A Child's Wish

“I have a friend whose son goes to the junior high next door and his dad’s not allowed to see him, but he wanted to give him a letter and some new crystals for his rock collection. Maybe you could deliver them for us.”

She’d already said no about her friends coming over.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Kelsey?” Mom said. “Kind of like your friend Josie helping us see each other.”

It was. Kind of. It made her feel safer to know there was a boy in the school right next door to hers who was going through the same thing she was.

“Do I have to keep it secret?”

Mom looked kind of sad for a minute. “Yeah, just for now, honey,” she said. “It’s like you and me. They’re working on being allowed to see each other for real.”

“How heavy are the crystals?”

“Light,” Don said, punching her lightly on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t ask you to carry anything heavy, squirt! They’re really more like shards of glass, except you can’t cut yourself on them. My friend says they look cool when you hold them up to different lights. I guess his son uses them for art class.”

“How many? ’Cause I don’t want my dad to figure it out.”

“We’ll split them up and do them a little bit at a time, how’s that?”

Kelsey couldn’t think of any more excuses. And if she didn’t go soon she was going to be in trouble, for sure.

“Will you do it for us, honey?” Mom asked, running her fingers through Kelsey’s ponytail.

“I guess, but us kids at Lincoln aren’t allowed to go over to the junior high, and besides, I don’t know who he is.”

“I’ll have his dad tell him to come and find you,” Don said. He left the room and Kelsey thought they were done, but her mom stood there without leaving until Don came back, carrying a little brown paper bag that would fit in the side pocket of Kelsey’s backpack.

“Here it is,” he said. “The boy’s name is Kenny and I’ll have him meet you right after school on Monday where you always meet your mom, okay?”

“’Kay.” She took the bag, glad to be almost out of there and spun toward the door.

“Wait, Kelsey, I have to ask just one thing.”

She turned back. “What?”

“It’s private stuff, between a dad and his son. So don’t open the letter, okay?”

She hadn’t been going to anyway. “I’m not a snoop,” she said and walked outside, hoping that her mom would be right behind her.

CHAPTER TEN

“HEY, MER, you dressed?”

Meredith rolled over on her bed the second Saturday in April, squinting to read the digital 7:06 that was almost too faded to see in the light of the setting sun. And then she glanced down at the sweatpants and T-shirt she’d put on after her shower around noon that day.

“Sort of.”

“Well, get dressed. I’m coming to get you.”

She took a bite of popcorn from the bowl next to her, pushing aside a couple

of books in order to sit up. “No, you aren’t. I’m journaling.”

And there was a movie on the bed, somewhere, waiting to be watched. She’d rented it.

“Your mother called.”

Damn. She hated it when her mother called Susan.