The Snow Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

I going to do, Rachel?”
    “I’ll help you,” I said. Instantly I regretted it. How could I help him? Cyrus would never let me. But just as quickly as I rejected the idea, I embraced it again. “I’ll help you,” I forced myself to repeat. “At least, I’ll try. If I can find a way to come, I’ll be at your shop on Monday.”
    “Thank you,” Max said.
    “Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t promised anything. Besides, I haven’t touched a needle in over a decade.”
    “It’s like riding a bike,” he assured me, his words light with hope. “I still remember the first time you tried a stitch. You were a natural.”
    But there was no way Max could remember the first time I picked up a sewing needle. He wasn’t there.

     
    From the ages of seven to ten, I wore the same Easter dress three years in a row. It wasn’t that we were terribly poor, though we certainly weren’t rich. Instead, the reason I had to squeeze into the same dress for several years running was that Bev liked to spend her money on things she could consume. And even if she had offered to take me to the mall, I wouldn’t have gone with her for love or money. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone seeing me with her as she stumbled through the aisles at JC Penney.
    Fortunately, it was a pretty dress. Blue, like my eyes, with a drop waist and a row of faux mother-of-pearl buttons that ran a dainty line from the top of the skirt all the way up to a lace collar. When I slid it over my head on Easter morning for the third time, I wasn’t so much ashamed of the dress as I was ashamed of the way that it pulled tight across my shoulders and skimmed the tops of my knees instead of falling to my calves like it was supposed to. At ten years old, I was no fashionista, but I could tell when something didn’t look right. And staring at myself in the mirror, I knew that I didn’t look right.
    Bev called me all manner of hurtful things from buck-toothed to stupid to an accident. But the name that stung the most was ugly, and as I considered the way I was squeezed into a too-tight, outdated dress I believed that what my mother said was true. I was ugly.
    I had learned long ago that crying didn’t do me a lickof good, but I couldn’t stop the hot tears that pricked at the corners of my eyes. Dad expected me to wear a dress to church, or I would have simply given up the blue dress for a pair of pants and a nice top, but he was strict about some things and Easter Sunday attire was one of them. He was waiting for me downstairs, probably checking his watch to make sure I wouldn’t make him late.
    Wiping at my eyes, I gritted my teeth and told myself that I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. I didn’t care that they knew my mother was a drunk, or that they called me Orphan Annie behind my back. My red hair and shabby clothes made me an easy target, but I decided I wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that their teasing got to me. I took a deep breath and tried to ease an extra inch out of the fabric by giving the dress a good hard tug—and sent a handful of the ivory buttons flying in every direction.
    Dad found me scrambling across my bedroom floor, trying to rescue buttons from their hiding places in dark corners and underneath the bed.
    “What are you doing?” he asked, leaning in the doorway. He took up the entire space, his broad shoulders nearly touching the doorjamb on either side. Dad wasn’t yet wearing his suit coat, and the defined muscles in his arms pressed against the fabric of his dress shirt.
    “Nothing,” I muttered, biting back tears.
    “We have to get to church, Rach. We’re going to be late.”
    “I know!” I half-shouted, turning to him from where I crouched on the floor. I had the top of my dress clutched in one hand, my fingers holding together the places where the missing buttons gaped to reveal my cotton slip.
    “What in the world are you doing?” He took a step into the room, his brow furrowed in