“Everybody?”
“Seems so.”
Unfortunately, that also meant the ice cream shop was shut tight, with a sign reading ‘closed’ hanging on the door.
“No ice cream?” Alice asked.
“I’m sorry, Alice,” I said. I had known they were struggling, but I didn’t realize things had progressed to this point. “Why don’t we just go settle in at the hotel. We can watch some cartoons instead.”
Children are prone to arguing, especially when the promise of ice cream had been broken, but Alice must have been able to sense something was amiss in this town. Instead of arguing or whining, she just held a little tighter onto my hand and said, “Okay.”
I didn’t want Alice to be frightened, so I scooped her up into my arms. She giggled as she got comfortable, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. Her good humor didn’t
