"I see it," her sister said. "You’re texting more and you keep more to yourself in your room and you're on the computer more and sometimes I hear you cry. Is it because you're a teenager that you cry?"

  Sydney dropped her fork onto the plate. "Mo-om!"

  "That's enough, girls," their mother said. It was obvious she hadn't listened to anything they had said. She got up and put her plate in the sink with a sigh. On the wall hung a picture of all four of them.

  "Where are we going to celebrate Christmas?" Trisha asked, chewing with her mouth open.

  "Don't do that," Sydney said.

  "Don't do what?" Trisha said.

  "Chew with your mouth open."

  "I can chew with my mouth open if I want to, right Mommy?" she said and opened her mouth even wider so Sydney could see everything.

  Sydney grabbed her plate and got up. "That's it, I’ve lost my appetite."

  "So, where are we going for Christmas?" Trisha asked again.

  Sydney stopped to listen. Last year, they hadn't even celebrated it at all. Their mother had been in her bed all through Christmas, crying. Would they even celebrate this year?

  "What's that?" their mother asked when she realized their eyes were on her.

  "Christmas, Mom," Sydney said. "Do we celebrate it this year?"

  Her eyes grew absent. "Sure, yes, no, of course we do. Maybe you two should make your lists for Santa, huh?"

  Sydney stopped at the mention of his name. She bit her lip and looked in the direction of the fireplace. She believed she could hear it again. It had started the day before, on December 1st. Like a low rumble, a beat or a pulse of sorts coming from inside the chimney. And then there were the bells. The sound of sleigh bells.

  Sydney closed her eyes and shook her head. When she opened her eyes, the sound was gone.

  "I just wish Dad could come back," she said, then left.

  13

  I made a nice dinner. I drove to Publix and shopped while feeling awful. I bought some lamb chops and cooked them on the grill with lots of garlic and served it with rice and an Indian curry sauce. It was Sune's favorite dish. I guess I was feeling bad about our fight and what was supposed to be the beginning of a wonderful vacation for us. I tried to make him happy and I succeeded. After a few hours alone in the bedroom, he had come out and was finally smiling and grabbed my hand across the table.

  "I'm sorry," he mouthed.

  "Me too," I said, feeling relieved.

  I hated fighting and ever since Sune had been shot, I had felt so guilty, so responsible for his happiness, it was beginning to make me miserable. I knew he was only nervous about meeting the doctor tomorrow and that was why he freaked out earlier. After tomorrow, it would all be better. I was certain it would. This doctor was going to change everything. He simply had to.

  "How was the ocean?" I asked the kids. They had been on the beach all afternoon, swimming in the ocean and building sandcastles.

  "Awesome," Tobias said.

  "Too sandy," Julie said, making a grimace.

  William just gave me a grin showing a piece of half-eaten meat.

  I looked at my daughter. "You usually love the beach?"

  She shook her head. "Too much sun."

  "We don't like the sun now?"

  "Too bright," she said.

  Where was this coming from? My daughter always loved the beach and the ocean. I hadn't expected these teenage-like attitudes from her for at least two more years. Was it starting so soon? At only eleven? Or was she just acting out because it had been a rough couple of years because so much of my attention went to Sune or William? I couldn't blame her, really. She had also lost her dad at a very young age; I had to count that in as well.

  "Well, maybe it'll be better tomorrow," I said and sipped my red wine.

  "I’m not going to the beach tomorrow," she said, grabbed her plate, and got up.

  "What? Why not? I thought we could all go after we go to the doctor's office."

  "Well, I’m not going down there again."

  "Why not?"

  She shrugged and put her plate in the sink.

  "She wants to play Roblox," Tobias said. "With Thomas F."

  "Oh. And who is Thomas F?" I asked.

  Julie gave Tobias a look. "I hate you," she said.

  "Hey, hey. That's not how you speak to your brother," I said.

  Julie stomped her feet on the tiles. "He's NOT my brother. You guys aren't even married."

  That stung. And she knew it. It was the issue no one spoke of, except for Julie. The issue of marriage. I wasn't sure I wanted to get married again. Not after how badly it had ended last time. But Sune was different, I sensed. He wanted it. He wanted the wedding and the party and the paperwork stating that we belonged together.

  Julie grunted angrily and walked away.

  "You're not spending the entire day on your computer playing with some boy!" I yelled after her, but she had already gone up the stairs and slammed the door.

  I turned to face Tobias. "Okay, tell me everything. Who is Thomas F?"

  14

  She had a nightmare and woke with a start. Sydney felt her heart racing in her chest and wondered if it was possible for it to actually jump out. She had dreamt about her father again. She missed him so much that it literally hurt from time to time.

  Sydney turned on the light and went to her computer then turned it on. It had become a habit of hers to sit on the computer all night when the rest of her family was asleep. It was mostly because of the nightmares. She couldn't fall asleep afterward.

  They were always the same. She was in the car with her dad on the day he died, driving down the road, talking, chatting, and laughing like they always did when they were alone.

  And then they crashed. But it wasn't the crash that was scary, it was the sensation she felt right before he hit the tree. The feeling of dread and fear, and then the laughter. Someone was laughing.

  Sydney shook her head to get rid of the feeling the dream had left her with. She hadn't been in the car when her dad crashed into the tree, but ever since she had started dreaming about it, she hadn't been able to escape the thought that something else had happened to him. It was no ordinary crash.

  Lately, she had spent hours searching the web, trying to figure out more. Sydney had gotten quite skilled at entering places on the computer that most people could never access and she had read the police report of her dad's crash about a hundred times, going over every little detail.

  It was precisely one year ago this month that he left the prison outside of Orlando, where he had been evaluating some woman's mental state in order to determine if she was fit for a trial or not. Sydney knew all the details since she had gone over it again and again. Her mother didn't understand why she couldn't just let it go, but she couldn't. There was something odd about her father's death and she couldn't let it go. Her dad was an excellent driver. There were no other cars on the road. Why would he suddenly crash into a tree on the side of the road?

  Suicide, the police had speculated and asked them questions about him, whether he was depressed or ever talked about killing himself. It was ridiculous to Sydney. Her dad was never depressed. Maybe he wasn't the happiest man on the planet, but he would never kill himself. He would never leave his girls like that.

  Sydney opened the documents once again, hacking into the Cocoa Beach Police Department's main server and finding them. She looked at the report written by the detective Jack Ryder, who she had talked to back when he had come to their house and told them what had happened.

  He had annoyed her so much with his long blond hair and handsome smile and the way he talked about her father as if he was a completely different person than what he was.

  "You don't know him!" she had ended up yelling at him.

  "It's okay," he said addressed to her mother, who had yelled at her for yelling at the detective. "It's only natural to respond with anger in a situation like this. It can be tough for a young girl to grasp. It's tough."

  It's tough, pah, what did he know about anything? Mr. Pretty and Handsome probably had a beautiful wife and a perfect life.

  But he had provided an excuse for Sydney's mother, one that could explain just about anything Sydney did. She would use it whenever she got angry at something.

  "It's the grief talking."

  She even used that excuse when Sydney had come to her showing her the picture of her dad’s dead body from the police file, pointing at his neck and at the red marks on it.

  "It's just the grief. You want an explanation, someone to blame. We all do, but the fact is, your dad killed himself."

  But Sydney knew better. She knew he hadn't killed himself and she had devoted all of her time awake at night to figuring out what happened to him.

  Sydney zoomed in on the picture once again so she could see the two red marks on his neck. She had seen enough vampire movies to know exactly what those marks were.

  15

  "I can't believe she has a boyfriend," I said to Sune while getting ready for bed.

  "What's that?" Sune was reading his book. I had bathed him and helped him into his jammies, then helped him get into bed. I always took care of him first.

  "Thomas F," I said.

  "Who's that?"

  "What do you mean, who's that? Thomas F. Tobias just told us everything about him at dinner."

  "Ah, that," Sune said.

  "Can you believe her? I mean, she's only eleven. Isn't she kind of young to have a boyfriend?"

  Sune shrugged. I crawled under the covers and sat next to him. When we sat like that in bed, it was almost as if everything was back to normal, back to before Sune was shot.

  "You don't think it's early?" I asked, surprised.

  "I had my first girlfriend when I was ten."

  "Of course, you did," I said and grabbed my book. I read a couple of pages that I didn't even care about, then breathed heavily. Sune looked up from his book.

  "You just won't let it go, will you?"

  "Why hasn't she told me about him? We always tell each other everything. Is she suddenly keeping stuff from me?"

  "Not stuff. Just one boy," Sune said. "Don't make a big deal out of this, please, I’m begging you. It's not like it's a real boyfriend. They haven't even met in real life."

  "No, but they meet online every day," Tobias told me. "I don't like it."

  "Tobias told us the guy lives far away, like at the other end of the country. I don't think there's any danger in having an online boyfriend. It's not like anything is going to happen."

  "How do you know?" I asked. "How do we even know he's a kid? He could be some pervert."

  "If they talk on Skype every day and play Roblox together, don't you think Julie would have found out?"

  I looked down at my book, then back up. "I don't know. I mean, I’ve heard about these guys who are really good at luring kids. They pretend to be teenagers and then…"

  "She should be able to hear it in his voice and see his face when they Skype each other."

  I nodded. "True."

  I returned to my book and Sune to his. I read two more pages, then sighed. Sune rolled his eyes.

  "Now what?"

  "It's just…"

  "What?"

  "I just don't like it," I said. "I have no way of controlling what this guy says to our daughter. What if he asks to meet her?"

  "Julie is not that stupid," he said. "Please, can't you just let this go?" He put his book on the side table, then turned off his lamp. "I want to go to sleep now. I have an important day tomorrow."

  I looked at Sune as he closed his eyes. Back in the day, he would never go to sleep without kissing me first. Now, I didn't even want him to. What had happened to us?

  "Yes," I said and turned off my own lamp. "Starting tomorrow, everything will get better."

  16

  Sydney was immersed in reading the police report when she heard it. At first, it was more like a sensation than an actual sound. Like a deep rumble inside of her chest. She held a hand to her throat and breathed in deep gasps. Her doctor had told her she might experience physical symptoms of her loss and that's what she thought it was.

  Sydney tried to ignore it, to begin with, but the sensation grew stronger, and soon she had to get up from her desk. She tried hard to calm herself down since it felt like everything was on fire inside of her.

  "I need something to drink," she said and left the room.

  She walked carefully so she wouldn’t make a noise across the creaking floors in the hallway and on the stairs. The last thing she wanted was to wake up her sister and especially their mother. She wasn't sleeping well either, not since the accident. Often, Sydney could hear her crying in her bed, probably thinking it was a good time to cry since both kids were asleep.

  Sydney sneaked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water from the fridge. Feeling hungry, she grabbed a banana and ate it too, while looking outside at the street lamp where bugs were dancing in the light. She swallowed the last bite, then heard a noise.

  The sound of sleigh bells.

  She walked into the living room, then stared at the fireplace and the chimney. The sound grew louder as she approached it. Somehow, it was attracting her to it, calling for her to come closer.

  "W-who's there?" she asked.

  It almost sounded like a rhythm. Sydney stared at the chimney where the sound seemed to come from.

  But that's impossible.

  Sydney swallowed, hard. It was pitch dark inside the living room. She stood in the doorway and listened to the sound, not knowing what to do. She wanted to get closer, to look up inside the chimney to see what it was. Maybe it was an animal? Maybe it got stuck somehow?

  But she knew it was no animal. Because she had heard the same sound before. And no animals made the sound of sleigh bells jingling.

  Sydney felt a prickle of sweat on her upper lip and wiped it with her hand. She could hear her own ragged breaths. Something about that sound was so terrifying she could hardly stand it.

  "W-who is it? Is someone there?"

  Now, the sound was louder. And it felt like it was answering her, communicating with her.

  Sydney shook her head, then backed away from the chimney.

  No. I am not doing this. I am not seriously talking to my chimney. This can't be happening.

  She turned on her heel and stormed up the stairs, crept under the covers and stayed under them, repeating to herself while still hearing the bells jingle from downstairs:

  "I am not going insane I am not going insane. I am NOT!"

  17

  Doctor Herman's office was located on Merritt Island about twenty minutes’ drive from the house where we were staying. It was on the island between our barrier island and the mainland and quite a spectacular drive there, over the bridge and the wide waters.

  I, for one, was in a terrific mood, looking forward to finally giving Sune what he had been dreaming of for so long. And maybe, just maybe, making him happy and hopeful about the future.

  Sune was in the seat next to me, biting his nails, while the kids were all in the back. I hoped the doctor's office would have someplace they could sit while we spoke to the doctor since it would be hard for us to concentrate properly with them around us. I had loaded up on iPads, Nintendo Gameboys, and even brought Julie's computer, so they could all keep themselves entertained. I didn't know how long it was going to take, but I had a feeling it might take a while since I assumed they would need to have Sune assessed in the gym first before making a judgment whether they would be able to help him. I had no idea what came after if they said yes, but thought I would have to figure that one out once we got to it. One issue at a time. The first hurdle was to get the doctor to even see us, then we'd have to take it from there.

  That's what I told myself, but inside I was, of course, worried like crazy about the outcome and trying to imagine different scenarios. I mean, I really wanted for Sune to see this doctor and I really wanted him to want to take him on as a patient and promise him he could help him since he was known to have had great success with cases like Sune's, but what if he did? What if he actually said he would take him? We were only here for a month. I was guessing he couldn't fix Sune that fast. I knew it would take months, if not years of intensive training. How were we supposed to afford it? The treatment and the travel? We would have to travel to the U.S. on a monthly basis probably. There was no way we could afford that.

  "It's here," Sune said and pointed at the sign. "I recognize the picture from his website."

  I looked out the window and saw the billboard on the side of the road outside a huge building with riverfront views. On the billboard, Dr. Herman smiled at the people passing by. It was quite remarkable and a little over the top for my taste.

  I didn't say anything, but drove into the parking lot and parked the car. The kids rushed out of the car while I helped Sune get into his chair.

  "Don't do that," Sune hissed at me when I grabbed his arm. "You know I don't like it when you do it like that."

  "Sorry," I said and pulled back.

  I hated when I did something wrong, and I almost always did, especially when he was anxious.

  He's just nervous, Rebekka. He's just nervous. We all are.

  William bumped into my leg and hugged it tightly, reacting to a sudden childish desire to hug his mommy that needed to be fulfilled right away, but as he did, he pushed me into Sune, who almost slipped when trying to swing his body into the chair next to the car.

  "Damn it!" Sune yelled.

  "I'm sorry," I said again, then grabbed William in my arms and took a step away.

  "Control that stupid kid, will you?"

  William started to cry.

  Oh, boy.

  Julie rolled her eyes and turned away from us, while Tobias looked like he could cry himself while gazing at his helpless dad. I handed him William, who was still crying, then attended to Sune. I lifted him into his chair even though it killed my back, put him down, then walked to William and grabbed him in my arms, comforting him, telling him his dad didn't really mean it, that he wasn't stupid. When he finally stopped crying, I looked at Julie and Tobias.

 

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