Page 13 of Please Send Snow
“In the wintertime they don’t have nice grass and leaves to eat,” Maddie tells him. “So they eat bark from trees and sticks, and anything else they can find.”
“They eatsticks?” Dylan asks, sounding thunderstruck.
“Sure,” Maddie says. “They’re just like us, they do what they have to do to survive.”
You’ve got that right, honey.
“I don’t eat sticks,” Dylan laughs.
If I were the one talking about this with Dylan I would see it as an opportunity to educate him on survival. I wait for her to talk to him about poverty and necessity.
“I’ll tell the hockey team not to worry then,” Maddie says instead.
“What?” Dylan asks her.
“I’ll tell the hockey team you won’t eat theirsticks,” she says, smiling and winking at him over her shoulder.
Dylan howls with laughter over her dumb joke, and Ican’t help smiling myself because the two of them are so happy.
As we continue up the mountainside, I think to myself that this girl is going to be good for him. Maybe he’ll even be a little better in school once she’s done with him.
I pull up the gravel driveway of our rented chalet. The scant sunlight that manages to penetrate the trees glints off the windows, but it still looks sort of unwelcoming. I don’t care though. It’s not permanent, and besides, there’s something nice about the tall trees. I’ve lived in the cities of California most of my life, but this mountain feels oddly like home for some reason.
“Wow,” Maddie says, looking up at the house.
It’s an act, of course. The Fosters probably live like kings off her father’s empire.
I pull up and park, jumping out quickly. But she’s out before I can open the door for her again, already looking around the wooded property.
“Have you seen any deer near the house?” she asks excitedly, trailing me as I open the back for Dylan.
“Not yet,” I tell her. “But we saw a fox the other day, didn’t we buddy?”
“He wassmall,” Dylan tells her, sounding just as disappointed as the day we spotted the flame-color of the fox against the brown woods.
“He was regular fox-size,” I tell Maddie. “But Dylan pictures foxes being bigger.”
“LikeThe Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Dylan says happily.
“Did your dad read you that book?” she asks him, clearly expecting him to say yes.
I didn’t read it to him, though. His nanny probably did, or maybe his mother. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t always as hands-on as I would have liked.
But everything is different now.
Dylan doesn’t reply. He’s already running for the steps up to the front door.
Maddie follows without giving me a second look, clearly taking her babysitting assignment seriously. It should be a relief. We’ve had plenty of sitters who tried to make doe eyes at me instead of minding Dylan.
But something about this girl tugs at me. I’m not sure why.
Not that it matters. Maddie Foster doesn’t need a sugar daddy. And I won’t be wasting any time with women for a while.
“Come on, Dad,” Dylan squeaks. “I want to show her my fort.”
I’m opening my mouth to tell him that Maddie is here to help him with his writing, not to play.
“Yourfort?”Maddie echoes before I have a chance.
