Christmas Jars Reunion by Jason F. Wright

Author:Jason F. Wright [Wright, Jason F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christmas, Fiction
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2009-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Giving is the point of the Christmas Jar. It’s not a lot of money, but our intention is they know someone cared enough to give it.

—Leona

Fifteen

~~~

Hope’s evening was unusually free. She’d finished her latest edition of “Hopeful Words,” her column in The Daily Record, and had caught up on laundry and cleaning the night before.

Marianne and Nick were already in the Middle East but hadn’t called to check in since their layover in Munich. Hope considered calling them, but reminded herself that this was their honeymoon, after all.

Gayle was having a private family dinner at home with her boys. Their first since Chuck died.

Hannah, Lauren, and the twins were Christmas shopping a hundred miles away on a Girl’s Night Out. They’d said they’d be home late that same night, but Hope and half the town knew they would find a hotel near the outlet stores and make one last pass through the shops before heading home. Hope regretted not accepting their invitation to tag along. She wasn’t a fan of the long drive, but she loved the outlets as much as anyone. Not to mention spending time with the girls.

Hannah’s husband, Dustin, was probably still at the shop with Clark. They’d been glued together of late as Clark absorbed the legacy and intricacies of Restored, Inc. Clark was staying with the Maxwells in Lauren’s spare bedroom and, as far as Hope knew, hadn’t even left the property since arriving in town.

Maybe he’s too busy, she thought. I bet he doesn’t even remember asking me to help give him a run of the land.

“I bet they’re both hungry,” she said aloud. “Working hard all day . . . well, of course they’re hungry. Lauren’s not there to make them eat.” Men are so helpless, she thought.

She opened the fridge. Sandwiches? No. Warmed-up Chinese? Yuck, Hope, even you wouldn’t eat that. She shut the fridge too hard and her Chuck’s Chicken ’n’ Biscuits magnet hit the floor. “Well, duh,” she said to the cartoon chicken on the magnet.

Hope changed her clothes, brushed her hair, changed her shirt again, brushed her teeth, and put lotion on her hands and elbows. Then she made a very familiar drive to Chuck’s for three box-dinners and then to the Maxwells and their adjacent shop.

Hope was surprised to find the front door was locked. Odd, she thought. She looked through a window but the house was dark. The doorbell hadn’t worked since long before Adam died.

Hope knocked on the door and waited. She knocked again. Nothing. She stepped off the porch and walked around the side of the house to the shop. Restored’s white pickup truck was parked in its usual spot. Hope peered through the window of the shop’s customer door and saw what she guessed were Clark’s legs poking out from underneath an antique pedestal desk. The door was unlocked and she quietly pushed it open.

“Hello there,” she said, standing in the doorway. The shop was gray, and she wondered why Clark and Dustin didn’t have the overhead light on.

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