Gingerbread Man

rowing and the boat drifted on its own.
    He pulled the oars in, leaned back in his seat. "This was a good idea. It's nice out here. You look... better."
    "I've always loved the lake. It relaxes me." She drew a breath, sighed. "So I guess this is where I tell you about Ivy."
    "When you're ready," he said. He didn't want to push her. He didn't want to do anything to cause this woman any pain.
    She smiled sadly. "I'm not ready. I'll never be ready, Vince. But, the way I see it, I don't have much of a choice here."
    He nodded, watching her closely. She seemed to need to prepare. First she opened the Thermos bottle he'd brought along, and poured two tin cups full of cocoa. She handed one to him, balanced hers on the rowboat's seat, while she screwed the cap back on. Then she set the jug down, picked the cup up, took a deep breath. "I was born on Christmas, you know."
    "No. I didn't know that."
    She sipped the cocoa, nodded. "Three years later, Ivy was born on my birthday. Mom named us for her favorite carol. "The Holly and the Ivy."
    "I get it. That's really cute."
    She smiled just a little. "God, we used to love Christmas. It was such an event in our family." Through the darkness he could still see her eyes glow with the memories. "There would be so many presents, we wouldn't be able to get from our bedroom to the living room without unwrapping ourselves a path. Dad used to say Santa was extra good to us, because Christmas was our birthday. Used to say we were the only kids around who got birthday presents from St. Nick."
    He nodded, and he could almost picture those times in his mind. Two little girls, their eyes sparkling. The image made his chest hurt.
    Then the sparkle in Holly's eyes turned to wetness, and her voice went taut. "I loved her so much."
    "I know." He reached across the distance between his seat and hers, took her hand. He didn't know why he did it. He just did. And she didn't pull it away.
    "Mom had told us time and time again to walk straight to school, and come straight home. I don't know why the hell I got so cocky. I loved her. I didn't know what would happen."
    He nodded, but he didn't think she was seeing him now. Her gaze was distant, or maybe focused inward. It was almost completely dark now. The moon hadn't risen yet, but the stars were beginning to wink to life in the sky, one by one. They appeared and predictably, the first thing they seemed to do was check themselves out in the lake, their mirror.
    "There was this boy I liked. This boy... I wanted to walk by his house on the way home. I don't even remember his name—Johnny ... something—but I put him above my own baby sister."
    He jerked his gaze away from the glasslike surface of the water. "No, you didn't. You had no idea you were putting her at risk. If you had, you'd have made different choices that day. You know you would."
    She nodded, but her expression was vague. The nod was more an affirmation that she had heard him, not that she agreed. "I promised my mother I'd take care of her, Vince. And I didn't do it. I didn't even come close."
    He knew that feeling too well to offer an objection to it. So he didn't. He just let her talk.
    "This van came along. Very slowly pulled alongside us." Her breathing got a little faster. Then a little faster.
    "And then he just... he jumped out and... he grabbed her, and that was—"
    "No, no. Wait, slow it down for me, Holly." Vince faced her, clasped her other hand, and held both firmly enough to get her attention. "Think, very slowly. Try to see every detail you can in each moment of this thing before moving on to the next. This van came along, you said. Stop there. Don't go forward, don't think about what happened next. Just the van. Freeze-frame it in your mind, can you do that?"
    "I... I can try."
    "What did it look like? What did you see when you noticed it?"
    "It was dark gray. Not like it had been painted that color. More like it hadn't been painted at all."
    "Primer colored?"
    She nodded. "Yes. I remember darker patches. I thought it was spotted then, but it must have been where rust had been sanded off, and something applied to it under the primer."
    "That's good. That's very good. Keep going. What about the windows? Was there anything... ?"
    She frowned. "I... can't be sure."
    "What?"
    "Well... they might have been kind of curved outward. Just a little."
    "Like in a Volkswagon van?" he asked, all but holding his breath.
    "I remember that its shape reminded me of the Mystery