A Magical Christmas Read Free Page B

great at selling chocolates.
    Actually, the time of the year didn’t matter. Nor the fund-raiser, nor the child who was involved. She usually always wound up with a freezer full of chocolates herself, having bought them all just so that her child—whichever child—could receive his or her prize.
    This year, it was a stupid bear. She wished to God she could just give the school a donation and buy her daughter a bear.
    “Mom?” Ashley queried with her eyes huge. She squeezed Julie’s hand. Julie looked at her daughter. Six. It was a wonderful age. Ashley was getting so very smart, so articulate, and so a part of the world. But she was still young enough to want to cuddle, to need help dressing now and then. It was a special age.
    “I’ll sell chocolates,” Julie promised.
    She and Julie walked to the office and received a pass from the secretary, who handed it over with pursed lips—apparently, Ashley Radcliff was arriving late at school far too often.
    It was those damned ten minutes.
    And Jon.Five minutes later, she was back in the car, muttering dire warnings and a few obscenities at the people driving in front of her. Luckily—since people had been known to come to blows and actually fire shots off in Greater Miami traffic jams—her windows were closed and the air conditioner in the car was blasting. It should be cooling down. It was December, for God’s sake. Nearly Christmas. The heat was just awful. She’d be happy as a lark to agree with Jon—that they needed to escape to nice, snowy, rural Virginia for a cool-down Christmas—if only she could bear her husband.
    Which, at the moment, she couldn’t.
    But then, Jon was aware of that fact. And knew exactly why she felt the way she did.
    “Why, you idiot! You had a mile, a
mile
!” she advised the driver in front of her. The little Chevy Corsica had dawdled coming up to the light at U.S. 1—and missed it. She was going to have to sit through another.
    She closed her eyes. A minor problem. Completely minor. She’d be fifteen minutes late instead of ten. Which wouldn’t matter all that terribly much, except that she was meeting the Pearsons. And the Pearsons were never late. And not just that—the Pearsons were interested in a very expensive house. Her commission from the sale of such ahouse would allow her to rub Jon’s nose in the fact that her income was
not
inconsequential.
    She leaned her head against the steering wheel, suddenly hating herself and wishing that she weren’t so awfully bitter. Especially at Christmastime. That, too, she managed to blame on someone other than herself that morning. It was society. Christmas was purely commercial, and people were meaner and greedier than ever at Christmas. All in a bigger hurry to get to the malls, ruder than ever in traffic, downright nasty when stealing parking spaces.
    When she found herself in a sorry-for-herself kind of mood, she usually remembered her father, his worn but handsome face serious as he would tell her, “Fish sticks may not be great, but lots of starving children in China would love to have them.” They didn’t have a whole, whole lot, he would say frequently, but they did have each other. They were alive and well and together. Look at the terrible things that could happen in life.
    Well, a terrible thing had happened. Her father had died of cancer. Her mother still reminded her that her father had lived a good life, and that he had died before his children, the natural way. She shouldn’t grieve so terribly, because he’d lived to see his grandchildren.
    In honor of her father, she could usually tellherself that everything was okay in her world—they were all alive and well and together for Christmas.
    Right. The hell with that. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Jon for Christmas. Unless, of course, she could watch him being crucified in lieu of Christ on a cross somewhere.
    Blasphemy, her mother would say.
    But her mom, bless her, had just remarried after five years