Merrily Yours : An 80s Christmas Novella by Jessica Marie Holt

Author:Jessica Marie Holt [Holt , Jessica Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-29T18:30:00+00:00

Nine

June

June sipped her coffee as she watched Adam and Cynthia through the front window. Adam tossed Cynthia the ball again and again, and she swung at it fruitlessly again and again, laughing harder every time she missed. Adam never became frustrated; he just encouraged her to keep trying.

“Okay, last time,” he said, finally. He tossed her a low, easy ball. She swung at it fiercely, and for once, the bat connected with the ball. Unfortunately, the ball glanced off the top of the bat and sailed backward, straight toward Mr. Krantz’s house.

June set her coffee on the window sill and ran out the front door, in time to see the ball roll directly to Mr. Krantz’s feet as he walked to his mailbox. He picked it up, examined it, tossed it lightly in the air, and caught it again. Then he walked back toward his house with it. Adam watched him with an ashen, dumbstruck face.

He glanced at Cynthia, then walked slowly toward Mr. Krantz. But when Mr. Krantz glared at him, he seemed to lose his nerve.

June marched across the grass, shouting at Mr. Krantz to stop. He turned and faced her.

“Give the boy back his ball,” she said, her hands on her hips.

Mr. Krantz sneered at her. “It’s in my yard, on my lawn. It’s my ball, now.”

“They’re just kids. And it’s just a lawn, not a priceless museum painting.”

“It could have hit my window!”

“But it didn’t.”

“But it could have.”

“What about our talk about being neighborly?”

“Those were your words, lady. Not mine.”

He walked back into his house without even looking backward.

June turned back to Adam, who was near tears. She walked over to him and patted his shoulder. “We’ll get it back, one way or another.” He nodded woefully, and she wondered why an old baseball was so important to him.

Adam said little for the rest of his visit, in spite of Cynthia’s relentless attempts to cheer him up. When Henry came home, June told him what had happened, and he went straight to Mr. Krantz to try to reason with him, to no avail.

When Adam’s father rang the bell after dinner, Adam’s face crumpled, and he dragged himself to the door as though his feet were made of lead.

“Hey, kiddo, how did it go?” Frank asked, before catching sight of his expression. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Dad, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what? Why? What happened?”

“I lost your ball.”

“My baseball? It’s just a ball. I have more of them.”

“No, Dad. Your ball. The ball.”

The color drained from Frank’s face, and he swallowed hard. “You took my ball without asking? How could you do that? What were you thinking?”

“I guess I wasn’t.”

Frank looked up at Henry and June. “The ball was signed by Keith Hernandez when his team won the World Series three years ago,” he explained. “It was . . . a Christmas present from my wife. She died the next year.”

Henry gasped, and June’s heart sank to her shoes.

Frank turned back to his son. “Why would you bring that ball here?”

“I thought Cynthia would think it was cool.

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