Silent Night, the Dark Side, Child's Play, Blessing in Disguise, Lost and Found by Steel Danielle

Author:Steel, Danielle [Steel, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780678457764
Amazon: 067845776X
Goodreads: 144748127
Publisher: Pan Ltd
Published: 2022-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Despite Zoe’s good intentions with the ear tubes, from September until Christmas, Jaime was constantly sick, with illnesses she picked up at school from the other kids. Nothing serious, colds, flu, bronchitis, croup where she barked like a seal each time she coughed, and a stomach bug. She was absent as often as she was present. She was even sick over Thanksgiving. She didn’t get another ear infection, but she had everything else. She was sick for all of Christmas vacation and had roseola, to add insult to injury, which wasn’t serious, but unpleasant. All their Christmas photos showed Jaime in pajamas with a red rash on her face. She spent most of the time in the bath, with Zoe putting calamine lotion on her afterward. As an only child, she had had no exposure to other children and their maladies until then, except at the playground. Austin called it the Disease du Jour, and Cathy tried to encourage them. She said it was totally normal for her first year at preschool. The school expected it too.

They had a nice Christmas anyway, although they couldn’t go to Austin’s parents as usual, which was disappointing. Jaime wasn’t well enough to go, and his parents didn’t want to catch any of her maladies. Santa Claus showed up right on schedule and left everything that Jaime had asked for in a letter she had mailed to him on December 1. She even got a pink bike with training wheels which Austin assembled for her at midnight. They took it to the park for her to try out, with a matching pink helmet, on the first day after her roseola had disappeared. She got to go ice skating with her parents at Rockefeller Center on the last day of Christmas vacation too. Santa had brought her new skates, and had been extremely generous with her. She said it was the best Christmas of her life, and in fact, the only one she remembered. Santa had left her a letter too, which Zoe wrote in red pen, telling Jaime how proud he was of her, and Mrs. Claus and the reindeer sent their love.

The atmosphere between Austin and Zoe had relaxed again. He had forgiven her for the ear tubes incident, and realized it was well meant, and she had solemnly sworn not to lie to him again. He believed her. He thought she had learned a lesson. It had taken them a month to get close again. But the holidays had been very special, and even Jaime’s roseola and cold hadn’t ruined them.

Jaime reported on all of it to her friends at school, and told them about the cold and rash she’d had, which several of her classmates had had before her, which was how she’d gotten it just in time for Christmas. She got ten solid days of school in, when she woke up one morning with a raspy voice and said she had a sore throat. When Zoe checked, she had a blazing fever, all of which had come on quickly with no warning.

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