“That I badgered you into carrying out.”
She’s right, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving in.
“Andi,” I say, folding my arms and dredging up all the hard-won dealing-with-toddlers patience I’ve acquired in my life, “stop arguing and sled down that hill while there’s still light to do it by.”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” she says, but she takes the sled from me and plops it into the snow, aims for the hill, and begins the process of lowering herself as the sled slides around, as sleds are wont to do. “I haven’t been sledding since I was a kid,” she admits, laughing, breath puffing toward the sky. “How do you—”
“Here,” I say, and crouch to hold it still. When she gets in it puts her face six inches from mine, and it’s not as close as that night in the dark, but it feels warm despite the cold. “You want a push?” I ask when she’s in, nylon rope gripped in both hands.
“You were joking about the stumps, right?”
“I don’t think there’s any,” I tell her, down on one knee, my hand on the back of the sled behind her. Without meaning to I slide my gloved thumb along the fabric of her coat, the whisper of it so loud in the snowy quiet. “Ready?”
“Bombs away,” she says, and I push her over.
Andi shouts all the way down, a high-pitchedwooooo!that breaks through the stillness like someone opening a heavy curtain and letting the light in. When she finally comes to a stop at the bottom she’s doubled over in the sled, her forehead on her knees, and I’m about to shout down when the sound of her laughter trickles up to me.
I’m smiling. I can’t help it.
“That was great!” she shouts, standing. “See?”
“See what?”
“Sledding was a good idea!” she shouts, starting back up the hill, sled dragging behind her.
“I never said it wasn’t,” I call down, and she somehow rolls her eyes with her whole body, still tromping back up.
“Yes,” she says, when she gets to the top. “You did.” She’s out of breath, eyes bright, skin flushed as she holds out the sled rope.
“Doesn’t sound like me,” I say, and take it.
“What?” she says, swallowing like she’s trying to control her breathing. “You said it wasridiculous.”
“I wasn’t wrong.”
“You’resmiling,” she says, like I could be doing anything else when she’s this close and this happy.
“I’m allowed to smile.”
“Here,” she says, and points at the flattened snow from her sled run. “Sit. It’s your turn.”
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
ANDI
At the bottomof the sled hill, Gideon comes to a stop, then carefully leans out of the sled and plants a stick next to the nose of the sled, adding to several other stick-markers in the snow, a good twenty feet short of where the trees start again.
Then he turns back to look at me, half-rolling out of the sled, and when he’s on his knees he raises both arms into the air.
“I got it!” he shouts up at me.
“That’s not further than my last one!” I shout back.
“It’s at least two more inches,” he says, pointing at some sticks in the snow.
“I don’t believe you!”
“Come down here and check!” he says, getting to his feet and brushing the snow from his pants. I hope his ankle is okay, but he hasn’t said anything and it’s not like I can do much about it out here.
