By the time Siobhan realized she had stopped moving, it had already been a while.
That in itself felt like a small victory.
She stood near the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, one hand wrapped around her mug, the other resting absently against the counter. The party had reached that rare point where it no longer needed managing. People had found their places. Conversations had settled into themselves, looping and widening, at times relaxed, at other times animated.
From the dining table came laughter—slow, familiar laughter, the kind that followed a story everyone already knew but loved retelling anyway. Kayla and Mary were midway through it again, hands moving as much as their mouths.
“—and then it caught fire,” Mary said, covering her mouth.
Kayla shook her head. “It did not catch fire.”
“It smoked,” Mary countered. “Aggressively.”
Siobhan raised an eyebrow. “Are we talking metaphorically or am I about to regret letting you near my kitchen?”
“Craft project,” Kayla said quickly. “Felt Santas were harmed.”
Nick laughed, unoffended by his supporting-character status, and Siobhan squeezed Mary’s arm as she passed. “Next year,” she said, “we craft together. I like a controlled environment.”
The living room floor was no longer a place you walked through; it had become its own world. Reilly, Alice, and Carrie were deep into a craft project themselves, paper spread everywhere. Susan and DeAndre were fully in it with them—DeAndre was carefully applying glitter with a seriousness that bordered on reverence. “This,” he announced, “is structural glitter.”
Susan laughed. “There is no such thing.”
“There absolutely is,” he replied. “And we are using a bit too much of it.”
Reilly looked up at Siobhan. “We’re making plans for tomorrow.”
“And rules,” Alice added.
“And exceptions to the rules,” Susan said quickly.
Siobhan crouched down, resting her elbows on her knees. “I respect a system with flexibility,” she said. “Just don’t glue anything permanently to the furniture.”
When she stood again, her knees protested slightly, and she laughed at herself before moving toward the tree.
Martha’s father, Chris Kringle (yes, that Chris Kringle) sat comfortably in a chair that had been claimed for him hours ago. Not performing. Just present. His wife Jessica leaned against the chair’s ample arm, her fingers laced through his. A few of the children who had accompanied their parents to Siobhan and Paul’s party, drifted in and out of the space around them, orbiting like planets, each of them vying for Christopher’s attention and somehow getting in their last-minute pleas for what they’d like to find beneath their trees on Christmas morning – less than 24 hours away now. They spoke with an adorable urgency, and Siobhan smiled inwardly as she watched them.
After chatting with a few other friends, she made her way back to the kitchen where voices were more intense and the air in the room felt heavier.
Paul stood near the island with Jackie and Martha, and Christian and Maggie, their voices low but firm.
“…just a few blocks over,” Paul was saying quietly to Christian. “ICE raids.”
Christian nodded, his jaw tight. “Feels too close. Like it’s brushing up against everything.”
Maggie shook her head. “They’re terrorizing families. It’s just not right.”
“We’re organizing,” Christian said. “Court watchers. Rides. Legal fundraisers. We just feel so helpless. If our leaders aren’t going to step up and do what’s right, then we have to.”
Heads bobbed, sounds of agreement filled the air, and then Jackie jumped, reaching into her back pocket for her iPhone. “I almost forgot! I received this message today from Amanda and Nicole.” She swiped at the phone until she found the video message Amanda had sent them.
They turned together, as a group, toward the small glowing screen.
Amanda appeared first, wind in her hair, eyes bright. Nicole leaned in, adjusting the camera. Behind them: Amsterdam, lit softly against the evening sky.
And the girls—right there. Laughing. Healthy. Safe.
“The girls love it here,” Amanda started. “And their cousin and her husband are lovely, generous people who have made us feel so welcome and have welcomed the girls-” the camera panned to the twins sitting on a bench, their legs swinging beneath them as they waved at the camera, singing Feliz Navidad. “I can see them thriving here.”
“It’s still going to be so hard to say goodbye,” Nicole added. “But we just wanted you to know how well it’s going.”
When the video ended, Siobhan exhaled. “It looks like they’ll be okay. It’s just too bad they couldn’t stay in the U.S.”
Everyone agreed.
The moment settled—too heavy, almost—until it shattered.
“MOMMMMM!”
Reilly came tearing around the corner, at full speed, skidding to a stop in the kitchen doorway, eyes wide, arms flailing.
“Susan accidentally hot-glued her hair to the floor.”
There was a beat of stunned silence as all heads turned to stare at the boy.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said carefully. “She did what?”
Susan’s voice floated in from the living room, cheerful and entirely unbothered. “It’s not all my hair. Just a section. Also, I think the glue gun was hotter than advertised.”
DeAndre appeared behind Reilly, shrugging. “She’s fine,” he said. “But she’s definitely staying where she is for a while.” He snorted, stuffing his hands into his pocket.
Jackie clapped a hand over her mouth. Martha snorted. Maggie bent over laughing. Even Christian cracked a smile, the tension draining out of the room like air from a balloon.
Siobhan closed her eyes for half a second, then opened them again. “Okay,” she said, calm and decisive as she followed Reilly to the living room. “No one panic. No one pull. And someone—please—unplug the glue gun.”
Susan called out, still unfazed. “I was actually thinking about changing my hairstyle, so this is just the inspiration I need to actually do it.”
“Next time I suggest flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine,” Alice suggested.
Laughter rippled through the room, bright and cleansing, and Siobhan felt the night tilt back into balance.
Much later—after the guests had gone, after Susan had been freed with the careful application of ice cubes and gentle coaching, after the last mug had been set in the sink—the house finally grew quiet.
Siobhan moved through the living room with Paul, Kayla, Mary, and Reilly, the five of them working without much talking. Wrapping paper folded. Glitter swept into reluctant piles. Half-finished crafts stacked carefully on the coffee table, saved for morning.
Buzz slept on the rug by the fire, one cheek pressed to the floor, breathing slow and even. In his small fist, curled tight against his chest, was a crumpled piece of paper—his letter to Santa—creased and softened from being held all evening, as though he’d been making sure it didn’t wander off without him.
Siobhan paused, watching him, then leaned into Paul as he slid an arm around her waist.
The house smelled like pine and cocoa and something faintly burnt from earlier mishaps. Outside, the world felt uncertain and loud and unfinished. But here—right now—there was warmth. There was family. There was enough.
And for the moment, that was everything.
The End.
Authors note: Thank you for taking the time to read these stories. I had so much fun writing them, and year after year, I keep falling in love with these characters. I hope you have too.
I wish you a very Merry Christmas, and health and happiness for the New Year.
“You know I hate flying. You know it. So, easy for you to say,” Nicole raised her fingers in air quotes, “breathe.”
Amanda glanced at the two sleeping girls in the seats between them. “They’re breathing,” she noted.
Nicole made a face. “They’re children. They have no idea we’re hurdling through the air in a sardine can with nothing to prevent us from falling out of the sky but, I don’t know, what, like air streams?”
Amanda chuckled. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” she assured her nervous wife.
The plane rocked again, dropped slightly, then surged upwards and smoothed out. Nicole gripped the armrests while Amanda cooed reassuring words.
The captain’s voice crackled through the speakers, far too cheerful for Nicole’s liking. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re experiencing a bit of rough air over Greenland. Please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened.”
“A bit,” Nicole muttered. “Define bit. Because my stomach just tried to relocate to my throat.”
Amanda smiled and reached over the small heads between them to squeeze Nicole’s forearm. “Look. They’re totally fine.”
Bella had one hand loosely wrapped around Aileen’s braid, the way she often slept—like they were tethering each other to the world. Their soft breathing was almost hypnotic.
Nicole exhaled long and slow. “Okay, okay. If they’re calm, I can be calm.”
“You can,” Amanda agreed. “You won’t, but you can.”
Nicole shot her a glare, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
Across the aisle, a flight attendant walked by, glanced at the girls, and whispered, “They’re adorable, by the way.”
Amanda beamed. “Thank you.”
Nicole beamed too, then whispered to Amanda, “I’m still convinced this entire plane is held together by emotional support compliments.”
The turbulence faded; the lights dimmed. Amanda and Nicole found movies to watch, they both napped for a while until hours later, when the wheels finally touched down at Schiphol, Nicole let out a long, shaky breath worthy of an Olympic sport.
“See?” Amanda teased as she unbuckled, “We didn’t crash.”
“You don’t get points for the obvious,” Nicole replied, but her voice was lighter now, the fear already dissolving into exhaustion and anticipation.
Bella stirred first. “Manda?” she croaked, blinking heavily.
Aileen sat up next, hair wild, eyes puffy. “We here?”
“We’re here,” Amanda said. “Amsterdam.”
Nicole pointed out the window. “Look, you can see the other airplanes. And that is… probably a luggage cart. I don’t know. I’m not a luggageologist.”
The girls giggled, still dazed with sleep.
They gathered their bags—three backpacks, a stuffed llama named Señora Pompitas, and a pink rolling suitcase that made a squeaking sound every third rotation of its wheels—and followed the crowd into the bright, bustling airport.
The arrivals hall was a blur of signs, chatter, and the rolling echo of suitcase wheels. A woman stood near the railing holding a cardboard sign that said “BELLA & AILEEN” in bubble letters, decorated with little hand-drawn tulips. She waved as soon as she saw them.
“That’s her,” Amanda said, her stomach tightening as the moment became real.
Isabel Reyes looked younger than thirty-one, with coffee-brown eyes and curls that escaped her scarf and framed her face in soft loops. Beside her stood a tall Dutch man with sandy hair and a gentle, slightly crooked smile. He had made no creative effort on his sign, which read simply: “Nicole & Amanda.”
Nicole snorted. “Already love him.”
Isabel approached first. “Hola,” she said warmly, slipping seamlessly into Spanish as she knelt to the girls’ level. “Yo soy tu prima, Isabel.”
Bella and Aileen froze. Then Aileen stepped half behind Nicole’s leg, peeking out. Bella didn’t move at all.
Isabel didn’t push. She simply smiled and placed a small wrapped candy in each of their hands. “I brought stroopwafels, too,” she whispered conspiratorially. “If you want some later.”
Slowly, Bella’s eyes flicked to Amanda, then Nicole, then back to Isabel. “¿Vives aquí?” Bella finally asked.
“Yes,” Isabel replied. “And your mamá and papá will be able to come here. Not today, but soon. We’ll help.”
Aileen’s small fingers tightened around Nicole’s hand.
Isabel’s husband stepped forward then, hands tucked politely behind his back. “I’m Bram,” he said with a small bow toward the girls, then toward Nicole and Amanda. “We’re very happy you’re here.”
Nicole appreciated the carefulness of his tone—gentle, respectful, not assuming anything.
Amanda swallowed. “Thank you for meeting us.”
“Of course,” Isabel said. “We’ve been preparing the guest room for weeks. And I took leave from work so the girls can settle in slowly.”
Her eyes flicked to Bella and Aileen, soft with recognition and grief. “You look like your mamá,” she murmured. “Even more than I remembered.”
Bella tilted her head, curious now. “You knew our mamá?”
“Yes,” Isabel said. “When you were very little. And now I get to know you again.”
The girls didn’t leap into her arms—Amanda hadn’t expected them to. They stayed anchored to Nicole and Amanda, but they were listening. Tentatively. Carefully.
That was enough.
Amsterdam felt instantly different after the airport—calmer, greener, washed with water and bicycles and cold December light. Bram drove while Isabel sat in the backseat between the girls, pointing things out of the window.
“That canal is called the Prinsengracht… that’s a houseboat… those are Christmas lights—they put them up all through winter.”
Bella pressed her palm against the cold glass. “Looks like a fairy town,” she whispered.
Nicole leaned her head against Amanda’s shoulder. “You okay?” Amanda whispered.
Nicole nodded. “Ask me again when we leave them here.”
Amanda didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Her throat was too tight.
Isabel’s apartment sat on a quiet brick street lined with bikes, mistletoe, and potted winter plants. Inside, the place smelled faintly of cinnamon and something floral. A small felt banner hung over the doorway: Welkom, Bella & Aileen.
The girls froze for a moment.
Then Bella whispered, “It has our names.”
“It does,” Isabel said. “I made it.”
Aileen looked up at Nicole, uncertain.
Nicole crouched beside her. “You can look around,” she said. “We’re not leaving yet.”
The girls padded inside, cautious but curious.
In the living room, a basket of stuffed animals sat by the couch—Isabel said they belonged to the neighbor’s daughter, who insisted the girls borrow them “as long as they want.” In the kitchen, Bram had set out mugs of mint tea and apple juice. A small Christmas tree twinkled from the corner, topped with a handmade star.
Amanda felt something shift in her chest. Not a release. Not yet. Something like: They might be okay here.
Nicole stood beside her, jaw trembling despite her forced smile.
Isabel approached quietly. “We know this is a lot,” she said. “For all of you. We can take it slow. The girls can stay with you tonight at the hotel if you want, or—”
A sudden shriek cut her off.
“NICOLE! MANDA!” The girls came running from the hallway, waving something triumphantly.
Nicole braced. “What’s wrong?”
Bella thrust the item into Amanda’s hands.
A book. A children’s book.
Spanish and Dutch text.
About a little girl moving to live with her aunt in another country.
Aileen bounced on her toes. “Isabel says she will read it to us! Tonight! And tomorrow we can make galletas from a Salvadoran recipe! And—and—she has a kitty named Poffertje!”
Nicole exhaled shakily, relief and heartbreak tangling into something unnameable. “A kitty? Well then. That’s basically the golden ticket of happiness.”
Bella nodded vigorously. “She’s really fluffy.”
Amanda knelt and pulled them both close. “We’re going to be here with you while you get to know them,” she said gently. “You’re not staying alone. We’ll be right nearby.”
“And when we go home,” Nicole added softly, “we can call you every day. FaceTime. Videos. All of it.”
Bella’s eyes flickered. “But… you’ll go back?”
Amanda swallowed. “Yes, sweetheart.”
Aileen’s tiny lower lip trembled. “Why?”
Nicole scooped her up. Held her tight.“Because grownups sometimes have to do big complicated things. But we will always be yours. And you will always be ours. Even when we’re far. You don’t lose people just because they’re in another place.”
Aileen laid her head on Nicole’s shoulder.
Bella slipped her hand into Amanda’s.
Behind them, Isabel watched with quiet respect, tears glimmering unshed. Bram placed a hand at the small of her back.
Outside, bells rang from a nearby church tower, echoing over the canal.
Amsterdam was foreign. Beautiful. Frightening. Hopeful.
And for the first time since Martha opened that manila folder, Amanda felt something inside her loosen.
Maybe—just maybe—this could be a beginning, not only an ending.
Isabel had practically shooed them out the door—“Go, walk, see the city. We’ll make dinner with the girls”—so Amanda and Nicole bundled up and took the tram toward Prinsengracht, shopping bags resting at their feet. They had bought a handful of Christmas gifts—wooden toys, watercolor sets, tiny felt mice in tulip-print dresses—but Amanda kept checking the time.
“We’re early,” Nicole said, glancing at her phone.
“Better early than late,” Amanda replied. “These tickets were impossible to get. Bram said we got lucky there was a cancellation.”
The Anne Frank House appeared around the bend like something both ordinary and holy. Tall, narrow canal houses lined the street; bicycles leaned against railings; tourists lingered near the gift shop. Everything looked so normal that for a moment Amanda forgot what was inside.
Nicole squeezed her hand once. “Ready?”
Amanda nodded.
Inside, the museum was dim and quiet. Visitors shuffled forward in slow clusters, guided by arrows on the floor. The main house smelled faintly of old wood and cold air, the way historic places do—like time had settled in the corners. It was reverently quiet in the building, with hushed voices everywhere, creating an undercurrent of whispers.
Amanda felt a low ache in her chest before they even reached the Secret Annex.
They climbed the narrow staircase to the second floor. At the top, the famous movable bookcase came into view—slightly tilted, jammed with faded binders and books, the hinge edges worn from decades of visitors passing by.
Nicole sucked in a breath. “God. It’s smaller than I thought.”
The docent nearby spoke in a soft, practiced tone, her accent thick. “The entrance to the hiding place was disguised behind this bookcase. Eight people lived in the Annex for more than two years.”
Amanda reached out but didn’t touch the wood; it felt wrong somehow, like interrupting a prayer.
They stepped through the threshold.
The Annex was shockingly cramped—low ceilings, tight corners, rooms barely large enough for a bed and a table. The windows were blacked out by thin, discolored curtains. The wallpaper in Anne and Margot’s room was still dotted with the photos Anne had pasted there: movie stars, athletes, dancers—life and color against a wall that had once held silence and fear.
Nicole moved closer to take them in. “She made this room hers,” she whispered. “In the middle of hiding. Knowing what could happen if they were caught.”
Amanda felt her throat tighten. “Kids adjust to anything. They shouldn’t have to.”
In Peter’s small room, the single window was uncovered now, showing the faint December light on the canal. Outside, bicycles rattled over cobblestones. A boat glided by silently. Such an ordinary scene.
So painfully ordinary.
Amanda folded her arms over her chest, suddenly chilled. “It feels like stepping into the past but remembering you already know the ending,” she murmured, goosebumps rising on her arms.
Nicole stood beside her, eyes glistening. “And realizing the beginning doesn’t sound that unfamiliar.”
A silence settled between them—not uncomfortable, but heavy. Necessary. They moved into the next room, where Anne’s diary sat open in a glass case, her handwriting looping and elegant, a teenager’s script frozen in time.
The docent resumed speaking as a new group entered. “People often wonder how such horrors could begin. The truth is: slowly. Through policies, rhetoric, scapegoating. Through a government creating ‘others.’ Through neighbors deciding it wasn’t their problem—yet.”
Amanda felt Nicole stiffen beside her.
They waited until the group moved on before speaking.
Nicole’s voice was quiet but steady. “Tell me that doesn’t sound like home.”
Amanda didn’t even try to pretend. “It does.”
Nicole’s breath caught. “The raids… the buses… ICE treating families like criminals… the surveillance. It’s not the same, but it’s also not different enough.”
Amanda stared at Anne’s diary, at the dreams scribbled inside it. “The only reason the girls have to meet their parents in Amsterdam is because the U.S. has forgotten its own promises.”
Nicole whispered, “Give me your tired, your poor…” She shook her head. “We don’t mean it anymore. Not in practice.”
They moved into the next room—the one with the videos of Otto Frank, his voice shaking as he described reading Anne’s diary for the first time.
Amanda felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “People think history wouldn’t repeat,” she whispered. “But the thing that scares me is how familiar the start of it feels.”
Nicole took Amanda’s hand. “Then we don’t get to be the people who say it’s not our problem yet.”
Amanda nodded. “We won’t be.”
The docent led the group into the narrow corridor outside the bedrooms and paused beside a small display case. Her voice lowered, as though the walls themselves demanded quiet.
“In August of 1944, after more than two years in hiding, the Annex was raided,” she explained. “To this day, we still don’t know with certainty who betrayed them. The eight people hiding here were arrested and sent first to Westerbork transit camp, then to Auschwitz. Otto Frank was the only one who survived the war. Anne and her sister, Margot, died in Bergen-Belsen, just weeks before liberation. The others—Herman and Auguste van Pels, their son Peter, and Fritz Pfeffer—also perished in concentration camps.”
She let the silence stretch, the enormity of the words settling like dust. “When Otto returned to Amsterdam, he discovered Anne’s diary had been saved. He devoted the rest of his life to sharing her words—so the world would know not just how they died, but how they lived.”
As they moved into the final room, the flow of visitors slowed. A soft pool of light illuminated a bronze plaque mounted against an otherwise bare wall. It stood alone—no photographs, no artifacts, no commentary—just a quiet expanse of metal holding a sentence the whole world seemed to know, yet never fully reckon with.
Anne’s handwriting had been etched into the plaque, the loops of her script delicate and unmistakably young:
“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
Amanda stopped. The words landed differently here, in the dim quiet of the Annex, with the knowledge of what had come after them—arrest, transport, starvation, death. The walls around them seemed to hold the contradiction in a kind of suspended grief.
Nicole stepped closer, her breath catching softly. She reached for Amanda’s hand. Shook her head, her unsaid words lingering heavily in her chest. ICE, Somali American’s being called ‘garbage’ by the President of the United States, drag queens being blamed for the demoralization of society, Mexicans being scapegoated as stealing jobs and bringing disease and crime, and in the military – women, people of color, and trans service members losing their rank or positions because they aren’t white cisgender men, the contributions of their predecessors being erased from the halls of the Pentagon, history being whitewashed, the insistence that slavery wasn’t that bad and we shouldn’t teach about it in our history books. And corporations that used to espouse diversity selling their souls to the devil because the devil promised them a profit.
Was all of that really so different from what happened here?
When they finally stepped outside, the cold air hit them sharply. The canal water rippled; the December sky was pale and wide. People biked past as if nothing monumental had happened inside those walls.
Nicole took a long breath. “Let’s go find something cozy for the girls,” she said. “Something that reminds them they’re loved.”
Amanda nodded. “Yeah. Something warm, something that will make them think of us while they’re wrapped up in them.”
They walked onward, their bags a little heavier, their steps a little slower, both carrying the quiet certainty that they had seen something today they couldn’t unsee.
And that what they did next—back home, together—would matter.
The sky had already gone soft and gray by the time Mr. Byron Shefty stepped onto his porch. The streetlights blinked on one by one, halos of gold in the crisp December air. Across the street, laughter spilled out from the McCord house, where Kayla and Mary were stringing colored lights around the front window. He could see them—two silhouettes moving like little whirlwinds—one holding the ladder, the other the tangled strand, both talking a mile a minute.
“Mr. Shefty!” Kayla called when she spotted him, cupping her mittened hands around her mouth. “Are you really going tonight?”
He paused on his front step, pulling his scarf tighter. “I suppose I am,” he shouted, pretending to grumble. “Unless one of you has a better offer.”
Kayla darted down the walkway toward him, her boots crunching in the snow. Mary followed. “You’re going to bingo, right? With her?” She grinned, teasing.
“I am going to bingo,” he said carefully, “and if you’re referring to Ms. Idola—yes, she mentioned she’d be there.”
Mary elbowed Kayla. “Told you!”
They giggled like conspirators, and Mr. Shefty rolled his eyes. He had, against his better judgment, told them about Idola—how she’d just moved into the neighborhood, how she sat three pews ahead of him at church, how she sang softly, reminding him of those gentler moments in his life. Moments he’d shared with his late wife, Helen.
The girls had been at it for weeks.
“Come on, Mr. Shefty,” Kayla had said just two days ago, leaning against his mailbox, trying to be persuasive. “You can’t just sit in your house reading the obituaries every night.”
“I don’t just read the obituaries,” he’d replied. “I do the crossword, too.”
Mary had giggled, pushing up her glasses. “You could at least try having some fun. What’s that thing the church does on Thursdays? Bingo? You’d clean up.”
And so, against his better judgment—and with a sense of being gently but firmly herded like an old sheep—Byron Shefty had decided he would go. He had even ironed his good flannel shirt, the one with the navy and forest green checks. But there was another reason, too, though he wouldn’t admit it. Her name was Idola.
He’d first noticed her three Sundays ago at St. Luke’s Lutheran, the big brick church just three blocks over. She sat three pews ahead, her gray hair curled softly like spun frost, a small red scarf tied around her neck. She had bowed her head during the prayer, and when she’d looked up, the sunlight from the stained glass caught her face, and something inside him—something he’d thought had long gone quiet—had stirred.
And then, foolishly, he had told the girls.
Kayla and Mary had squealed in unison, their imaginations running wild. Every time they saw him after that, they’d ask if he’d “talked to the lady yet” or if he had “picked out a tie for their wedding.” He’d threatened to tell their parents they were being nuisances, but secretly, he’d found himself smiling about it later.
He was. Brought back to the present when Mary, curious as ever, asked, “Did you and Mrs. Shefty ever do stuff like this? You know, bingo and things?”
The question gave him pause. He leaned back against the porch rail, his eyes softening in that way they did whenever he thought of Helen.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “Helen didn’t care much for bingo. Said she couldn’t stand all that clatter of the balls in the cage. But she humored me once in a while.”
He smiled then, but the girls could see the faraway look behind it.
“How did you meet your wife? I mean,” Kayla hesitated, “If you don’t mind telling us?”
He fumbled with the buttons on his coat. “I met Helen at the drugstore on Main Street. It’s not there anymore, a’course. I was twenty, working part-time delivering prescriptions on my old Schwinn. She came in every Thursday ta buy her father cigars and a pack of Juicy Fruit. The first time I saw her, she was wearing this yellow dress—bright as sunshine. I fumbled the change and dropped a nickel right down the heat vent.”
The girls laughed softly.
“So I made a point of being there every Thursday at five o’clock sharp,” he continued. “By the third week, she said, ‘If you’re going to hover, you might as well carry my groceries home.’ And that was that.”
He told them about their early years—how they saved for their first house, how they’d dance in the kitchen after dinner, how she’d plant tulips every spring in straight, perfect rows. And how, in the end, he’d sat by her bed, holding her hand while she slept more than she woke.
When he stopped, it was quiet. Even the world around them seemed to hush. Kayla’s eyes glistened, and Mary was chewing on her lip.
“You were so lucky,” Kayla said softly. “To be loved like that.”
He nodded. “I was. Luckiest fool alive.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” she went on, her voice trembling a little, “to feel that again? I mean… wouldn’t Helen want that for you?”
He looked at her then—really looked—and saw not a teenager teasing him, but a young woman with a heart wide open to the world. His throat tightened, and he gave a small, lopsided smile.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I think she would.” He smiled at the girls, tipped his cap and bid them farewell.
They watched as he turned the corner toward St. Luke’s, his shadow briefly framed in the snow by the warm lights of the streetlamp. Kayla whispered, “He’s really doing it.”
Mary smiled. “Do you really think Mrs. Shefty would be happy for him?”
Kayla exhaled. “I think so. I mean, she loved him, right?”
The Letter and the Snow (A Mystery at Christmas Part IV)
by Katy Daniels
The road to Milwaukee had a weathered, winter hush to it — a low, steady kind of quiet. Martha drove with practiced calm, her hands steady on the wheel. Marie sat beside her in the passenger seat with a thermos balanced on her knee, the two of them occasionally exchanging small, practical notes about the route. In the back, Angelina pressed her forehead to the glass and watched the world blur by. Hannah sat beside her, fingers linked through Angelina’s, a quiet anchor.
“Tell me again how you found Katie,” Marie asked after a long silence, her voice soft against the rustle of tires and the whir of the heater.
Martha inhaled, then exhaled. “When Angelina’s Ancestry result came through, Katie’s kit popped up as a full sibling. The site shows potential matches, then you can message the account associated with the kit. I wrote a careful message — who I was, why I was writing. I didn’t want to scare anyone. The reply came back the next morning. Katie’s,” she glanced at Angelina through the rear-view mirror, “…father answered, said she was ten and curious, and that she very much wanted to meet Angelina. That’s when he told me about…um…that Naomi had passed away.”
Marie glanced back at Angelina, offering a small, steady smile. “I’m so sorry, Angie.”
Angelina blinked. Then nodded. Then returned her gaze to the scenery passing them by.
Martha tightened her fingers on the steering wheel a fraction. “When I asked about Naomi, they told me she’d passed two years ago.”
Angelina’s chest tightened. Outside, pines leaned down under white snow; up close, the landscape looked like the Christmases she’d held in her childhood memory: the tree in the living room and her father stringing popcorn while her mother hummed an old Bing Crosby song. The memory felt warm and impossible. “It’s strange,” she said, voice small. “How someone could be that close in the world and still be so far away.”
Hannah’s hand squeezed hers. “We’ll meet them slowly,” she said. “You won’t be on your own in there.”
“I was talking about my mom,” Angelina replied. She shifted her gaze to the back of Martha’s head. “Did Bruce say why he didn’t bother to tell me when my mom died?”
Martha shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing with the gentle movement. “No,” she whispered. “He didn’t.”
“He should have,” Marie muttered, a tinge of venom in her voice.
“Of course he should have,” Hannah agreed, squeezing Angelina’s hand again.
Angelina fought back the tears that had been quietly welling up since the moment she climbed into the back of Martha’s SUV. Though she’d known about her mother’s death for nearly a week, the weight of it still hit her like a ton of bricks each time she allowed herself to think about it. But then, slowly, a fragile smile began to tug at the corners of her lips. Despite the ache settling deep in her chest, she was surrounded by three people who cared for her fiercely—it was almost enough to fill the hollow left by an absent mother.
They drove on, the silence of the car softened by the rhythm of passing towns and a roadside coffee stop where the waitress called everyone “hon.” It was the kind of travel that unfolded into itself — small, unhurried, safe.
Bruce’s house looked unassuming from the street: a simple two-story with a wreath, a small porch light, and a tall shovel leaning by the door. When they arrived, Bruce opened it with the careful smile of a man who’d been preparing himself for a long while. Katie bounded out behind him, scarf trailing, cheeks pink with excitement.
“Hi,” Katie said, coming forward with the boldness of a child who has been rehearsing the moment in private. “You look like me, I swear.” She grinned at Angelina, then darted forward to grab Angelina’s hand and lead her into the house.
Bruce ushered them in, and the house folded around them. They took in their surroundings, a kettle on, curtains open to gray light, photographs clustered on a shelf. Martha’s eyes caught a faded snapshot of Naomi at a younger, sunnier time. She didn’t say anything; she simply noted it.
“What should I say?” Katie asked Angelina after a minute of wide-eyed staring. “Like… do you like making snowflakes? Because my snowflakes are pretty good.”
Angelina laughed, the sound fragile and then real. “I like snowflakes. I like making lots of things by hand.” It was small talk, and it landed like a bridge.
Bruce served a simple lunch — soup that steamed in big bowls and sandwiches cut on the diagonal, with brownies waiting on a green plate shaped like a Christmas Tree. They ate slowly, as though each bite allowed them to measure the moment. Katie rattled off school projects and the name of her favorite teacher; Bruce talked about his garage and the little community he’d built around his contracting business. He told a few gentle, human stories about Naomi, always in a voice that kept the edges soft.
“She had this way of humming under her breath,” he said, smiling. “She liked old records. She liked to dance in the kitchen in her socks.”
Angelina listened, absorbing this ordinary portrait. In the way Bruce spoke, Naomi became less a ghost and more the woman he’d loved for a fragment of time — fallible, brave, complicated.
But still absent. Still the woman who walked out of Angelina’s life and never looked back. Still the woman who broke her father’s heart, not to mention her vows of marriage. But also the woman who sang Angelina to bed at night when she was sick or scared.
“I remember,” Angelina whispered.
The room grew quiet. Even Katie understood something heavy was in the air.
When the plates were cleared and the last forkful of brownie gone, Katie skipped off to her room to gather her collection of snowflakes to show Angelina. Bruce took that opportunity to go to a drawer and pull out a small, yellowed envelope. He set it on the table with both hands.
“This is for you,” he said quietly. “She asked me, in the last few weeks of her life when she knew she’d lost her battle with cancer, to give it to you. I’m only sorry I couldn’t locate you at the time.” He paused. “I did search for you.” His voice was tinged with regret.
Marie harrumphed. “Not very hard,” she hissed under her breath.
Hannah, sitting beside Marie, glanced at her and mutely nodded her agreement.
Your mother gave me your phone number, your address, but my letters were returned by the post office, and the phone number was no good.
Angelina glanced up at him, her face stricken. “My dad died when I was in high school. I had to move in with my grandmother.”
“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh, my, Angelina, I’m…I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I…I guess that explains why I couldn’t find you.”
A silence passed between them, and then Angelina leaned forward and picked up the envelope.
Her hands shook as she slid the paper free. Naomi’s handwriting was instantly familiar — a lilt, a softness around the capital letters. She read in a voice that trembled at first, then steadied.
“My dearest Angelina,” the letter began, but Angelina barely felt the tenderness in those words. “If you’re reading this, I’m gone. There are things I need to say—things I never had the courage to say before.”
Her eyes scanned the page, each line cutting sharper than the last.
“Ten years ago, I made a choice that shattered us all. I was pregnant with Katie—your half-sister. I’d had an affair…I cheated on your father and I carry the shame of that with me to this day. The affair, becoming pregnant with Bruce’s child, the secret, the shame I felt—it crushed me in ways I never could explain.”
Angelina’s breath hitched, but her face hardened.
“I couldn’t face the life I’d built with you and your father. The expectations, the memories, the constant weight of what I’d done—it was unbearable. So, I left. I started a new life with Bruce and Katie because running felt like the only way to survive.”
The letter trembled in her hands, but she read on, each word stinging.
“I know I hurt you. I know I hurt your father. I’m asking for both of your forgiveness, though I don’t expect it. I was lost, broken by my own mistakes and fears.”
“I have regretted leaving you every day. More than anything. There were many times when I considered going back, but I thought I would do more harm than good, so I didn’t. I guess I just tried to forget. And that is the sin I will take with me to the grave.
I hope you can find it within yourself to reach out to Katie—to know her as your sister. Whether you want to or not, she is part of you.”
“I hope you are well, and happy, and I hope the same for your dad. I know he can never forgive me for what I’ve done – and maybe you can’t either, but please, please don’t take that out on Katie. I see so much of you in her.”
“Please know, I am so sorry for what I have done.”
“Love, Mom.”
Angelina folded the letter slowly, the bitter truth settling like ice in her chest. Forgiveness wasn’t something she was ready to offer, if she ever would. But Katie. Katie was something else.
When she looked up, Bruce’s eyes were wet. “She thought she’d ruined things,” he said. “She told me once she thought admitting the truth would hurt more than keeping quiet.”
Angelina’s hands had already closed on her phone in her coat pocket. The DNA match — the Ancestry results — sat like an invisible document between them: proof that Katie shared a father with Angelina. The psychology of Naomi’s fear became clearer and crueler all at once. The letter made Naomi human; the DNA made the consequences real.
“Bruce,” Angelina said, voice thin, “I…I am so sorry to tell you this.” She set the phone on the table and turned it to him. The Ancestry report glowed on the screen: Full Sibling Match. “As you know, I found Katie through Ancestry. That’s how Martha contacted you.” She glanced at Martha and then back at Bruce. “Katie and I are full sisters.”
Bruce’s face moved through a dozen expressions in a breath — surprise, shame, grief, then an odd, fragile relief. He stood up and ran his hand over his balding scalp. He shook his head, and Angelina could see his eyes well up. Then he reached forward and rested his hand over Angelina’s. “Believe it or not a part of me always suspected something like that.” His voice cracked. “You both have the same look around the eyes, you and Katie.” He stood up and smiled, his face a mask of grief. “They’re your father’s eyes,” He shook his head, “…not mine. I couldn’t say it to Naomi. I couldn’t ask her.” His words ran together as he tried to explain. “It’s why I had Katie take the DNA test, but then I chickened out in taking my own. I didn’t want to take away our peace. Selfish, I know. I’m sorry. But… it’s a lot.” He slammed his fist on the table. “Katie is my daughter. I don’t care what her DNA says.” His outburst startled even himself. He wiped at his eyes, then whispered. “I’m sorry.”
They sat there a long time, the kinds of silences that weren’t empty but full of rearranging. There was grief in the room as well — not just for Naomi’s death, for a father discovering the truth about his daughter, but for the years wasted in misassumption and quiets that kept family members strangers.
“I can’t lose Katie,” Bruce said. “You aren’t going to try to take her away from me, are you? Because I…”
Angelina shook her head. “What good would that do?”
Bruce exhaled.
Just then, Katie came skipping into the room, whistling a Christmas tune, Jingle Bells, Angelina thought, a pile of varied sized paper snowflakes in her hands. She looked around the room and shrugged her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
On the drive home, the car seemed to carry the weight of all they’d learned. Martha kept her eyes on the road, steady and sure. Marie folded her hands in her lap and watched the snow soften the edges of everything. In the back, Hannah let Angelina hold her hand as tightly as she needed.
Angelina felt grief the way winter presses on a roof — slowly, inexorably. She kept thinking of the Christmas tree in the memory she’d had on the way there: her mother humming, her father smiling, both of them together. If Naomi had known the truth — if she’d known Katie was not Bruce’s baby— then she would have stayed. Maybe the house would have been full of both children. It was almost unbearable to imagine the life that had unspooled without them, a life that might have been.
Her phone buzzed against her thigh. Katie. Angelina almost didn’t answer, afraid of what it would mean. She got it into her hands and hit accept.
“Hi,” Katie whispered. “I just— I wanted to say I want a sister. I always wanted a sister. I mean—do you want one too?”
Angelina could hear the hope in the ten-year-old’s voice — its audacity, its small bravery. It landed like a hand on a wound.
“Yes,” Angelina said, and the single word was both small and enormous. “I do.”
When they pulled up to her building in Minneapolis later that night, the city hummed with a colder life. Snow drifted around the stoop and the streetlights flickered like tired sentinels. At home, they took off their boots and curled under the Christmas tree lights. Angelina sat with a mug in her hands, the room full of the scent of pine and cinnamon and quiet.
“I’m thinking about calling my grandmother,” Angelina said after a long moment, as if saying it helped make it real. “To tell her about Katie.”
Hannah reached across and brushed a thumb along Angelina’s knuckle. “Do it when you’re ready,” she cautioned. “But I think you’re right that she’d want to know she has another grandchild.
“Even if she doesn’t want to know me anymore.”
“Oh, Angie,” Hannah whispered, resting her head on Angelina’s shoulder. “Maybe she’ll come around someday.”
Angelina looked at the tree, the tiny bulbs reflecting in her eyes. “I’ll think about it,” she said. “But I don’t want to create problems for Bruce.” The sentence was tentative, honest. It left room for choices, for time, for careful steps forward.
Outside, the snow kept falling — small, unrelenting — and inside, something fragile and new had begun to take shape: the possibility of a family being rebuilt, slowly, with many hands helping to hold the pieces.
Especially Hannah’s.
“I love you,” Angelina whispered, her lips brushing Hannah’s forehead.
“Back at you, babe.” Hannah sleepily replied.
They sat in silence, enveloped by the soft glow of Christmas lights and the quiet comfort of the truth.
The McCord-Brennan house woke slowly. Snow sifted past the windows, and the smell of coffee drifted through the halls. Siobhan, already humming carols, lined up mixing bowls on the counter. Paul trailed in behind her, rubbing the grain from his eyes, still half-asleep—until he spotted three-year-old Buzz standing triumphantly on a chair, wielding a cookie scoop like a weapon.
“Buzz,” Paul groaned, brushing flour from his son’s curls, “cookies are supposed to be eaten, not worn.”
Buzz grinned, white powder dusting his cheeks like sugarplums. “COOKIE!” he bellowed.
Before Paul could respond, Kayla came sweeping in, sleeves rolled up, a red ribbon tying back her hair. At fourteen, she had taken her role as household baking expert very seriously ever since winning Food Network’s Kid’s Baking Championship. She clapped her hands like a drill sergeant.
“Okay, everybody listen up. This isn’t just baking. This is the Kayla McCord Christmas Cookie Championship!”
From the kitchen table, Mary raised an eyebrow over the top of her book. “Oh boy, here we go again.”
Kayla narrowed her eyes. “You got a better plan, Mary?”
Mary set the book down with mock gravity. “Yes. Step one: eat chocolate chips. Step two: pretend Kayla’s in charge. Step three: eat cookies.”
Reilly, already sneaking chocolate chips, grinned. “I like her plan.”
Kayla groaned. “You people are impossible.”
“You love us,” Mary said sweetly, grabbing the bag of chocolate chips.
Kayla lunged, trying to pull the bag from Mary’s hands. “Not if you ruin my mise en place!”
“Ooooh, listen to Kay use the fancy cooking words!” Mary mocked.
“Girls! Siobhan scolded. It was too early in the morning for this.
The bag ripped in the struggle, raining chocolate all over the floor. Buzz squealed and dove like a puppy after treats, fists scooping as fast as he could.
Paul threw his hands up and glanced at Siobhan. “This is going well already.”
Somehow, they got started. Reilly cracked eggs, shell fragments and all. Mary measured flour with deliberate slowness just to see Kayla twitch.
“You’re leveling wrong,” Kayla said, horrified.
Mary smirked. “Maybe your way is wrong. Ever think of that?”
Kayla gasped. “There is only one correct way.”
“Oh really? Is that what Gordon Ramsay told you in your dreams last night?” Mary teased.
Reilly cackled so hard he dropped another eggshell into the bowl.
There was a banging on the back door just as Kayla slid the first tray into the oven.
“Don’t open it!” she shrieked. “You’ll let the heat out!”
Paul ignored her and opened the door to find his sister Jackie and Jackie’s wife, Martha, bundled against the cold. Martha carried baby Calista, snug in a blanket, while Nicolas, age three, barreled past them like a snowball.
“Aunt Shee Bon! Uncle Paul!” Nicolas shouted, trying to scramble onto a chair to see the cookies. Nicolas couldn’t pronounce Siobhan (actually most adults couldn’t either, not realizing the ‘s’ was a ‘sh’ sound and the ‘bh’ was actually a ‘v’ sound), so his aunt will forever be Shee Bon.
Siobhan quite liked it.
Kayla intercepted him with her spatula raised. “Back away from the tray, buddy!”
Nicolas froze. “She scary,” he whispered to Mary.
Mary grinned. “You have no idea.”
The decorating stage turned into full-blown mayhem.
Kayla’s cookies looked like they belonged in a magazine, delicate snowflakes and stars. Mary built a cookie tower that leaned precariously, held together by more frosting than dough.
“It’s a statementpiece,” Mary declared, ignoring Kayla’s snorts of laughter.
“A statement that says, ‘please call a contractor,’” Reilly shot back, holding up his zombie gingerbread men. “At least mine tell a story.”
“Yeah, the story of the apocalypse,” Kayla muttered, though she was trying not to laugh.
Meanwhile, Buzz had discovered the frosting bowl. He plunged his spoon in, giggling. Nicolas quickly joined him, both of them scooping and licking with wild delight.
“Buzz! Nicolas! That’s not for eating!” Kayla cried, lunging forward.
But it was too late. The boys had already slathered thick streaks of frosting onto their faces like war paint.
“COOKIE SOLDIERS!” Buzz shouted, banging his spoon on the table.
Nicolas copied him, smearing a generous stripe across his forehead. “COOKIE SOLDIERS!”
Mary giggled. “I vote we let them run the kitchen.”
Kayla threw her hands up. “You people are ruining my artistic vision!” She stomped her foot. Then, realizing it was a losing battle, grabbed a spoonful of frosting and pasted Mary’s nose with it. Before long, all of the kids had frosting on their faces. They could only giggle when Siobhan came running in to find out what the ruckus was about.
Eventually, trays of slightly over-decorated cookies cooled on every surface. The family collapsed in the living room with cocoa and plates piled high. Buzz climbed onto Siobhan’s lap, still sticky with frosting. Kayla guarded her perfect snowflakes like crown jewels. Mary’s cookie tower had already toppled—Reilly teased, “Told ya.” Mary blew a raspberry at him.
Across the room, Nicolas crawled beside baby Calista’s bassinet, reaching through the bars to take her hand. He babbled softly in a singsong rhythm, and Calista’s tiny face lit up as she answered with her own coos. There was something—warm, otherworldly—between the siblings.
“Magic,” Martha whispered.
“Christmas magic,” Jackie corrected, her eyes shining.
Outside, snow began to fall harder, blanketing the neighborhood in white. Inside, the McCords and Kringles sat together in the glow of twinkling lights, cookie crumbs scattered across laps, laughter spilling into the night.
And though not everyone in the room understood the language between Nicolas and Calista, they all knew this Christmas was touched with something rare and wonderful.
The gymnasium of Obama Elementary had been transformed into a festive wonderland for the annual holiday concert. Folding chairs stretched in neat rows across the basketball court, garlands of paper snowflakes dangled from the ceiling, and a tree twinkled at center stage, decorated mostly with ornaments made in art class. The smell of pine boughs, peppermint from the bake sale table, and the faint waxy odor of the old floor polish hung in the air.
Backstage, Alice tugged nervously at the red felt Santa hat sliding down over her ears. “Does mine look crooked?” she whispered, turning to her friends.
Susan leaned closer, her scarf dusted with bits of glitter from the costume box. “It’s fine. At least you don’t have to wear this itchy thing. Whoever invented glitter should be—” she paused for dramatic effect, “—banished.”
Reilly, arms crossed proudly, gestured toward the giant painted backdrop behind them: a snowy village with crooked candy-cane lampposts and a Christmas tree so covered in sparkle glue it shimmered like it was alive. “Hey, *glitter* is what makes this magical. DeAndre and I worked for hours on this. It’s a masterpiece.”
“Masterpiece?” Alice snorted. “If it doesn’t collapse before the finale, it’ll be a Christmas miracle.”
The four dissolved into giggles, only to be shushed by Ms. Hastings, their music teacher, who was darting around in her usual flustered state. “Voices down! Remember, stage presence! Big smiles! And for the love of snowmen, stay on key.”
The kids grinned at each other. Stage presence wasn’t going to be the problem.
Out in the audience, parents chatted while shedding winter coats and balancing cups of cocoa. Maggie and Christian waved across the aisle to Siobhan and Paul, who had saved them seats. “Feels like just yesterday they were in kindergarten, singing about turkeys,” Maggie whispered.
Paul chuckled. “Back then, the highlight was just seeing them remember the words.”
Emily, Susan’s mom, clutched her camera with both hands. “I hope this isn’t the year Susan decides to ‘improvise.’”
Laverne, DeAndre’s mother, grinned proudly. “Improvising is half the fun.”
Ellie and Evan, Meredith’s mom and stepdad, leaned together as the lights dimmed. The chatter faded into anticipation.
The show opened with “Deck the Halls.” The fifth graders marched onstage, bells jingling, faces shining in the spotlight. For a moment, it went perfectly. The voices blended (mostly), the bells rang out (in almost the right rhythm), and the parents relaxed.
Then Ms. Hastings hurried across the stage to adjust a microphone stand. In her rush, her heel caught a stray cord. With a spectacular *thump*, she pitched forward and landed flat on her face, glasses skidding to the edge of the stage.
A horrified silence swept the gym. And then – seeing that Ms. Hastings was unhurt, from the back, someone snorted. The snort became a laugh, which rippled forward like falling dominoes. Soon the entire audience was chuckling. Even the adults couldn’t hold it together.
Ms. Hastings, crimson but determined, popped up, held her arms wide, and announced with good nature, “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m your music teacher and not your gym teacher.” The laughter swelled into applause and she took a well-deserved bow.
Backstage between numbers, Alice leaned against Susan, giggling uncontrollably. “Did you see her face?”
Susan tried to catch her breath. “She looked like one of those cartoon penguins sliding across the ice.”
Reilly, still laughing, shook his head. “We should put that in the yearbook.”
“Focus!” DeAndre warned, though his grin betrayed him. “We’ve still got two songs before the backdrop reveal.”
When the curtains opened again, the snowy village scenery glowed under the lights. The kids launched into “Silent Night.” For the first verse, everything was calm.
Then, with a soft creak, the glitter-covered Christmas tree backdrop began to wobble. Slowly. Menacingly.
“Oh no,” Susan whispered mid-song.
DeAndre, without missing a note, leaned against it, casually trying to steady the tree. His elbow slipped on the glue sparkle, and with a fwip, one of the giant paper reindeer taped nearby detached. It drifted down gracefully, landing squarely on Alice’s head.
The audience gasped. Alice, quick as ever, held the reindeer in front of her face like a puppet and made it “sing” along. Her row of classmates cracked up, and the audience roared with laughter. Maggie clapped extra loudly, shaking her head. “That’s my kid.”
By the finale, “Jingle Bells,” the kids had rallied, their laughter fueling their energy. Each child shook their bells proudly—except Susan, who dropped hers halfway through. They skittered across the stage, rolling dangerously close to the edge.
“I’ll get it!” Reilly hissed, bending down just as DeAndre lunged for the same bells.
Thunk!
Their heads collided with an audible bonk. The bells jingled in protest, and the entire audience erupted once more, not in horror this time but in joyous laughter.
Paul leaned back in his chair, wiping tears from his eyes. “This is better than the Nutcracker.”
Christian grinned. “I’d pay money to see this again.”
Laverne fanned her face with her program, chuckling. “DeAndre’s gonna have a goose egg the size of a Christmas ornament.”
At last, the final note rang out. The kids took their bow—half-giggling, half-proud—and the audience rose in a standing ovation.
The parents clapped until their hands stung, not for a flawless concert, but for one that was filled with joy, chaos, and a lot of heart.
Backstage, as they bundled up for the winter night, Alice grinned at her friends. “Well,” she said, “that was… not what we practiced.”
Reilly rubbed his forehead, still laughing. “Who cares? That was legendary.”
Susan nodded. “Best Christmas concert ever.”
DeAndre smirked, flicking a bit of glitter from his sleeve. “Told you—no such thing as too much sparkle.”
And with that, the kids dashed off to join their families, ready for Christmas break, already buzzing with stories they’d be laughing about for years to come.
Snowflakes drifted lazily down as Olivia Heeter pushed open the door of Finkle’s Books. The bell above it gave a cheerful jingle, though inside the shop the light was dim and the air rich with the scent of leather bindings, old paper, and pine. Mr. Finkle always let her tuck fresh evergreen sprigs between the shelves at Christmas.
“About time,” came the gruff voice from behind the counter. Mr. Finkle was perched on his usual stool, spectacles sliding down his nose, a ledger open in front of him. His thick gray brows knit together as he peered at her. “The window’s as bare as my supper table.”
Olivia grinned, unwinding her scarf and shaking the snow from her black hair. “Good to see you too, Mr. Finkle. Don’t worry. By tonight, your window will make people stop in their tracks.”
“Hmph,” he muttered, though she could see the corner of his mouth twitch. He enjoyed their little sparring as much as she did.
She set to work, unpacking boxes of decorations she’d brought along: strings of golden fairy lights, paper snowflakes cut in delicate lacework, tiny houses painted to look like a village, and a stack of classic Christmas books, their covers shining under the lamplight. As she arranged them, the bare glass slowly transformed into a scene that glowed with magic — rooftops dusted with cotton snow, lampposts glowing with hidden bulbs, and at the center, a giant open storybook whose painted pages shimmered with starlight.
When she stepped back to survey her work, Mr. Finkle ambled over, hands tucked behind his back. His eyes softened as he gazed at the display.
“You’ve outdone yourself again,” he said, his voice low, almost reluctant. Then, after a pause, he added, “So when’s that boyfriend of yours going to propose?”
Olivia nearly dropped the strand of lights in her hand. “Mr. Finkle!” she laughed, her cheeks warming.
“What?” He raised his bushy eyebrows. “I’m an old man. I’ve earned the right to be nosy.”
She shook her head, smiling. “Adam and I… well, we’re happy. We’ve been together a while.”
But as she bent to adjust a little book-shaped house, her thoughts drifted and a slight frown bowed her lips downward. They had been together a while. Nearly six years now, give or take the several months they’d briefly broken up in college. Lately, she’d caught herself wondering if they were at a crossroads — whether Adam was hesitating, or if she was. She laughed again to cover her unease. “You let me worry about that, Mr. Finkle. You just enjoy your window.”
“Hmph,” he muttered again, but this time the smile reached his eyes.
By evening, the shop was aglow. Parents gathered near the back, holding steaming cups of cocoa, while children sat cross-legged before the stone fireplace, their cheeks flushed from the cold. Olivia stood at the front, a book bound in deep green cradled in her hands. Her dark hair shimmered in the firelight, and her brown eyes sparkled with anticipation.
She glanced toward the counter. Mr. Finkle, his arms crossed, was watching with that quiet pride he tried so hard to hide. Behind him, the Christmas window gleamed, its little village bathed in golden light as snow fell outside.
Olivia cleared her throat and opened the book. “All right, my friends. Tonight’s story begins like this: ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house…”
The children leaned forward, eyes wide, their small bodies huddled close together. Parents smiled softly as the words filled the air, the rhythm of a story they knew by heart but never grew tired of hearing. The fire crackled. The window lights twinkled. The world outside seemed to pause, wrapped in the stillness of Christmas Eve come early.
When Olivia reached the final line, “‘Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!’” the children clapped, their laughter rising into the rafters.
She closed the book gently, her heart full. This was her favorite moment of the year — the hush after the story, the glow of lights, the sense that for a little while, everything was exactly as it should be.
Then, from the back of the room, a voice broke the silence.
“Olivia.”
Her heart skipped. Adam was stepping forward, tall and steady, his face pale but determined. The crowd shifted, parting for him as he moved closer. She felt her breath catch as he reached her side.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, his voice carrying in the hushed shop. “About all the stories we tell at this time of year, and how they’re always about love, hope, and family. And I realized… I don’t want our story to wait any longer.”
Then, to the children’s delighted gasps, Adam sank to one knee.
Mr. Finkle, his eyes twinkling knowingly, muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Well, it’s about time.”
Olivia laughed through the sudden sting of tears, her hand flying to her mouth as Adam held up a small velvet box.
“Olivia Heeter,” he said, his brown eyes shining in the firelight, “will you marry me?”
The children squealed, parents clapped, and even Mr. Finkle’s eyes glistened as the little shop held its breath for her answer.
Olivia looked around at the glowing window, the joyful faces, the man kneeling before her, and she knew there was no crossroads after all. Only a path forward.
“Yes,” she whispered, then louder, “Yes!”
The cheer that followed seemed to rattle the books on their shelves, and as Adam slipped the ring on her finger, Mr. Finkle raised his mug of cocoa in a silent toast.
Outside, the snow fell heavier, wrapping the little bookstore in a blanket of light and promise. And in that moment, Olivia thought, Christmas had never felt more like home.
The apartment was small, drafty, and charming in the way only old brownstone units near campus could be. The radiators hissed and clanked like they were alive, the hardwood floors bore scratches from decades of tenants, and the windows rattled faintly when the winter wind pushed against them. Still, with thrifted rugs layered across the floor and a mismatched couch covered in plaid blankets, Hillary and Edwin had managed to turn it into something that felt like home.
A vanilla-scented candle, Hillary’s favorite, flickered on the windowsill, carrying its sweetness into the room, mingling with the faint resin scent of the pine garland they’d hung above the door. On the coffee table, a box of ornaments sat waiting while Kelly Clarkson crooned softly from a Bluetooth speaker.
Hillary stood on a wobbly stool, stretching to hook a felt snowman onto the top branch of their hand-me-down tree. The fake spruce had been rescued from Goodwill, its base a little crooked, but under the glow of string lights, it looked magical.
Edwin crouched beside the ornament box, carefully working through tangles of hooks and ribbon. “You weren’t kidding when you said you saved everything,” he teased, holding up a construction-paper angel with glitter that still managed to shed thirteen years later.
“That’s third-grade me,” Hillary said proudly, hands on her hips. “Pretty sure that angel belongs in the Smithsonian.”
They laughed, and the rhythm of decorating continued: glass baubles, pinecones, a ceramic Santa missing an arm. It was the comforting work of weaving two childhoods into one tree.
Then Edwin froze. In his hand was a small plastic globe with a painted wooden star inside, stamped faintly on the back: Minnesota Children’s Museum.
Hillary’s eyes widened. “Wait. Where did you get that?”
“My mom bought it when I was seven, maybe eight. At the Children’s Museum,” Edwin said. “I remember because I spilled cocoa down the front of my pants right after.” He pointed at the wooden star, “I painted that part of it. It was like a kid’s craft activity thing.”
Hillary set her cocoa-colored Santa down, rummaged in the box, and pulled out the same ornament—edges chipped but undeniably identical except for the colors on the star, which she’d painted herself.
They stared at one another, stunned, before the memory swept them both away…
The Children’s Museum hummed with the noise of families and holiday cheer. Snow dripped off boots onto the tile floor. Hillary, her red knit hat slipping sideways on her head, leaned over a craft table, carefully painting her star with streaks of gold. Beside her sat a boy with glasses, his blue paint trailing across the wood in neat lines. Their elbows bumped, and they shared a shy smile. A volunteer in a reindeer sweater snapped a photo for the holiday mural. Neither asked a name. Both drifted back to their families moments later, forgetting everything except the faint glow of that brief connection.
…Hillary turned the ornament in her hand, almost reverently. “It was you,” she whispered.
“I remember bumping elbows,” Edwin said, smiling softly. “And a girl who somehow had more paint on her sweater than on her ornament. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Hillary laughed, cheeks warm. “Unbelievable. We must’ve been what—seven? Eight?”
“Guess fate’s been stubborn about getting us together,” Edwin said, grinning as he hung his ornament beside hers.
The tree shimmered, their two stars glowing side by side.
Later, with the decorating finished, they sat together on the couch in the darkened apartment. The only light came from the tree, its branches dusted in ornaments old and new. The vanilla candle had burned low, its flame dancing lazily. In their hands, each held a mug of mulled red wine, steam curling upward, scented with cloves and orange peel.
Hillary leaned into Edwin’s shoulder, her gaze fixed on the ornaments sparkling like tiny galaxies. “Our first Christmas tree,” she murmured.
“In our own place,” Edwin added, giving her hand a squeeze. “Feels kind of perfect.”
The radiator rattled, snow tapped against the glass, and the apartment seemed to hold its breath, wrapped around them like a blanket. They clinked their mugs softly, smiling at the thought that somehow, even back then, they’d been sitting side by side.
Their first Christmas together, under one roof, with one tree, and one shared story that had started long before they ever knew it.
Eleanor Carlson had only been home from Northwestern for six hours when her phone buzzed with a message from her life-long friend, Hillary.
‘Double date tonight! Don’t say no. Edwin and I already booked it.’
Jason, sprawled on her parents’ old leather couch with a bowl of Chex Mix balanced on his lap, leaned over her shoulder. “Do I even want to know?”
Eleanor squinted at her screen. “It says…oh jeez…” She glanced over at Jason, “…Christmas felting.”
Jason blinked. “Like… stabbing wool with needles until it looks like a snowman?”
“Yes.” She bit her lip, trying not to laugh. “Wait. How do you know what felting is?”
Jason shrugged. “I’m crafty.”
Eleanor giggled, then returned to her text, muttering as she typed, “Apparently, that’s what counts as romance now.”
Jason tossed a piece of Chex into his mouth. “You know, most people just go to the movies.”
“Hillary’s never been mostpeople,” Eleanor said, amused. She glanced at him. “Do we go?”
He gave a mock-serious sigh. “If our friends are putting their lives on the line with tiny spears, who are we to refuse?”
By 7 p.m. the two of them trudged through a snowbank toward the community art center, bundled in coats and scarves. Their respective parents’ Christmas lights twinkled behind them—his dad’s tidy icicles, her mom’s inflatable Santa that leaned precariously into the driveway. It felt surreal, being back in Minneapolis, living across the fence again, like they were sixteen instead of twenty-one.
Inside, Hillary and Edwin waved enthusiastically, already seated at a table piled with tufts of wool. “You’re late!” Hillary scolded, though the class hadn’t technically started. “We’re making Christmas gnomes. It’s adorable.”
The instructor, a wiry woman in a green sweater covered in tiny felt ornaments, handed out long, barbed needles. “Rule number one: do not stab your partner.”
Jason whispered, “This is already the best date we’ve ever had.”
Eleanor poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Behave.”
The class began. Everyone else seemed to know how to roll wool into tight little balls, but Eleanor’s gnome quickly began to resemble a lopsided marshmallow. She tried poking it into shape, but the more she stabbed, the flatter it got.
Jason’s, meanwhile, looked eerily professional. His cone-shaped hat stood tall, the tiny beard even fluffing out naturally.
“Since when are you good at this?” Eleanor demanded.
“I’ve got hidden talents,” he said smugly. “Besides, all those years of poking at cafeteria meatloaf prepared me for this.”
Eleanor burst out laughing and the instructor gave her a pointed look.
At the next table, Hillary had already pricked her finger twice and was holding up a bloody Band-Aid like a badge of honor. Edwin attempted to attach his gnome’s hat backward, resulting in what looked like a woolly wizard. “It’s… creative,” he insisted.
The hilarity snowballed. Jason gave his gnome a lopsided smile with a scrap of red felt, then made it wave at Eleanor’s marshmallow blob. “Hi, I’m your future husband. Don’t judge me for my hat.”
She tried to keep a straight face, but her gnome looked like it had been run over by a sleigh. “Mine’s his evil twin who lives under the tree skirt.”
By the time the instructor came around to inspect, all four of them were doubled over with laughter, their “Christmas masterpieces” more chaotic than festive. The instructor sighed heavily but muttered, “Well, at least you’re enjoying yourselves.”
When the class ended, the air outside hit them with a blast of icy wind. Hillary, shivering dramatically, said, “We deserve cocoa for surviving that.”
Edwin pointed across the street. “Milo’s is still open.”
They filed into the local coffee bar, the familiar bell jingling above the door. Inside, the smell of espresso and cinnamon wrapped around them like a blanket. The place looked just as it had in high school—twinkle lights strung in the windows, mismatched mugs stacked behind the counter.
They claimed a corner booth, their paper bags of woolly disasters lined up like trophies. Eleanor cupped her hands around her hot cocoa, the marshmallows melting into a froth. Jason slid in beside her, their knees bumping under the table.
Hillary set her gnome on the counter beside her cup. “Mine looks like it joined Fight Club.”
Edwin grinned. “At least yours doesn’t have a wizard hat.”
Jason raised his mug. “To terrible gnomes and even worse friends.”
They clinked cocoa cups, laughter spilling out into the cozy little café.
Eleanor glanced around the table, warmth blooming in her chest. In less than a year, she and Jason would be somewhere else, building a new life. But tonight, surrounded by childhood friends, familiar streets, and the hum of holiday lights, she felt exactly where she belonged.
Jason leaned close and whispered, “Next Christmas, let’s make gingerbread. Fewer sharp objects.”
She smiled, tilting her head against his shoulder. “Deal.”
And with that, they sat together, their cocoa steaming, their ridiculous gnomes on display—proof of a night that would be retold for many Christmases to come: the Christmas felting fiasco.
The December air had turned brittle, like glass threatening to shatter under its own weight. The McCord-Kringle house sat quietly on the end of its street, its windows aglow with amber light and evergreen garland curling around the banisters. Martha stood at the window, absently stirring her tea, her eyes scanning the street.
She heard the soft crunch of tires on snow before she saw the car pull up. A few moments later, there was a knock at the door.
Jackie was in the kitchen with Calista, humming to herself, and didn’t stir. Martha wiped her hands on a dish towel and went to answer it.
Angelina stood on the porch, her breath fogging in the cold. Beside her was Hannah, gloved fingers intertwined with hers. And behind them, just slightly out of step, stood Marie Heeter—wearing her usual expression of cautious curiosity.
Marie had befriended Angelina last year, when the girls and Marie were all stranded at a Southern Minnesota resort. Angelina’s grandmother, after learning Hannah was Angie’s girlfriend and not just a roommate, had rejected her, and Marie had embraced her.
“Come in,” Martha said gently, holding the door wide.
Angelina hesitated, then stepped inside. “Thank you.”
She led them into the living room, where the fire crackled low and a tray of cookies and cocoa sat untouched on the coffee table. Martha gestured for them to sit, but remained standing herself, her hand resting on a closed folder atop the mantel.
For a few moments, the only sounds were the ticking of the antique wall clock and the muffled laughter of Jackie upstairs, calming Nicolas from a bedtime fuss.
Angelina looked pale. “You found something,” she said quietly.
Martha nodded. “Yes. And before I tell you what it is, I want you to know two things. First, you are not alone—not in this, not ever again. And second… this might be hard to hear.”
Angelina shifted closer to Hannah. Marie reached across the couch and placed a firm hand on her shoulder.
Martha stepped forward and opened the folder.
“I submitted the DNA kit, like we discussed. It processed faster than I expected. Yesterday morning, I got a match.” Her voice softened. “Not to your mother. Not directly. But to a child—someone whose DNA would only appear like this if they were closely related to you.”
Angelina’s brow furrowed. “A cousin?”
“No,” Martha said gently. “Angelina you have a sibling. A younger one.”
Angelina blinked, her eyes wide and fixed on Martha’s. “What?”
Martha placed a printed page in her lap, showing her name, a blurred-out photograph, and a high-percentage match on the Ancestry site. “I double-checked the data. This is a very strong sibling match. The child is about ten years old, and lives—well, not very far from where the Lakeside Watcher said he saw Naomi all those years ago.”
Angelina’s hands trembled slightly. “She… she had another kid?”
Marie let out a quiet, surprised breath, and Hannah leaned into Angelina’s side.
“I don’t know the circumstances,” Martha said. “And I don’t think the person who uploaded this child’s DNA knows who you are. It looks like the kit was done by a guardian—maybe an adoptive parent or relative. It’s possible Naomi never resurfaced. But… it confirms she survived long enough to have another child. Years after you.”
“This is a half-sibling, right?” Marie asked.
Martha’s silence told them what they needed to know.
“Oh, my God,” Angelina cried. “Oh, my God! She was pregnant when she left? She left my dad and me and took my sister or brother with her?”
Angelina was silent for a long moment. Her eyes welled, but she didn’t cry. Not yet. Instead, her voice came out as a whisper. “She kept going.”
Marie’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “That doesn’t mean she stopped loving you.”
Angelina turned to look at her. “Then why didn’t she come back? Or, why didn’t she take me with her?” Her voice cracked.
Martha sat down across from them, her eyes kind but honest. “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out. And when you’re ready, I’ll help you decide how to approach this sibling—if you want to.”
Angelina looked down at the page again, tracing the blurred photo with her finger. “What’s their name?”
Martha hesitated. “I’d rather wait to share that until we’ve confirmed a few more things. Just to protect your privacy—and theirs. But I can tell you this: it’s a girl.”
“Why would anyone do a DNA kit on a kid? I mean, aren’t there rules?” Maria asked.
“It could only be done with the consent of a legal guardian. Why they would do it, I don’t know.”
Hannah wrapped both arms around Angelina and pulled her in. “Whatever comes next, Angie, we’re in it together,” she said softly.
Marie, too, reached over, folding them both into an awkward but steady embrace.
Angelina let herself be held. The tears came slowly at first, then with more force. Not just grief—but something else too. The ache of possibility. The startling idea that somewhere out there, a little girl with some of her DNA was laughing, sleeping, living.
And that Naomi, for all her vanishing, had left behind another thread to follow.
