When we reach the office door, reality bears down upon me. Maybe it comes from a lifetime of trying to make myself likable enough for my parents to want me around—but the thought of doing anything to make myselflesslikable to Callie feels so stressful it’s tangible. It’s a thickness surrounding me I’m forced to wade through.
I push through it and open the door.
To find my dad sitting at my desk already, the computer powered on and the small desk light shining over him.
He shoots a look over his shoulder and something passesover his face before he gives me a relieved laugh. “Oh good. I’m glad you’re here, Gav. I can’t get into this thing. Why do you need a password? You live alone.”
“Old habit, I reckon.” My feet won’t move. The room is dark except for where my dad is sitting, the pool of yellow light falling over his face and making the bags under his eyes look heavier. His initial expression flashed too quickly for me to catch it, but something about it leaves me with a strange uneasiness. “Did you need something?”
“Your mum is watching one of those Christmas movies on the telly, so I thought I’d start on my book.”
“Oh, of course.” Still, I don’t move.
“I can’t wait to hear the foreword,” Callie says, slipping past me into the room. “Your adventures sound incredible.”
“We’ve met some of the most wonderful people. You’ll be so amazed.”
“I’ll be first in line when it hits shelves.” The way she says it, I totally believe her.
Dad looks between us. “Were you coming in here for the computer?”
That wasn’t the initial plan, but currently, I feel a little uneasy granting him total access. I can’t put my finger on why, but something doesn’t feel right. From the moment he and Mum arrived, things have felt strange, and I have the impression I should wait.
“Actually we were. Sorry, Dad.”
“No, no. Dinna fash yourself. I’ll just go watch that program with your mum.” He passes us and we step out of the way for him to leave the office.
“Good night, Dad.”
“Good night.”
After he leaves, I close the door and turn the light on. The drawings are done with pencil on sketch paper, with a few on my iPad that I don’t feel the need to bring out yet. “These arerough, Callie.”
“I’m not an artist. I would probably find your stick figures impressive, okay?”
“I don’t draw stick figures.”
“See, you’re already ahead.”
Shaking my head, I sit at the desk and pull out my notepad, then flip to the page I started on today. The plump little bird is standing on the edge of a snow-covered pine, watching two children—a lad and a lass. When they move through the trees, the bird peeks around the branch, then hops to another to watch the kids.
Each scene is the children taking the sled higher up the hill through the trees and the bird follows, watching them giggle and play. Then the bird tries to join the children on the sled.
Callie sits against the edge of my desk. She reads each page with the bird’s thoughts as it follows the kids. I move to the final page and it stops.
“What happens next?”
“I’m still figuring that out.”
She leans her hands back on the desk. “You don’t know?”
“Every story is different. Some of them come to me all at once and others are in bits.” I rub the back of my neck. “What do you think?”
“I love the bird. He looks so lonely, and I want to point him out to the kids. It’s like they don’t even see him.”
Am I that obvious? Leaning back in my chair, I look at Callie and nod. “He wants to join them, but he can’t. He’s a bird and they’re people.”
“If they invite him, he could sit on the front of the sled and ride down the hill with them.”
