes drifting down, she remembered the limp paper snowflakes taped up on the wall of the waiting room outside Mrs. Willis’s office. Some of them had looked so pathetic. She had still never tried to make one. She should.

She went to the dining room and pulled open the drawer where she and Jess kept art supplies, and dug out some tissue paper and a pair of sharp scissors. Sitting down at the big dining table, she started folding the paper the way she thought she had seen a woman doing it on television. Then, concentrating so hard she chewed her tongue, she carefully cut through the thicknesses of white. When she had made diamond-shaped holes and triangles and half a ring of what might be daisy petals, she put the scissors down and unfolded what she had created. Her snowflake was perfect.

“Up, up and away,” she whispered, tossing it lightly into the air. It floated slowly down, turning as it fell.

“Wow!” Toby said from behind her.

Min whirled to face him. She had not heard him come in. Having no idea how changed her expression was from the sullen scowl she had worn when they were first introduced, she was mystified by his wondering stare. But she was too pleased with herself to waste time puzzling out its meaning.

“Neat, isn’t it?” she said with delight. “I’ve never made one before.”

“It’s cool,” he said, “but if you want to please the Dittos you’ll have to learn how to make rows of joined children. Here. I’ll show you.”

She watched while he folded and snipped and then strung them out, a lineup of little paper girls holding hands and pointing their toes in a dancing row.

“Wow!” Min said, echoing his praise.

Then she laughed and carried the row of cut-outs to the steamed-up window pane. She pressed them against the wet surface so they stuck. The dancers stepped across the window in a festive line.

“Dancing through the snow,” she said.

Toby laughed.

“They won’t stay. You’ll have to use tape when the glass dries,” he said. “By the way, Jess has invited me to dinner. She’s all excited about celebrating something, but she wouldn’t tell me the reason. Is it your birthday or what?”

Min looked at him, wondering if he was teasing, or if he had forgotten that she had no idea when her real birthday was. But before she could decide, they both heard the front door open and Jess and Sybil Willis came in, shedding their boots and coats as they greeted Cassie and Maude.

“What’s the big celebration all about?” Toby demanded.

Jess looked at him and shook her head. “You wait until Min and I have a chance to talk. We won’t be ready for fireworks until she’s heard my news and given her verdict.”

Min wanted to show off her paper snowflake, but something in Jess’s words made her hesitate. If she had not known better, she would have thought Jess was feeling shy. Nervous even. She closed the scissors and dropped them into her patch pocket.

“In here,” Jess said, leading the way into the front room. Then she turned on the gas fire and sat down beside it. She seemed not only shy, but speechless.

Mrs. Willis seated herself quietly on the couch and Toby, his gaze moving from face to face, settled next to her.

Min stood for a moment, her breath stopping and then starting up again. Then she perched on the edge of the rocking chair. Without being aware of what she did, she kept the chair still by bracing her right foot against the floor. Her dark eyes searched Jess’s face for a hint of what was coming. The silence felt momentous.

They all waited for Jess to break it and explain.

Suddenly, words spilled out of Jessica Hart’s mouth, shaking words, excited and tumbling on top of each other.

“I want to adopt you, Min, if you are willing. You are my foster daughter now and you will go on being that even if you choose not to be legally adopted, but I want you to be my own girl, one that nobody can steal away.”

Min stared at her, stupefied by what she thought she had heard. Could she be mistaken? Could the lie she had told Penny not be a lie after all? Was her deepest secret wish going to come true?

“Your new name would be Jessamyn Randall Hart, but, needless to say, you would still be Min.” Jess stopped to clear her throat. Then she blurted, “What do you say? Oh, Min, will we do it?”

Min still stared at her, but her breath quickened and her dark eyes widened and shone.

“Are you serious?” she croaked at last.

“I am,” Jess said, laughing. “One does not joke about acquiring legal, lifelong daughters. I had to do a lot of talking and filling out forms to get this process started. I may have begun by snatching you from Sybil’s office, but they won’t let me get away with no red tape twice. Miracles take some doing, I’ll have you know. But it is still up to you, Min. Maybe you should take time to think it over. There’s no rush. It’s a big step.” The tremble in her rapid-fire voice denied her sensible words. Her cheeks were flushed and her hands, clutching some papers, shook.

Min grinned at her. She stood up and took a step toward Jess, as though to give her an enormous hug. Then she spun around instead and fled down the hall, through the kitchen and along the narrow hall into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

“What on earth?” Sybil Willis said, looking startled. “Shall I go …?”

“Don’t you dare move,” Jess Hart told her. “Don’t speak either. Just wait and see what she’s up to. I’ll bet it will be totally unexpected. You can trust our girl to do something spectacular.”

Then they heard rapid footsteps approaching. A girl nobody recognized at first appeared in the living room door and danced over to Sybil Willis.

“Here you are, dear Mrs. Willis,” Min said shakily. “I don’t need this to hang onto any longer. I know who I am. I have a last name now and a real mother.”