to Angie and Hardy Hollister. She had met Angie when she’d first moved here. Angie was very nice and had wanted to help as much as she could after Jack’s death. Angie’s friend Peyton was the same. Hardy was the D.A., and Peyton’s husband, Wyatt Carson, was the sheriff.
Emma brightened when she saw Angie and Hardy’s daughter. Erin was almost twelve, but Emma considered her a friend.
Erin took Emma’s hand and they ran to say hello to Erin’s grandma and the Wiznowski family. They were a big family and owned the busiest place in town, the bakery. Lacey was still learning all of their names.
“Why does Emma look so sad?” Angie asked, her hand on her stomach. She was due at the end of March and she positively glowed.
“Brad Wilson told her there’s no Santa Claus and now she doesn’t want to have Christmas.”
“How awful.”
Hardy had his arm around his wife, and he rubbed her shoulder in a loving gesture. “Kids can be cruel.”
Erin and Emma came running back and they said goodbye. Angie bent down to Emma. “Merry Christmas.”
Emma twisted in her Mary Jane shoes and didn’t respond.
Lacey took Emma’s hand and they walked to the car. They went to the diner for lunch before heading home. Emma was very quiet. She probably was feeling lonely, just like Lacey was.
Emma plopped onto the sofa. “Can Jimmy come over to play?”
“No. He’s gone to his grandmother’s today. Change your clothes and we’ll play games or something.”
“No.” The word was spoken in an angry tone.
Lacey gave her a minute. Then she placed her hands on her hips. “Go change your clothes. Now!”
Emma jumped up and ran to her room. Lacey groaned. Another one of those days. They were due for a good one. Soon.
After slipping into jeans and a pullover top, she went to check on Emma. The little girl was lying on her bed, reading a book. She took after her mother. Mona had been a librarian.
Lacey glanced around the lavender, white and purple room she’d helped their father decorate. Emma was not a girlie girl and had not wanted a pink room. Her father had bought all kinds of Barbies and a Barbie doll house and numerous other Barbie toys, but Emma barely touched them. She liked the outdoors and would rather play with a ball instead of a doll. But she did love stuffed animals, and they littered the comforter on her white four-poster bed.
Lacey sat beside her sister. “What are you reading?”
Emma closed A Light in the Attic and scooted up. “Why don’t I have a grandma?”
Oh, that was the reason for the sulkiness. “You did have a grandma. Two, actually. Dad’s mom’s name was Martha and your mom’s was Ruth. Grandma Martha died when I was fifteen. She would’ve loved you.”
“She would?”
“You bet. She gave big hugs and made everyone feel loved. I always looked forward to staying with her during the summer.”
“What about my other grandma?”
Lacey took a breath, hating to talk about so many deaths. But she had to be honest. “She died, too, sweetie. I never met her. She was a librarian like your mother.”
Emma stared down at her sneakers. “Why does everybody have to die?”
Lacey frantically opened the book in her head and searched for answers. As always, none was suitable. She had to go with her gut feeling. “That’s life, sweetie, and as you get older you’ll understand more.” That sounded lame even to her own ears. She was terrible at this. Hugging Emma, she said, “You know what? You can call me Lacey or you can call me Grandma. I can be both.”
Emma giggled. With a hand over her mouth, she said, “You’re weird, Lacey.”
“How about if we walk to the park and play on the big slide and swing set?”
“’Kay.” Emma jumped off the bed. “They have a really big slide. It makes my stomach feel funny and it’s fun.”
“Let’s get our coats and go, then.”
Emma grabbed her coat from a chair. As Lacey went to her room to get hers, the buzz of her cell phone stopped her.
“Just a minute, Emma. I have to answer my phone.”
It was her mother. Lacey sank onto the bed, ready for another round of complaints. “Hi, Mom.”
Her mother wasted no time getting started. “Since you couldn’t spend Thanksgiving with me, I was hoping we could spend Christmas together.”
Lacey closed her eyes and counted to three. “Mom, you know I can’t leave Emma at Christmas.”
“What about me? Your own mother? You have no time for me anymore. I don’t know what Jack was thinking when he asked you to take care of that child. You’re a young woman and should have your own life.”
They had been through this so many times, and Lacey had grown weary of the subject. “It was my choice. Mona’s sister offered to take Emma, but she has four children of her own. If Emma was taken from the home she’d shared with Dad, I knew it would be detrimental for her. I love my sister and I couldn’t put her through that. I’m here and I intend to stay here. I will work something out for Christmas.”
“Like what?”
“If you would just accept Emma, you could come to Horseshoe.”
“I’m not stepping foot in the house your father shared with that woman.”
Lacey wanted to beat her head against something. “He shared this house with his wife.”
“I’ll never forgive you for accepting her.”
“Mom, have you been drinking or something? You’re not making any sense. You’re the one who told dad to leave. You’re the one who remarried three months later. I don’t know why you feel like the victim.”
“Jack would have come back if it hadn’t been for her.”
“You’d married someone else. Are you forgetting that?”
“I only did it to get back at him. That’s why the marriage didn’t last.”
“Mom, I’m not going through all this again. Mona and Emma made Dad very happy.”
After a long pause, Joyce said, “Maybe I am being a little irrational, but I loved your father and I never meant for him to stay away. It just turned out that way.”
Finally, her mother was admitting the truth. “I know you loved him, but you were miserable the last years of your marriage.”
“Lacey,” a little voice call from the hallway. “Are we going to the park?”
“In
