1
Dax
Dax Walker looked around his living room and wondered if he could actually get it looking guest-ready in less than an hour.
Even if he had unlimited time, he wasn’t entirely sure it would be possible.
He had been tidying up since around six in the morning, but each time he cleaned up, the twins would sprinkle a potpourri of books, toys and foam blocks in their wake, like Hansel and Gretel in the fairy tale.
His strategy had been to work his way downstairs and backward, closing doors as he went, so that once he cleaned a room it stayed neat.
But the living space on the first floor was all open and there was no way to compartmentalize.
Right now, Mason and Maddie were chattering at each other while examining a cardboard box full of cloth dolls made by their grandmother.
At fourteen months old, a lot of what the twins said was a mystery to Dax, but they seemed to understand each other well enough to collaborate and argue.
Right now, they were thick as thieves.
“Mayyyy,” Maddie yelled happily. Her brother’s name was Mason, but she seldom attempted to say the whole thing.
Mason watched, delighted as Maddie grabbed an awkward armful of dolls and launched them at him.
“Ha,” Mason laughed. He bent over at the middle and rubbed the top of his little head on the fallen toys. This half headstand was his new trick and it always cracked his sister up.
Maddie laughed so heartily she fell down hard on her diapered bottom.
And now Dax was standing around chuckling at them instead of cleaning up.
He ran a hand through his too-long hair and smiled. He would have time for things like haircuts and a clean house when they were older.
The state of the house would have to do. If Jill’s friend judged him for having too many toys, he wasn’t going to worry about it.
“Coffee and a hot breakfast make up for a messy house,” he said to himself.
He’d gotten into the habit of talking out loud to himself when the twins were younger. The baby books all said that if you talked animatedly out loud it would make your child more interested in communicating.
Boy, were they interested in communicating now.
And, like the habit of pushing the shopping cart back and forth to soothe infants, the tendency to chat out loud had become an unbreakable tendency for Dax.
It also helped him manage his desire to talk to Jill.
She would have been so proud of the twins.
If she was watching over all of them now, she had a good reason to be especially happy today.
Her best friend, Ava, was coming to visit them.
Jill and Ava had been college roommates. Ava lived on the other side of the country, in Glacier City, but they still made a point of talking on the phone once a week when Jill was alive.
Ava was a high-powered attorney who acted as a financial planner at some huge firm in the city.
Jill had made Ava promise if anything ever happened to her, that she would come out and help Dax figure out the finances and make a plan.
None of them had ever imagined that day would come so soon.
But Ava wasn’t able to make it to Tarker’s Hollow when Jill died bringing the twins into the world. Ava had been ill herself then, though Dax didn’t have details about her illness.
Back then when Ava had called, Dax told her not to worry about it, that he was fine. There was enough insurance money for him to stay home with the twins for their first year and he had savings too. He was honestly just so gutted at his loss that he hadn’t wanted to do anything but lock himself up with the babies and try to survive.
Truth be told, the insurance money had stretched further than a year. Now that he wasn’t eating out with his colleagues for lunch every day or taking Jill on date nights, life was less expensive in some ways. Though the cost of diapers was relentless.
And he’d had the quiet, steady support of the pack. Between the meals left on the doorstep, the anonymous gifts of diapers, blankets and toys, and the phone calls and offers of an extra pair of hands, his fellow wolves of Tarker’s Hollow had come together for Dax.
He was getting by, but when Ava had called last week to say she was ready to come, he was relieved.
His friends and his savings account all agreed it was time for him to go back to work, but Dax wanted to stay with Maddie and Mason. If he could manage to be with them full-time until they went to pre-school in two years, he could feel that they had been given the best start possible - not as good as if their mom had been around, but the best start he could give them on his own.
And he loved being with the twins. It could be exhausting and tedious, but it was also the most rewarding job in the world.
If Ava was as good at financial planning as Jill always said she was, maybe she could help him figure out how to do it.
Maddie and Mason were both rolling around in the dolls now. Maddie’s arms were up over her head, little fingers curling in her wispy hair, a sure sign that she was thinking about taking a nap.
In the beginning, Dax had thought babies should nap in cribs. But he’d learned that a supervised nap on the floor was just fine too.
He headed into the kitchen to put the pan of French toast he’d started earlier into the oven.
The kitchen was open to the living room in their small house. The simple removal of that wall had been the best improvement he’d made to it when it came to keeping an eye on the twins, even if it made it harder to clean.
The radio was on, and the weather lady talked in cheerful tones about the possibility of snow.
Dax smiled to himself. The twins would love to play in the snow. They were finally old enough to enjoy so many things, and their wonder at anything new was palpable.
In some ways, he knew he was a pretty lucky guy.
His heart was full as he started a pot of coffee.
2
Ava
Ava Sorensen stepped off the train and onto the platform, pulling her suitcase behind her.
Tarker’s Hollow spread out all around her - the tiny village stretching down Yale and Park on her left, the college and the Inn on her right, and beyond them, the forest.
And here at the train platform was the town clock - an antique style timepiece atop an ornate post, that overlooked a small garden surrounded by memorial pavers.
Her best friend Jill had talked about it a lot when she was on the fundraising committee to erect it.
She knew one of those pavers bore Jill’s name, but Ava was afraid she would cry if she saw it, so instead of searching the cobbled path, she gazed out over the town.
She’d felt raw and broken with loss on the journey here. It was as if she’d held in all her mourning during this long year so she could feel it all now.
Though Dax had offered to pick her up when she got in, Ava decided to walk to the house instead.
Now that her cancer was in remission, part of her life plan was to be healthier. She had been eating a mostly plant-based diet and since her strength was returning, she was trying to get her fresh air and exercise in.
She crossed the street, passing a coffee shop called Edible Complex, of all things. She stifled a groan at the terrible pun.
On the other side of the street she was greeted with more small shops. Holiday decorations brightened the windows. Even the lampposts were adorned with large snowflakes, festooned with fairy lights.