Island Christmas by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

6

The house slept. Despite the hard winds of the Christmas Eve storm, even the deer and sheep probably slept.

Not Miranda.

Instead, she sat in the kitchen at two in the morning, working on her gingerbread structure, and trying not to obsess about the prior evening—as if.

Jeremy was not on the spectrum. He never had to worry about who liked him or who was laughing at him.

He could tell that. He would know.

She couldn’t and wouldn’t.

Also, had Holly been teasing her about whether or not Miranda wanted to be teased, or was she not wanting to treat her like she treated a friend like Jeremy, or were she and Mike somehow using her as a metaphor for their own tumultuous relationship when… Miranda couldn’t even keep all of the logical variations straight in her mind.

Finally, Tante Daniels—Tanya!—trying to change her name after all these years. And saying what she’d said about the deer.

One of the things that Miranda’s particular form of autism gifted her was a photographic memory for the words in a conversation. She—

Tanya sat down across the wood counter from her, her face shadowed by the darkness outside the range of her small worklight. Only a mug of milk clasped in her hands caught the light with a bright whiteness.

“When I was six, you said, ‘The deer need an extra treat to get them through the storm.’ When I asked you why, you said, ‘They get scared. Dried apple rings will let them know it will be okay.’ You didn’t say I needed, you said they needed.”

Tanya sighed. “It always surprises me that you can remember such things. Most neurotypicals, including me, can’t. Even with my training, it’s easy to forget that you can.”

“Then why did you lie this evening?”

“The proper question is why did I lie thirty-some years ago. This evening I told the truth. You needed connection so badly. Your father was only interested in seeing what your mind was capable of achieving—what parent has their child working on cracking secret codes at eight that even the CIA can’t unravel? Your mother was deeply overwhelmed by you and her own sense of incompetence and inferiority. Unjustified on both counts I might add; she loved you very much which fixes almost everything, and she was an exceptional woman who I still miss so much. It makes it very hard to come back here sometimes.”

Miranda had never thought about what her parents’ deaths must have been like for Tanya. When she reached a hand across the counter, Tanya clasped it hard before she continued.

“But that’s why they hired me. I was fresh out of grad school. I had my PhD and no idea what I wanted to do with it.”

Once Tanya let go of her hand, Miranda focused on beveling the edge of the next piece of gingerbread with a nutmeg rasp to insure a perfect fit.

Tanya was watching her intently.

“What.”

“You’re repurposing a tool for something other than its designed intent. That’s great.”

“I tried a series of files: fingernail, metal, and wood.

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