looked down at the bouquet of watercolors for a moment, then offered a strained smile. “I’ll be glad when the holidays are over. Everyone told me how hard all the firsts would be. It’s so true.”
“Yes. It is.”
Jason had died in November, the week before Thanksgiving. Andie had no clear idea how she’d made it through that first December. She had been in a fog of shock and disbelief that her perfect world had imploded so wildly.
Last December had been tough in its own way, for reasons she didn’t want to think about.
Louise and Herm’s only daughter had died just five months earlier. No doubt the wound still felt jagged and raw.
“I wish we didn’t have to celebrate the holidays this year, but Herm wants us to go ahead with all our usual traditions, even though none of us has much holiday spirit. He thinks we need to build new traditions with Christopher, now that he’s living with us.”
Andie looked around the comfortable open-plan house, artfully decorated with greenery, ribbons, candles in slim holders. “It’s so warm and cozy in here. I’m sure that’s helped him feel more at home.”
As if on cue, a thin, gangly boy with shoulder-length dark hair and a semipermanent scowl wandered into the kitchen. Louise’s thirteen-year-old grandson stopped short when he spotted the two of them.
“Oh. I didn’t know somebody was here.”
“Hi, Christopher.” Andie smiled at the boy, whose scowl seemed to deepen in response. “No classes at the middle school today?”
His blue-eyed gaze flashed to his grandmother for an instant before turning back to her. “Um, sick day. I think I’m coming down with something.”
Judging by his bloodshot eyes and his greenish features, she suspected his sickness might be morning-after regret. Once in a while after a bad day on the job, her husband used to go on a bender and his symptoms were remarkably similar.
“Oh dear. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
He gave a halfhearted shrug. “Guess we’ll see. Nana, what’s there to eat?”
Louise pursed her lips, her eyes worried. “I made Scottish shortbread this morning.”
He gave a revolted look. “Isn’t that like head cheese?”
“That’s sweetbread, dear. Shortbread is basically a bar cookie made with butter and sugar. They’re in the tin.”
“Right here?”
She nodded and he opened the tin. After a moment’s consideration, he picked up a couple of them and took a bite from one as he opened the refrigerator and stared inside.
“If you’re ready for lunch, I can make you a sandwich or there’s leftover chicken noodle soup from last night I could warm up,” Louise offered.
He closed the refrigerator door. “This is probably good,” he said around the mouthful of cookie. “I’m not that hungry.”
“You can’t just eat a cookie,” Louise exclaimed. “Especially if you’re coming down with something.”
“I said I wasn’t that hungry, okay?” he snapped and abruptly stalked out of the kitchen.
Louise watched him go, eyes glassy with unshed tears. All her pride and excitement about the watercolors and Andie’s approval of them seemed to have drained away during the short interaction with her grandson.
“How is he doing?” Andie asked gently.
One of those tears slipped out and slid down her friend’s cheek and she brushed it away with an impatient hand. “His mother’s dead and his father wants nothing to do with him. He’s stuck living in a new town he hates with his boring old grandparents who have never raised a boy and don’t know how to talk to him. He hates school, hates his teachers, hates doing homework. He’s made a few friends, but...” Her voice trailed off.
“But?”
“I’m not sure they’re the nicest young people. They seem to run wild at all hours of the day and night, with no parental supervision that I can see.”
Louise seemed so disheartened that Andie couldn’t help giving her a little hug.
“He’ll make it through this. Please don’t worry. Time is the great healer. It’s a truism because it’s just that—true. That’s all he needs. He’s got you and Herm, two of the very best people I know. That’s far more than many children have in similar circumstances.”
Certainly more than Andie had known. Oh, how she wished she could have had someone like Louise in her life, someone sweet and kind and welcoming.
“He’s a good boy,” Louise said, wiping away another tear. “He’s just so angry all the time.”
Andie remembered that anger after her own mother died, along with confusion and fear and overwhelming grief. Puberty was tough enough, all raging hormones and intensified emotions. The loss of a parent made that transitional time that much harder, even when the parent hadn’t been the best a kid could ask for.
“I’m sorry,” Louise said after a moment. “You didn’t come here to listen to my problems.”
“That’s what friends do.”
“How are you these days?”
She would much rather talk about Louise’s problems, any day of the week. She knew what was behind the question. Everyone in Haven Point knew about the incident over the summer when the situation she had tried to escape by moving here from Portland had caught up with her, when she had been held at gunpoint by the man who had raped her the previous year, then stalked her for months.
Andie was doing her best to move beyond her past so she could work toward building a new future with her children here. She knew Louise’s question was offered in kindness, but she really didn’t want to talk about Rob Warren and the hell he had put her through.
“Everything’s great,” she said, pinning on a bright smile. “I’m really looking forward to Christmas in Haven Point. I can’t imagine a prettier place to spend the holiday. It’s perfect.”
“It really is, isn’t it?” Louise smiled softly. “The lake seems to change colors every day with the shifting winter light.”
“It must be fun to paint it this time of year.”
“It is.” Distracted, Louise looked down at her watercolors and Andie hoped she was thinking about taking her paints out to the water’s edge to try capturing that stunning blue.
Andie had taken to carrying her camera on her morning snowshoe walks along the river, catching birds flitting through winter-bare branches, the delicate filigree of ice along the riverbanks, the play of sunlight reflecting on the snow and filtering through the fringy pine boughs.
She had found peace here over the last few months, a calm she had needed desperately.
“I saw in the paper
