Page 77 of Finding Amanda

"Iced tea. Want some?"

"Desperately." She walked around the bed and handed it to him. He grabbed the glass and gulped the liquid down. "Thank you. This is grueling work."

"Right. I'm sure it's right up there with roofing a house."

"Worse." He set the glass on the nightstand, where it joined his tall reading lamp. His alarm clock and Bible hadn't adorned the table in over a month. "I know how to roof a house. This is?—"

"Unbelievable," she said. "Can I help?"

Hope lit his expression. "Would you mind?"

She tried to hide her smile. "No problem. Explain your, uh, system."

He ran his hand through his hair. "My system? Okay. So that pile is stuff I want to get rid of."

Amanda saw the pathetically small pile on the bed.

"And that one," he said, indicating a slightly larger pile on the floor, "is stuff I definitely want to keep."

"And what about these piles?"

"Well, this one”—he pointed to another pile of clothes nearhis feet—“I haven't gone through yet. And that one”—he pointed to a huge pile on the floor nearer her closet—“is stuff I'm not sure about."

"Wow. Hmm." She regarded the piles. "Run downstairs and get three trash bags. Let's pack up the stuff you've already gone through. Then we'll tackle that," she said, pointing to the stuff he didn't know what to do with.

"Done." He bolted for the door. She sat in front of thekeeperpile on the floor and started folding. When he'd been gone a few minutes, she began to worry he'd escaped. He wouldn't dare leave her with this mess, would he? A moment later, she heard him pounding back up the stairs. He entered the room with a handful of black trash bags in one hand, two candy bars in the other. "We have to keep our strength up."

"You're stealing candy from your own kids?" she said in mock horror.

"Don't worry." He dropped the bags and closed the bedroom door. "I'm pretty sure they don't like these."

She grabbed the candy and tore the brown paper. "Sophie does, but I won't tell if you don't."

Amanda set Mark to work putting thegiveawaypile in a plastic bag while she neatly folded the clothes in thekeeperpile and set them in another bag. They worked in companionable silence, Amanda lost in her thoughts as she folded each garment. Memories flitted through her mind with each piece.

She lifted a long-sleeved rugby shirt she'd never liked, preparing to fold it when she froze. Beneath it lay a gray sweatshirt emblazoned in rainbow colors with the wordsCanobie Lake Park. Amanda dropped the rugby shirt and gently lifted the sweatshirt. Burying her face in it, she allowed the memories of that night to overtake her.

Mark had surprised her with a trip to Canobie Lake Park. It was way out of their tiny budget, but he insisted it would beworth every penny to take her on her first Ferris wheel ride. Though the day had been sunny and warm, by nightfall the temperature had dropped, and when Amanda shivered, Mark offered to buy her a sweatshirt. In the gift shop they found a huge variety of hoodies and jackets, all overpriced except a clearance table piled with old merchandise. Extra larges and larges, but no smalls. He'd suggested they look at the more expensive items, but she insisted she wanted a gray one, large, with the words Canobie Lake Park written across the front in rainbow colors.

Sweatshirt drooping on her tiny frame, they walked among the crowds, slowly making their way to the Ferris wheel. When she looked up at the ride—it had to be a hundred feet tall—her stomach knotted in a tangled mass of fear.

"I can't."

Mark offered his warmest, kindest smile. "Of course you can."

He stood beside her and held her hand as they watched the wheel turn, stop to let people off and on, and turn again.

When the man running the ride made his way toward the gate, Mark slipped inside the rat-in-a-cage maze, pulling her behind him.

Her stomach spun faster than the Ferris wheel, which turned at what looked like top speed before slowing to a stop. Four teenagers climbed out, and Mark led her forward and climbed in, not taking his hand from hers. "Come on. You can do it."

She stumbled into the tiny, plastic car and fell into his arms. The car lurched, she gasped, and Mark kissed her.

The swaying of the car, the upward movement, the wind blowing her hair. She hardly noticed those things while Mark's lips moved with hers. How could she be afraid when he was so close? And then the ride stopped, and Mark leaned away.

"Open your eyes and look," he said, his voice gruff.

Reluctantly she obeyed, gasping with shock. They were stopped at the apex. She moved closer to Mark and grabbed his T-shirt in two frightened fists as she turned behind them and peeked over the side. A thousand lights twinkled over the park. Roller coasters whipped their riders here and there. Other rides spun and twisted and flipped. Tiny people scurried like ants in and out from beneath the trees. "Oh, it's beautiful!"

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