The Crossroads

“You ready for another?” George Jennings stood over the griddle, flipping Sunday-morning pancakes.

“Okay, just one more,” Judy said after taking a big gulp of milk.

“Zack? How about you?”

“Sure!”

Zack’s dad flipped two fresh pancakes onto his plate.

“You know,” he said, “it’s a law that all American fathers must make pancakes for their families one morning every weekend.”

Judy giggled between bites. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s in the Constitution. The Founding Children put it there.”

Zack rolled his eyes. “The Founding Children?”

His dad moved back to the bowl to give the batter another good whisking. “Yep. They were sort of like the Founding Fathers, only, you know, younger. I believe it was twelve-year-old Benjamin Bartholomew Bisquick who penned the pancake proclamation.” He tapped the box of pancake powder. “Family business and all that.”

Judy was laughing too hard to chew. Zack shook his head and smiled.

And people thought he had an overactive imagination.

After breakfast, Zack, his dad, and Zipper went out into the yard to check out the progress on the tree house.

“Wow. Neat.”

Zack’s dad looked up at the crooked collection of lumber and plywood nailed helter-skelter to the limbs of a tree.

“Is that the door?” He pointed at a triangular space where three sheets of plywood didn’t quite meet.

“That’s a porthole.”

“Unh-hunh. I see. Neat.”

A blue plastic tarp was hanging over the top of the structure.

“That the roof?”

“Now it is.”

“Unh-hunh.”

“Sometimes it’s our sail.”

“Zipper go up there with you guys?”

“Yep. We built him an elevator.” Zack pointed to a plastic mop bucket tied to a yellow nylon rope.

“Well, you boys certainly have been…busy.”

“Yeah. Davy’s good with construction projects. He thinks up the plans. I do most of the work.”

“Unh-hunh…”

“We like the way it looks. Sort of like a ship. Judy went into town and got us the pirate flag.”

“Cool. So where’d you guys get all the wood and stuff? Judy drive you out to Home Depot?”

“Nope. Scrap piles.”

“Scrap piles?”

“From the construction sites. It was free because it’s scrap.”

“Zack? That’s a brand-new sheet of plywood.”

“We were told we could take anything we wanted.”

“And exactly who told you that?”

“The aluminum-siding man.”

“Who?”

“The tin man.”

“Are you making this up?”

“No. We met an aluminum-siding salesman in the forest across the highway and he said—”

“A tin man? In the forest? Is this The Wizard of Oz all of a sudden?”

“No. It’s true. A tin man is what they call aluminum-siding salesmen.”

“Zack, no one has sold or used aluminum siding since 1959!”

“Well, Mr. Billings still sells it. Clarence W. Billings, and he said—”

“Zack? Stop. Enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m very disappointed in you, Zachary. You cannot steal wood from construction sites. However, you can go to jail for petty larceny. You can also cost me my law license if the court finds me to be an accessory to your felonious behavior.”

“But we didn’t steal the wood.”

“Yes, you did, and, frankly, you only make matters worse when you lie and say you didn’t.”

“But, Dad—”

“This is what you do, isn’t it? Make up complicated stories to cover your tracks. Tin men. A traveling salesman named Clarence W. Billings—”

“But, I—”

“Your mother told me about this. ‘He’s making me sick with his silly, childish jokes and stories.’”

“Judy said that?”

“No. Your real mother. Susan.” He took a deep breath. “She was in pain and there was nothing I could do. I’d try to cheer her up, but cancer is very serious business, son, and—”

And then his father choked on whatever words he wanted to say next.

Zack could see him straining to hold back tears.

“Okay, Zack,” his father finally said. “Here’s what we are going to do. You and I are going to make a list of every piece of ‘scrap’ you stole and where you stole it. Then we are going to drive out to Home Depot and purchase replacements. The cost will be deducted from your allowance until the balance is paid in full. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

It was absolutely, completely, 100 percent clear: His mother’s ghost had definitely followed them up to Connecticut.