Daddy’s Coming Home For Christmas Novel – My six-year-old daughter had her nose plastered against the sliding glass door, watching the big fluffy snowflakes drift down from a steel grey sky to create a delicate white veil over the replicated statue of Apollo and Daphne that graced the front yard.
“Look Mommy! It’s snowing!” Lucy said happily. “Can we get the Christmas decorations down now?” I tried not to groan out loud. I didn’t want to dampen her vivacious holiday spirit with my Scrooge attitude. She was too little to understand that Christmas was the day that my heart was forever and irrevocably broken.
Not to mention the cold weather meant the heating bill was going to skyrocket. “Not today, Peanut,” I said, as I finished rinsing the breakfast dishes. “I have to take Nana Charlie to physical therapy today.” She turned from the window and gave me a sad, accusatory look with her whiskey-colored eyes.
“But you said ‘After Thanksgiving.’ It’s after Thanksgiving!” I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel and then hung it neatly over the faucet. “I know, I know. I tell you what, let me take care of Nana first, and then I’ll go up into the attic and take down one box. “Just one?” her lower lip twitched like she was thinking about pouting.
“To start,” I said, circling the counter to give her hair a ruffle. “We’ll get the rest down on Saturday.” She put her hands on her little hips. “Do you promise?” “Yes, I promise.” Never make your kid a promise you can’t keep. That was one of my parenting mantras.
Lucy finally nodded, and her shiny black curls danced around her cherubic face. I was so glad she had inherited her father’s dark Italian good looks, and not my pasty skin and flaming red hair. “Go start your worksheets while I get Nana ready.”