“WHICH DO YOU like better?” Amy asked. “The purple dolphin or the pink duck?”
“Here’s the fun part,” said Susan, ruffling her daughter’s silky hair. “We can get both.”
They were at the Soave Faire Craft Store in Glens Falls, picking out beads so Amy could make a necklace like her friend Kate’s. These long, leisurely Sunday afternoons together after church were Susan’s favorite part of the week.
“Are they expensive?” Amy asked, her big brown eyes open wide.
Susan hated that her seven-year-old went straight to “expensive.” “Nope a dope,” she said. “Get as many as you want.”
So they bought a hundred beads, and as they left the store Amy jumped up and down with excitement. “We got eleven animals and eleven and a half different colors!” she crowed. Susan had been a quiet, shy girl herself, and she thought, Where did this little bundle of energy come from? Not that she was complaining.
They went next door to Baskin-Robbins for jamoca almond fudge. “Is it expensive?” Amy asked.
Good grief. “No worries,” Susan said. “Let’s get double scoops.”
Danny hadn’t sold a house in two months, and clearly Amy was feeling the tension. But his luck would turn around—it always did. Hopefully today’s open house was going well.
After they had every last lick of their gigantic ice cream cones—the teenage girl at the counter, charmed by Amy, had given them extra big scoops—they got into Susan’s Dodge Dart and drove back home through the Adirondack foothills. It was early April and the trees were starting to bud.
“Mommy, why do frogs croak?” Amy asked.
“That’s how they find girlfriends.”
Amy giggled. “No, really.”
“I’m serious. That’s their way of saying, ‘I’m looking for looooove.’” She drew out the word really long, and Amy thought that was hilarious. For the rest of the trip, they tried to outdo each other with how long they could make looooove last.
“I looooooooove you,” Amy said.
“I loooooooooooove you more than the moon looooooooooooves the stars,” Susan replied.