A Family Christmas by Carrie Alexander

Author:Carrie Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2004-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

DECEMBER ARRIVED. And with it snow. Soon the ground was permanently blanketed and snowbanks began piling up, deposited by plows and shovelers. The branches of the evergreens grew heavy beneath mantles of white. Days passed without sunshine, a succession of skies layered with white cotton batting. Alouette social activity began to slow as the days grew shorter and townspeople opted to spend the frigid evenings at home.

With Rose’s hours at the convenience store lessened, Maxine expected her daughter to keep her company more often. They watched TV every night, it seemed, though Rose would usually take out her block of watercolor paper and work on a painting from the sketches she’d done over the summer, adding strokes of soft color to blossoms and leaves and skies while her mother droned on about the machinations of Survivor or her expanding knowledge of dead bodies and criminal procedure learned from CSI and Law and Order. A couple of times Alice Sjoholm stopped by with a friend and they’d partner up for a few rounds of canasta. On her free days, Rose would snowshoe along the river to see the frozen waterfalls, enjoying the sharp chill of the air in her lungs. One clear evening Roxy showed up and they drove to Marquette to take in a movie and see the historic buildings of the downtown area outlined in white lights for the holidays.

More than ever, Rose looked forward to her evenings at the high-school gym. There was usually at least one home game each week, and though Evan’s team was struggling to keep at the .500 level, the hometown support never wavered. No matter what the temperature, a vocal crowd turned out to cheer for the Storm.

Gradually, Rose realized that she was no longer an anonymous fan in the stands. Lucy was her constant companion at the games, and that had drawn Rose out of her usual distant seat to a position in the middle of the action. Various people waved hello and stopped to chat for a few minutes about the team’s chances, discussing Jeremy’s rebound record or Evan’s coaching tactics. Rose was mostly silent at first, but by mid-December she had even initiated a couple of brief conversations.

She felt accepted. She felt good.

Particularly on the evening that Danny, coming to the sidelines after warm-ups, had looked up into the stands and said, “Hi, Lucy. Hi, Rose. We’re gonna kick butt tonight.” She hadn’t come down from her cloud to actually watch the game until midway through the second period.

Soon it was a week before Christmas. It finally occurred to Rose that she should start thinking about gifts. For all of her adult life, Christmas had been a quiet affair. During the years when she’d drifted from job to job and avoided coming home, there’d been no need to participate in the festivities of the season. The past few Christmases had been most humble, with her father’s death, her mother’s ill health and her brothers far from home. This year was feeling quite unique.

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