Christmas In Icicle Falls. Sheila Roberts

parent-teacher conference week and her conference was scheduled for early Monday afternoon, so Pat had given her the afternoon off. She’d promised Leo that after her meeting with Mrs. Brown he could help her put up Christmas lights. He’d also begged to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas and she’d agreed, hoping the anticipation of a fun-filled afternoon would lift his spirits. His poor excuse for a father hadn’t bothered to call on Thanksgiving and it had left Leo feeling down.

      He wasn’t exactly happy that she had a conference with his teacher, either. And once she sat down with Mrs. Brown, she knew why.

      “Leo is a sweet boy,” Mrs. Brown began. “He always wants to help. He loves to help me collect and pass out papers, but...”

      Oh, no. Here came the but.

      “...we need to work on his concentration. He’d much prefer to clown around and put pencils up his nose or talk to his neighbor than work on his addition and subtraction.”

      Addition and subtraction. Other kids Leo’s age were on to multiplication and division and Leo was putting pencils up his nose. This behavior wasn’t anything new but it was still disheartening. Sienna heaved a sigh.

      “This is not unusual,” Mrs. Brown said gently. “Children with special needs often prefer to ignore dealing with unpleasant tasks. As do most of us,” she added with a smile.

      “I know. And I have talked to him in the past. I’ll speak with him again.”

      “He is making some progress,” Mrs. Brown assured her. “If you could work with him a little more at home, that might help.”

      “I’m doing all I can, Mrs. Brown, believe me.”

      The woman gave her a sympathetic nod. “I know. It’s hard. Don’t give up. And remember, he needs concrete examples and step-by-step direction. I’m sure you have other aspects of his life where you have to do this.”

      As a matter of fact, she did. Even simple tasks like taking a bath could get complicated. Leo needed to be reminded that washing his hair required another step beyond simply sudsing up his scalp. When she forgot to remind him to rinse it out, he often wound up crying with soap in his eyes. Setting the table was done with everything mapped out and she still had to stand over him when he loaded the dishwasher and supervise the process.

      “We have a lot of the school year left,” Mrs. Brown assured her.

      Sienna wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for that or depressed by it. She thanked the teacher and left.

      She saw Leo standing at Rita’s living room window when she went to pick him up, but by the time she got inside, he was hiding behind the couch. Rita had her toddler on her hip, and at the sight of Sienna little Linda squealed happily and reached for her, crying, “Si-si.”

      “Hello, my beautiful niece,” she said and took the child. She would have loved to have had another child, but that probably wouldn’t happen now with no husband in the picture. As a single parent, she felt that one child was all she could handle, especially when that one child had special needs.

      Still holding Linda, she walked into the living room. “You can come out now.”

      Leo’s head popped around the corner of the couch. “Hi, Mama.”

      “Have you been behaving yourself for Tía Rita?”

      He nodded but still stayed behind the couch.

      “How’d it go?” Rita asked.

      Leo’s head disappeared.

      “It could have been worse.” Sienna kissed the toddler’s head. “Your teacher says you’re a sweet boy. Is that true, my son?”

      Leo peeked around the corner of the couch and made a silly face.

      “And she says you’re a clown.”

      “I like clowns.”

      “That’s nice, but you can’t be a clown when you’re supposed to be doing your schoolwork,” Sienna told him.

      He frowned.

      “Tito will be disappointed if he hears you’re not paying attention in school,” put in Rita.

      The frown dug deeper.

      “But we’re going to work on that, aren’t we?” Sienna said cheerfully.

      Leo went back behind the couch and now Sienna frowned.

      “Remember, the teacher said what a sweet boy he is. I know a lot of parents who’d give anything to hear that from their kids’ teacher,” Rita said. “Come on out to the kitchen, have a cup of coffee.”

      “No, we should get going. The snow’s starting to stick and I want to get home.”

      “You’re good to go now. You’ve got snow tires.”

      “I also want to get my lights up before it gets dark.”

      “Okay, fine. Linda and I both should take a nap, anyway.”

      Sienna gave back the baby and summoned her son, and he reluctantly came out of hiding. She felt as though she should give him a stern talking-to on the way home and insist that there would be no more showings of Cars until he stopped clowning around in class. But really, clowning was preferable to tears. So instead, she hugged him as they walked down her cousin’s front walk and told him she loved him.

      “I’ll try harder, Mamacita,” he said softly.

      “You just try your best. That’s all anyone can do.”

      When she’d first left for her conference, only a few little snowflakes had been drifting lazily toward the ground. Now an entire army of flakes was falling, quickly smothering the street and adding to the thick blankets on the lawns.

      “It’s snowing!” Leo announced.

      Brrr. Maybe she’d rethink hanging her Christmas lights.

      Except Leo hadn’t forgotten that decorating the house was on the agenda. “Can we do our lights now?”

      “Yes, on one condition. You have to promise you’ll try to have a good attitude about schoolwork tonight.”

      Leo frowned. “I promise,” he said reluctantly.

      Once they got home, she fetched the boxes of lights she’d purchased earlier in the week. “This is going to look like Disneyland,” Leo predicted as he followed her out onto the front yard.

      Hardly, but it would look nice.

      The new snow had lured out many of the neighbor kids and they were racing back and forth through yards, throwing snowballs at each other. She caught Leo watching them, yearning to be a part of the fun. The last time he’d joined in, the fun had involved a baseball sailing through Mr. Cratchett’s living room window and it hadn’t turned out so well.

      Jimmy Wilson, a nice little boy who lived a few houses down, came running up to them. “Can Leo play?”

      Jimmy was one boy in the neighborhood who was kind to Leo, who didn’t see him as different. Jimmy was seven and Leo was nine. The age difference worked to Leo’s advantage.

      “Yes!” Leo cried. “Can I go play?” he asked Sienna.

      “Of course,” she said. Snowball fights were infinitely more exciting than putting up Christmas lights.

      The words were barely out of her mouth before he and Jimmy were charging off across the lawn. As far as Leo was concerned, snow was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

      Sienna smiled until she heard a boy call, “Here comes the retard.”

      Her jaws clamped together and her good mood evaporated. When Rita had suggested she leave LA and move to Icicle Falls, it had seemed like a good idea. Leo had been having trouble in school and she’d grown weary of the traffic, pollution and worrying about staying in a neighborhood that was becoming