Epilogue: December 20
The Bear’s Den
8:22 P.M.
Eight inches of wet snow covers Templeton, and four more inches of the white mess is supposed to fall by morning. The temperature is twenty-four degrees out with a heavy wind that blows off the lake. The roads are layered with ice and dagger-sharp icicles hang from all of the gutters across town.
Toby doesn’t care how cold it is out, or how much snow falls. He loves winter, and has ever since he was a little boy. He can remember playing in drifts of snow with Millard, building forts and tunnels, freezing their toes and fingers, and then escaping into one of their houses where they enjoyed mugs of hot chocolate with puffy white marshmallows.
Millard (no longer does he call him Jim Bone) is still in Toby’s life. He flies to Pittsburgh from
