Lucy had rushed to her mother’s side and supported her through the hurried hallway conversations with doctors, who held out no hope, through long visits during which her father gave no sign he knew them, and she helped her make the difficult decision to forgo heroic measures and let nature take its course. Then there were the funeral and cemetery to arrange, accommodations to find for out-of-town relatives, and food to prepare for all of them.

After two weeks in the city Lucy was exhausted. She needed to go home. She helped her mother find an accountant to help put her affairs in order and then she left, feeling tremendously guilty but knowing that her place was in Maine. She called once or twice a week and made the occasional brief visit, but even though her mother had seemed awfully depressed over the phone, it had still been a shock to find her so passive and out of touch at the airport.

She had to face the fact that the mother who had been a friend and confidante was gone. Lucy promised herself that she was not going to worry about taking her shopping. If the weather was too bad, or if there was no time, she could just tie a twenty-dollar bill to a candy cane for each of the kids. Feeling somewhat relieved, Lucy was again flooded with depression when she remembered that Bill’s parents would be arriving on Friday. Christmas seemed like a huge snowball increasing in size as it rolled downhill. She was a small figure in its path, toiling up a mountain of baking, shopping, and wrapping.

She was reluctantly pulling herself out of the water when Bill appeared in the bathroom.

“Now, there’s a sight for any man,” he said, grinning and handing her a towel.

“Oh,” she groaned, “I’m getting so fat.”

“No, you’re not,” he said, drying her back. “You’re just right. There’s something the matter with your mom, though. She keeps talking about things that happened years ago. She’s mad at Aunt Beverly for borrowing a pair of stockings sometime during World War Two. Beverly just took them without permission and got a run in them.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. Just the sort of thing Aunt Beverly would do.” Lucy nodded.

“Aunt Beverly? She’s a sweet old thing who weighs about ninety pounds!” exclaimed Bill.

Lucy laughed. “You didn’t know her in her prime. I think she borrowed a boyfriend along with the stockings. I know what you mean about her state of mind. It’s not good. Maybe after she’s been here for a few days she’ll get better. I hope so. I don’t know what I’m going to do if she doesn’t.”

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER NINE

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