Page 97 of Keeping the Score

What is it?

FORD

Come over here.

ANDI

Come over here…?

FORD

(eye roll emoji) Please

I grin and save what I’m working on, then go next door. I walk in and breathe in the fresh evergreen aroma, and then I see my little tree… and another huge one. My mouth drops open and I look over at Ford, who laughs. “See?”

I tilt my head and walk closer. “Did you get a tree, too?”

“Yeah. The social media guy was asking us who puts their tree up first, and I realized I don’t even have a tree, or ornaments. I’ve never bothered. So I picked up a tree on the way home.”

I bite my lip. “Great minds think alike.”

“Apparently.”

“I can take my tree to my place.”

“Okay. Then you can have one there, too.”

“I bought ornaments but not enough for that tree.” It’s a six-foot Douglas fir.

“We can get more. Let’s go shopping.”

“I just did that!” I protest, but I’m laughing.

So we make another trip back to the garden center where he bought the tree. Tilly’s in the sling on his front as he shows her ornaments and adds them to the cart which is soon full of all kinds of décor for the tree, including a “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament that makes my throat clog with emotion. I hide one ornament from him, and pay for it myself on the way out.

Then we go home to decorate.

Home. Tohishome. Notourhome. I’m getting all sentimental and soft again. I have to be careful. How much longer do we have? It’s been three months since Willa left Tilly here, and she has to be coming back soon. And then what? When Tilly’s gone, Ford won’t need me anymore. Our arrangement will end. We’ll go back to being friends. Or maybe not even that.

Tilly seems entranced by the lights and sparkly things, bouncing in her seat as we decorate, and Ford helps her “hang” a few things. We lose one ornament when she grabs it off the tree before he can stop her and hurls it to the floor.

We look at each other with “yikes” faces, then burst out laughing.

It’s hard not to feel the spirit of the season, a sense of togetherness and shared traditions and new traditions. Joy.

But I have to be careful.

That’s why I go home to sleep in my own bed tonight.

29

FORD

I get the text from Willa just as I’m going on the ice for a morning skate before we leave for Columbus. I don’t have time to reply, so I chuck my phone in my locker. Is she going to put off coming back for Tilly again? I don’t know if that’s what I want or what I don’t want. What I do know is that I’m kind of pissed off at her. But I put that aside as I jump onto the ice and focus on Pete, our goalie coach. He has me and Bender together at one end of the ice. Pete’s in the net demonstrating what he wants us to do.

“Now we’re going east–west on our feet. Then back in, down to the goal line, and right out again… and east–west, this time at the top of the paint.”

I nod, taking in everything he says. I respect him as a goalie coach and he’s been a great mentor to me, even talking to Victor about his training plans for me. I go into the net and go through the motions he described. I’m quick on picking up things like that, maybe because of all the taekwondo patterns I’ve learned. Then I watch Bender do the same, helping him.

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