Christmas Once Again by D. K. Deters

Author:D. K. Deters [Deters, D. K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, Christmas, Holidays, Time Travel, Cowboy, Western, Fantasy, historical, Rancher, Colorado, Clean
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2018-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

Present day

After Zach’s departure, Gran remained in the living room. She pressed an embroidered kerchief under her puffy eyes and glanced at the jewelry box. Of all people, Zach, whom she’d raised and called her grandson, deserved the truth.

The day had come to tell him, but she couldn’t expect him to understand.

Seventy-three years ago, on December twenty-fourth, she’d visited a local thrift store where she sifted through boxes of odds and ends. One of the boxes contained a lovely flower print already framed. Four bits and it belonged to her.

She’d been excited to hang the treasure in her parlor, and even though she was pregnant, she wasn’t about to let a wobbly chair deter her. Her body flinched as she remembered feeling faint. Falling, she’d grabbed the frame, hoping to regain her balance, but a recovery eluded her. She scraped her palms against the wall and landed with a bump on her noggin.

The print had torn lengthwise, and as she pulled the edges together, it ripped further, exposing a canvas. Ignoring her skinned hands, she tilted the artwork toward the light, and admired the artist’s talent. In moments, she was lying on the frozen ground, the painting beside her.

How did she get there? She recognized the mountains and a cabin on her property. A family stood by the window, singing Christmas carols. Fear kept her from calling out. She picked up the painting, though why she couldn’t recall.

Her husband found her sprawled on the floor. Their doctor insisted her miscarriage was due to the fall. Whenever she brought up time travel, he shushed her, claiming she was overwrought. She couldn’t blame him. Everyone attributed her delusional rambling to a mother’s grief, and after a while, she dismissed the incident as an awful dream. Life went on, but she never became pregnant again.

She’d handled the painting many times, fearing yet admiring the canvas. For years she sought out information about the artist—nothing ever came of it.

But twenty years ago, she time traveled again, filling a void created by the first. Would anyone have believed an old woman any more than they did a nineteen-year-old? The lies began, one to cover the other. The deceit didn’t stop there; she’d also bought and paid for documents, some legal, some not so much. Once the lies got their grips on her, it became impossible to take them back. Tears dampened her lashes. The jewelry box had always held her secret until the mix-up with the painting.

All these years later, she still worried what Zach would do if he remembered.

****

Zach stood under the awning at Once Again Antiques and stomped the slush from his boots. Motorists forged their own parking spots while jaywalking Christmas shoppers rushed to make their purchases. Several people gathered at the store’s display window. A muffled carol played on a vintage jukebox, and alongside it, a revolving color wheel illuminated the silvery branches on a tinsel Christmas tree.

He removed his Stetson and tapped it against his pant leg, releasing a dusting of snow from the felt brim.

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