Kissing Father Christmas (8 page)

M
iranda received the wrapped book with a grateful look. She carefully undid the wrapping and held the book in her hands. As she studied the cover, a knowing look dawned on her. The illustration was of a sweet-faced lamb with a tiny pink triangle of a nose and very short legs.

“
Molly the Little Lamb.
” She read the title with the same conviction as she'd read the Christina Rossetti poem.

Somehow that small gesture made me feel as if she viewed my handiwork as a real book. An artistic accomplishment that deserved to be treated with honor and appreciation. It was the kind of affirmation I'd never received at home.

“You wrote this and illustrated this for Molly.”

I nodded. My shyness gauge jumped ten points.

“Peter is going to be so surprised. He adores his little sister.” Miranda carefully turned to the first page, smiling.

“The story is about Pete, the loyal sheepdog,” I explained. “He's responsible to herd all the little lambs in the meadow and he does so by riding his shiny bicycle around and gathering the flock.”

Miranda turned the pages as I told her the story.

“Pete the loyal sheepdog gets all of the little lambs rounded up except for Molly. You see, her legs are too short for her to keep up with all the other lambs. So Pete comes up with a solution and, well, you'll see his invention there on the last page.”

Miranda broke into a wide grin as she turned to the last page. “It's just like the wagon-style seat that Peter made for Molly on the front of his bike.”

I nodded, feeling my nervousness dissipate. “That way Pete the sheepdog can keep Molly with him on his bike while he pedals around the pasture and herds all the other sheep.”

“Anna, this is adorable. I love these darling red shoes you drew on Molly's short little legs. And the illustration of this sheepdog with all the shaggy hair flipping in front of his eyes. This is really wonderful.” She closed the book and ran her fingers over the cover. “Where can I get a copy?”

I laughed.

“What's so funny?”

“That's one of three copies. I had it specially done through one of those places that can print a few books at a time.”

“You need to make more. I want a copy and I'm sure Ellie and Julia will. And Andrew and Katharine. Katharine will want to sell them in the Tea Cosy. Why don't you send it to a publisher? It's so good.”

I brushed off Miranda's comment. I could see lots of flaws with the book. According to the printer, I hadn't prepared the standard number of pages and the words would have been easier to read if I'd selected a different font. Plus, the watercolor illustrations should have been transferred through a different format before I sent the files in to be printed. I tried to explain all the beginner foibles to Miranda but she was undaunted in her enthusiasm.

“Seriously, Anna. This book is wonderful.” She flipped through the pages again. “I love it. Peter will love it, too. And of course, Molly will be elated.” Miranda carefully returned it to the bubble wrapping. “I spoiled the gift wrap, but I have lots of wrapping paper. When are you going to give it to Peter?”

“That's a good question. I was actually thinking that maybe you or Ian could slip it to Peter tonight at the play or maybe drop it by his parents' house tomorrow night, on Christmas Eve.”

“Don't you want to give it to him?”

I gave a shy shrug. “I don't know. Maybe I should save it and mail it to Molly for her birthday. Do you know when her birthday is?”

“No, I don't.” Miranda got up and reached for her cell phone on the counter. She started tapping a text message. “Ian and Peter are over at the theater helping Edward get everything set up for tonight. If you like, I could ask if Peter wants to stop by here when they're finished. You could give it to him then.”

Just then the front door opened and Ian bounded inside.

My heart did a funny arabesque spin and landed in a flop.

Ian was alone.

“I was just going to send you a message and see how things were going.”

Ian untied his boots and left them by the door. “Many hands make light work. We finished early.” He sniffed the air. “Did they send me home here to the biscuit factory just in time to make sure you didn't burn the cottage down?”

“The brownies!” Miranda slipped into her mitts and opened the oven. She pulled out the pan and gave the center a spongy poke. “They look perfect. I don't know why the timer didn't go off, though. This oven is so fickle.”

Ian looked my direction and seemed surprised to see me. “Oh, hallo, Anna. I thought you might still be sleeping.”

“I'm not that jet-lagged.”

“That's not what I heard.”

“Oh, yeah? What did you hear?”

“Peter said you fell asleep on the train ride back last night.”

“That's true. I did.”

Ian stood at the kitchen counter, waiting for Miranda to look away before he cut himself a nice-sized piece of gingerbread.

“Ian! Those are for our family and friends and for the play tonight.”

He gave her a look of mock offense. Putting on a Scottish brogue that sounded just like his father, he said, “What are you sayin', woman? Are you daft? Am I not your family? Am I not your friend? Have I not just come from doing the labor of an honest man so that you and your family and your friends might have the privilege of sitting in comfort as you enjoy the play tonight?”

Miranda was laughing before he even got to the “daft” line. She went over and wrapped her arms around Ian's middle giving him a hug with her face resting on his puffed-out chest. Her undying affection for him showed all over her face.

“That's more like it,” Ian said, concluding his spot-on imitation of his father.

I'd only seen my Uncle Andrew go into one of his playful bellowing moments once before. It was at the wedding when he danced with me and couldn't contain the sheer joy of being a man who had lived to see the day that his son was married. It was the purest sort of happiness and I'd thought of that moment often whenever I felt something strongly but held back or withdrew my true feelings and replaced my reaction with a more sedate, acceptable response.

Miranda went back to the oven, still glowing. She put in the next pan of gingerbread and started getting the frosting ready. I returned to my drawing of Princess Julia in the taxi. Ian helped himself to another slice of gingerbread and came over to sit across from me by the fire.

“Peter told me something else.”

“Oh?” I tried to play it coy but one of the downsides of never hanging out with the popular girls was that I'd missed out on learning how to be charming on demand.

Ian leaned back with his hands folded behind his neck. “He told me that the two of you had a divine evening together.”

“Divine?” Miranda repeated from the kitchen.

Ian put up his hand in defense. “His words, not mine. Divine is what he said. Something about the Christmas tree in Trafalgar and the choir at Saint Martin-in-the-Fields.”

I felt my face warming at the memory.

“Look at that,” Ian said to Miranda, grinning at my reaction. “I'd say Peter wasn't the only one who would use the word
divine
to describe last night.”

“It was holy,” I said firmly, as if I had any possibility of changing the direction my cousin's mind had gone. “We stood on the steps of a church by the huge tree and listened to the choir sing ‘O Holy Night.' It was…”

I gave up and decided it didn't matter if Ian wanted to tease me. What mattered is that Peter had told him that our time together had been “divine.” That was something. I wasn't sure what, but it was something.

Ian hopped up and reached for the poker to stoke the fire. “Like I said, Peter thought you and your evening with him were both divine.”

I noticed how he added the
you
to the divine comment this time but I decided to do my best to ignore Ian. It was not likely that I'd be able to discern if the added part about Peter thinking that I was divine as well had truly come from Peter's lips or if my rowdy cousin had decided to add it in to see how many shades of red he could get my face to turn.

I hoped when I saw Peter tonight at the play that I'd be able to pick up something that would give me a hint of his true feelings. The way he treated me around his family and friends in a public setting would tell me a whole lot more than any mirthful statements Ian tossed around. I didn't dare let my imagination wander off into fairy-tale land. Not without more evidence directly from Peter that he was truly interested in me as more than a friend.

Miranda's statement about Margaret flashed in my thoughts.

Grace offered in words can be very healing, but actions are the true expression of love.

I
lingered at Rose Cottage for the rest of the afternoon and felt, truly, like family with Miranda and Ian.

Miranda completed her baking and frosting. I focused on finishing the coloring book and Ian kept the fire going and did his bit of sketching on a project he'd brought home from the architecture firm where he and Peter worked.

All teasing and taunting about Peter had subsided.

Twilight was coming on and Miranda had prepared a simple supper for us of pasta and salad. The three of us tucked in, as Ian liked to say, around the small kitchen table with the nativity scene taking up the center space.

“This is a beautiful set,” I told Miranda. “Have you had it long?”

“No. Ellie got it for me last year at an after-Christmas sale. She loves it when she finds a bargain. She gave it to me last January because she said she was afraid if she put it away she'd forget all about it and not be able to find it again this Christmas.”

Ian's phone buzzed and he glanced at it to see the text message. “It's Peter,” he said.

I didn't know if I should believe him, so I kept eating as if news of Peter didn't interest me.

“Aww, that's a pity.”

“What is it?” Miranda asked.

Ian scrolled down the screen on his phone. “Molly is running a fever. Peter is staying home with her tonight so that his parents can go to the play. It's the highlight of their year, he says.”

“I hope Molly is all right,” I said.

“She spikes fevers every now and then,” Ian said. “It's usually gone by the next day. Of course, they don't want to take a chance since so many viruses are going around this time of year.”

“How are your dad and Katharine?” I asked. “I've been meaning to ask.”

“Katharine is over her cold. She's feeling fine. My dad never had one. He's fine.”

“I thought he was sick, too, since he didn't join in the other night at the Tea Cosy.”

“He was feeling all right but he and Katharine thought it best for both of them to close themselves off upstairs that evening. If he was coming down with the same cold, they didn't want to expose the entire cast of the play.”

“That was a nice preemptive gesture,” I said.

Ian turned to me. “If you've ever heard my dad sneeze, he can raise the roof. He could have taken out the whole cast with a single sneeze that night.”

“It's too bad that Peter is going to miss tonight,” Miranda said.

“Sometimes I think he's too good of a son,” Ian said. “It's not my place to say that, of course.”

“Why do you say that?” Miranda asked.

“I know Molly was a bit of a surprise baby—there's a big age gap between her and Peter. But I don't think if I had a sister born with special needs that I'd be as devoted as Peter is to helping care for her.”

“I'm sure his parents appreciate all that he does for them. They're quite a bit older than your dad and Katharine. It has to be difficult for them.” Miranda got up from the table and returned with a pitcher of water to refill my glass.

“I've no doubt they appreciate him. I'm saying as his friend that there has to come a time when he separates his life from theirs and gives himself the freedom to make decisions about his own life apart from Molly's needs. It's almost a case of Peter having too much loyalty.”

I absorbed Ian's and Miranda's insights about their close friend and at the same time felt that Ian didn't understand how difficult it is to make independent decisions when you live under the same roof as someone who needs constant care.

“It's difficult with my grandfather,” I said. “He's not difficult. What I mean is that it's difficult when my parents have plans to do something and I announce that I have plans for the same evening. Someone has to give in and be there for Opa. We can't leave him alone.”

“You probably understand Peter's situation better than we do,” Ian said.

“What is Molly's condition?” It felt odd referring to it as a “condition.” When I met her last May, I realized immediately that something was off with her. It wasn't an obvious situation as with someone who has Down syndrome or something such as cerebral palsy. Molly was able to function. She wore a brace on one of her legs and she could communicate even though it didn't come out in clear or complete sentences. She was very sweet and affectionate.

Miranda looked at Ian. “I don't know—do you?”

Ian shook his head. “I know they had her tested last summer and for the second time she hadn't progressed in her intelligence. Where she's at now might be as far as she goes in that respect. All I'm saying is that it's a long time to be devoted to helping raise your little sister. Peter is a better man than most—that's for certain.”

“No one at this table disagrees with you on that.” Miranda looked at me with a twinkle in her eye.

Ian winked at me.

I kept my head down and finished my plate of pasta.