The Darkest Evening of the Year

Lottie Augustine’s two-story house, next door, had spare rooms for Janet and her kids. The windows glowed with warm light when Amy parked in the driveway.
    The former nurse came out to greet them and to help carry their hastily packed suitcases into the house.
    Slender, wearing jeans and a man’s blue-and-yellow checkered shirt with the tail untucked, gray hair in a ponytail, eyes limpid blue in a sweet face wizened by a love of the sun, Lottie seemed to be both a teenager and a retiree. In her youth she had probably been an old soul, just as in her later years she remained a young spirit.
    Leaving the dog in the SUV, Amy carried Theresa. The child woke as they ascended the back-porch steps.
    Even awake, her purple eyes seemed full of dreams.
    Touching the locket Amy wore at her throat, Theresa whispered, ”The wind.”
    Carrying two suitcases, followed by Janet with one bag and with Jimmy in tow, Lottie led them into the house.
    Just beyond the threshold of the kitchen door, still in Amy’s arms and fingering the locket, Theresa whispered, ”The chimes.”
    Cast back in time, Amy halted. For a moment, the kitchen faded as if it were only a pale vision of a moment in her future.
    The child’s trance-casting eyes seemed to widen as if they were portals through which one might fall into another world.
    “What did you say?” she asked Theresa, though she had heard the words clearly enough.
    The wind. The chimes.
    The girl did not blink, did not blink, then blinked—and plugged her mouth with her right thumb.
    Color returned to the faded kitchen, and Amy put Theresa down in a dinette chair.
    On the table stood a plate of homemade cookies. Oatmeal raisin. Chocolate chip. Peanut butter.
    A pan of milk waited on the cooktop, and Lottie Augustine set to making hot chocolate.
    The clink of mugs against a countertop, the crisp crackle of a foil packet of cocoa powder, the burble of simmering milk stirred by a ladle, the soft knocking of the wood ladle against the pan…
    The sounds seemed to come to Amy from a distance, to arise in a room far removed from this one, and when she heard her name, she realized that Lottie had spoken it more than once.
    “Oh. Sorry. What did you say?”
    “Why don’t you and Janet take their bags upstairs while I tend to the children. You know the way.”
    “All right. Sure.”
    Upstairs, two secondary bedrooms were connected by a bath. One had twin beds suitable for the kids.
    “If you leave both doors open to the shared bath,” Amy said, “you’ll be able to hear them if they call out.”
    In the room that had one bed, Janet sat on the arm of a plump upholstered chair. She looked exhausted and bewildered, as if she had walked a hundred miles while under a spell and did not know where she was or why she had come here.
    “What now?”
    “The police will take at least a day to decide on charges. Then Carl will need to make bail.”
    “He’ll come looking for you to find me.”
    “By then, you won’t be next door anymore.”
    “Where?”
    “Over a hundred sixty people volunteer for Golden Heart. Some of them foster incoming dogs until we can find each one’s forever home.”
    “Forever home?”
    “Before we make a permanent placement of a rescued dog, we have a vet make sure it’s healthy, up-to-date on all its shots.”
    “One day when he was gone, I took Nickie for her shots. He was furious about the cost.”
    “The foster parents evaluate the dog and make a report on the extent of its training—is it housebroken, leash friendly….”
    “Nickie’s housebroken. She’s the sweetest girl.”
    “If the dog has no serious behavioral problems, we find what we hope will be its forever home. Some of our fostering volunteers have room for more than visiting dogs. One of them will take in you and the kids for a few weeks, till you get on your feet.”
    “Why would they do that?”
    “Most golden-rescue people are a class apart. You’ll see.”
    In Janet’s lap, her hands worried at each other. “What a mess.”
    “It would have been worse to stay with him.”
    “Just me, I might’ve stayed. But not with the kids. Not anymore. I’m…ashamed, how I let him treat them.”
    “You’d need to be ashamed if you stayed. But not now. Not unless you let him sweet-talk you back.”
    “Won’t happen.”
    “Glad to hear it. There’s always a way forward. But there’s no way back.”
    Janet nodded. Perhaps she understood. Most likely not.
    To many people, free will is