Unlocked by Karen Kingsbury Page A

the Reynolds’ kitchen floor.
    “Is that Holden?” Kate looked over her shoulder.
    “Yes. Holden when he was younger.”
    “It looks like him.” She nodded, thoughtful, and turned back to the screen. “My mom has movies of when I was little.”
    Tracy hid her smile and the sorrow that quickly followed. Kate was still little, of course. But already she was decades beyond Holden in her ability to relate to people.
    The song reached the chorus, the part where Holden always started to rock. Not dramatically, but enough that Tracy believed this part of the song really spoke to him. She sang quietly along. “And I’ll never be the same without you here. I’ll live alone. Hide myself behind my tears. And I’ll never be the same without your love …”
    No matter how many days they sat here this way, or howmany times she heard this song or watched this movie with him, the tears came. Tracy dabbed at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want Holden to see her cry, but there was no way around the heartache that came with the home movie.
    They reached the end of the song on the intro loop, and Tracy started the actual movie. This was the hardest part, seeing Holden the way he had been, watching him laugh and sing and look straight in the camera. “Hi, Mommy! See me, Mommy? I’m looking right at you!”
    Kate giggled. “I like you there, Holden. You’re funny!”
    He didn’t respond, but Kate didn’t act offended. She turned her attention to the movie again.
    The Reynolds family was in several of the videos because back then the two families had done everything together. The couples had been friends in high school, the best men and maids of honor for each other’s weddings. They had babies at the same time, and Holden and Ella were together constantly before they could walk or talk.
    Tracy and Suzanne would delight over the friendship between their children, dreaming of the day when they were older. “I can see it now,” Suzanne would say. “Holden will take Ella to her senior prom and five years later they’ll get married.” Her laughter would lend brevity to the prediction. “We’ll arrange the whole thing right now. Deal?”
    Tracy’s laughter would mix in. “Deal.” Neither of them was serious, of course, but the possibility remained. There seemed no reason why the two wouldn’t grow up together, no hint that a senior prom or even a wedding some day was out of the question.
    But in the fall after Holden’s third birthday, he began to slip through their fingers. Week after week he grew quieter, more withdrawn, and the visits with the Reynolds grew more infrequent. After Holden’s diagnosis, Suzanne explained in a teary,awkward way that they weren’t sure it was good for Ella, playing with Holden.
    “He doesn’t talk.” Suzanne’s face looked pained. “He won’t look in her eyes anymore. He … he lines up their toys over and over like he’s in a world all his own. Something’s wrong with him, Tracy. He needs help.”
    She didn’t say she was officially ending their friendship. She didn’t have to. Her husband, Randy, was a baseball player and about that time he was called up to the majors. He played for the Mets for ten years, and when the Reynolds family moved to New York, they lost touch. Four years ago Tracy read that Randy Reynolds had been traded to the Braves, so most likely they were back in the Atlanta area.
    Tracy no longer wondered what they were doing or how life had fared for them. She wouldn’t think of them at all, except that here was Ella —dancing and singing with Holden on the home movie they watched every day. Ella would be a senior in high school now. She wouldn’t know or remember Holden. That part didn’t matter. What mattered was all she represented for Holden today.
    He stared at the movie, never looking away, intent on every detail. Today Ella represented hope and possibility, the chance that someday God might grant them a miracle and Holden would find his way