The Christmas Note Read Online Free PDF Page B

sidewalk and turns back to me. “I have learned to make some things over the years.” Her red silk scarf blows in the wind as she reaches inside her car. “Since Gloria insists on serving cookies to the children at Glory’s Place she also insisted that I learn how to make them.” She steps inside and looks around. “Look at this! You are all put together.”
    “Still odds and ends that don’t have a place, but most of it’s put away,” I say, taking the cookies and salad from her.
    The kids tackle Mom when they hear her voice and drag her by the hand to their room. I lift the lid of the pot and breathe it in; I haven’t had chicken and dumplings in ages. I yell for the kids and Mom to wash up as I gather some plates. Kyle always complained that I didn’t make chicken and dumplings enough. “They take so much time,” I always said to him. If he was here today I’d double the recipe so he’d have chicken and dumplings for days. As I scoop it onto the plates I wonder if I had ever made it for him at all?
    “We bought flowers for the woman who died,” Ethan says, taking a seat next to Mom.
    “What woman who died?”
    I shake my head, filling Ethan’s plate with food. “A man showed up here and said the mother of the woman next to us died and that I had to break the news to her.”
    “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
    I laugh. “Yeah. Neither did I, and I told him I wouldn’t do it.”
    “So he told her and you bought her flowers?”
    “No, he didn’t tell her. Kyle told her.” Mom glances up at me. “His voice kept nagging me … so I did it.”
    “What an awful way to break the ice. Was she just devastated?”
    “I wouldn’t say that,” I say, choosing my words. “The guy has given her a few days to clean out her mom’s place, but I don’t think she’s going to do it.”
    “I’d clean your house out if you died,” Emma says. Mom and I both laugh. “And I’d take every single picture of you and Dad and Sugar and the toy box Dad made me.”
    “What about my stuff?” Ethan says. “What about my plastic soldiers and all my animals?”
    “I don’t want those things,” Em says.
    Ethan opens his mouth to fight about the soldiers and fluffy lambs when I stop them. “Hey! I’m not dead.” They both look at me with fallen, flat faces. I laugh and point to their food. “This is delicious!”
    Mom dips another helping of chicken and dumplings onto her plate. “Well, there must be something in her mother’s place that she’d want. Surely, she doesn’t want a complete stranger rifling through her memories.”
    “Yeah,” Ethan says. “I wouldn’t want some stranger touching my soldiers!”
    “Nobody would want your soldiers!” Emma says.
    “I want ’em! Dad gave them to me.” Mom distracts the kids with the story of the time she took my brother and me to the zoo and I thought it’d be a good idea if we just left him there. Em thinks that is especially funny.
    Mom plays a card game in the living room with the kids as I put our plates in the dishwasher and work at finding something for the leftovers. “There’s enough food here for twenty,” I say, looking for bowls I hope will be a good fit. I find two bowls and pour the chicken and dumplings inside them, thinking. Why was that blasted woman next door making me wrestle so much? I toss some cookies into a plastic bag, pick up one of the bowls, and walk over to the card game in the middle of the living-room floor. “Be right back,” I say, before any of them can question me. I knock on Melissa’s door and decide I’ll just leave everything sitting here if she doesn’t answer. It’s dark on the porch and inside her home; her place doesn’t even feel like Christmas! When she opens the door I can see from the streetlight that her face is puffy and her eyes are small. “We had extra food,” I say, keeping it short. “A friend made it. It’s delicious.”
    She opens the door a bit and reaches for it. “Thanks.”
    I