hungry.â
âYou canât just eat a cookie,â Louise exclaimed. âEspecially if youâre coming down with something.â
âI said I wasnât that hungry, okay?â he snapped and abruptly stalked out of the kitchen.
Louise watched him go, eyes glassy with unshed tears. All her pride and excitement about the watercolors and Andieâs approval of them seemed to have drained away during the short interaction with her grandson.
âHow is he doing?â Andie asked gently.
One of those tears slipped out and slid down her friendâs cheek and she brushed it away with an impatient hand. âHis motherâs dead and his father wants nothing to do with him. Heâs stuck living in a new town he hates with his boring old grandparents who have never raised a boy and donât know how to talk to him. He hates school, hates his teachers, hates doing homework. Heâs made a few friends, but...â Her voice trailed off.
âBut?â
âIâm not sure theyâre the nicest young people. They seem to run wild at all hours of the day and night, with no parental supervision that I can see.â
Louise seemed so disheartened that Andie couldnât help giving her a little hug.
âHeâll make it through this. Please donât worry. Time is the great healer. Itâs a truism because itâs just thatâtrue. Thatâs all he needs. Heâs got you and Herm, two of the very best people I know. Thatâs far more than many children have in similar circumstances.â
Certainly more than Andie had known. Oh, how she wished she could have had someone like Louise in her life, someone sweet and kind and welcoming.
âHeâs a good boy,â Louise said, wiping away another tear. âHeâs just so angry all the time.â
Andie remembered that anger after her own mother died, along with confusion and fear and overwhelming grief. Puberty was tough enough, all raging hormones and intensified emotions. The loss of a parent made that transitional time that much harder, even when the parent hadnât been the best a kid could ask for.
âIâm sorry,â Louise said after a moment. âYou didnât come here to listen to my problems.â
âThatâs what friends do.â
âHow are you these days?â
She would much rather talk about Louiseâs problems, any day of the week. She knew what was behind the question. Everyone in Haven Point knew about the incident over the summer when the situation she had tried to escape by moving here from Portland had caught up with her, when she had been held at gunpoint by the man who had raped her the previous year, then stalked her for months.
Andie was doing her best to move beyond her past so she could work toward building a new future with her children here. She knew Louiseâs question was offered in kindness, but she really didnât want to talk about Rob Warren and the hell he had put her through.
âEverythingâs great,â she said, pinning on a bright smile. âIâm really looking forward to Christmas in Haven Point. I canât imagine a prettier place to spend the holiday. Itâs perfect.â
âIt really is, isnât it?â Louise smiled softly. âThe lake seems to change colors every day with the shifting winter light.â
âIt must be fun to paint it this time of year.â
âIt is.â Distracted, Louise looked down at her watercolors and Andie hoped she was thinking about taking her paints out to the waterâs edge to try capturing that stunning blue.
Andie had taken to carrying her camera on her morning snowshoe walks along the river, catching birds flitting through winter-bare branches, the delicate filigree of ice along the riverbanks, the play of sunlight reflecting on the snow and filtering through the fringy pine boughs.
She had found peace here over the last few months, a calm she had