Joan Kilby - A Mom for Christmas

Emily buried her face in her dad’s jacket.

Aidan lifted his daughter’s chin. “Remember what I said about putting on a happy face?” he said. She nodded and gave Nicola a brief, forced smile. “Good girl. Now finish packing up your tea set.”

Emily ran back to her tea set and resumed placing the cups and plates into the box so carefully they barely made a sound.

Nicola turned to Aidan. “I never got a chance to say so in person but…” She lowered her voice out of respect. “I’m sorry about Charmaine.”

“Thank you.” His clipped response discouraged further conversation but she thought his gaze softened a little.

The two of them waited awkwardly, watching Emily. Nicola shoved her hands into the back pockets of her pants, tongue-tied. Aidan wasn’t helping in the least; he looked as though his thoughts were a million miles away.

June’s footsteps approached and Nicola turned with relief, only to groan inwardly when the phone rang in the kitchen and her aunt’s steps changed direction.

Emily finished packing up. Aidan stooped to pick up the box. “Go get your snowsuit on.”

Emily skipped out to the hall. Nicola trailed after. The girl climbed into her one-piece snowsuit then sat on the floor and struggled to get her foot into a boot.

“Where did those boots come from, Em?” her father said as he came through the doorway with the box under his arm.

“Grandma gave them to me. She said my old boots were ugly and she threw them away.” The new boots had fake fur around the top and a zipper up the inside which Emily hadn’t noticed. She was getting more baffled and defeated by the second.

Aidan muttered something about “too much,” then said, “Pull the zipper down first.”

Emily tried once and failed. “I can’t.”

“Try again,” Aidan urged.

“I’m sorry I took so long.” June appeared and handed Aidan a small bright pink backpack. Noticing Emily tugging at the zipper she kneeled and unzipped it for her.

“You should let her do it herself, Aunt June,” Nicola said, sympathizing with Aidan’s evident frustration.

June rose and folded her hands at her waist, smiling genially. “I’m sure when you have children of your own you’ll do a marvelous job, but I know my granddaughter.” She turned to Aidan. “Candace Taylor called to ask if I’d help on the Christmas Ball committee. I had to tell her no, of course, because I look after my granddaughter during the day.”

“I suppose I could make other arrangements for Emily,” Aidan began slowly.

“I’ve got free time while I’m here,” Nicola interrupted. “I’d be more than happy to look after her.”

“No, dear, that’s out of the question,” June replied. “We can’t rope you into baby-sitting during your visit.”

“I don’t mind, honest,” Nicola countered. “Aidan, what do you think?”

Chapter 2

Aidan glanced over Nicola, really seeing her for the first time. She seemed an unlikely best friend for Charmaine, who would have outshone her younger cousin by a million watts. He would never have remembered Nicola except that she was in the wedding photo on his bedroom wall. However, she looked sensible, responsible and not in the least frivolous—the perfect antidote to his mother-in-law as caretaker for his overindulged daughter.

Besides, Nicola had been very close to Charmaine—who would be more fitting to care for Emily?

“I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “I appreciate your offer.”

“She’s here on business. She won’t have time,” June protested, clearly upset at being replaced so easily.

“I don’t start work until after New Year’s,” Nicola insisted, her husky voice betraying a faint Australian accent. “Go ahead and join the committee, Aunt June. I know how much you enjoy getting your finger stuck into the community pie.”

“You could use a break from baby-sitting, June,” Aidan added. And Emily needed a break from being spoiled rotten. At times he was tempted to put his daughter in day care but June was still the child’s grandmother and, though she could barely conceal her dislike of him, there was no doubt she adored Emily. “I insist.”

“Well, if you put it like that,” June said stiffly. “Thank you, Nicola, for your help. I do enjoy working on the Christmas Ball.”

As June left the room to call her friend back Aidan felt compelled to warn Nicola, “Emily may look like Charmaine but she isn’t as outgoing as her mother. She doesn’t take to newcomers readily.”

Nicola brushed off his warning with a skeptical lift of one olive-drab shoulder. “She’s just a little shy. We’ll be friends in no time.”

Part of him wanted badly to believe that. For years they’d been a unit, complete within themselves. Now that Emily was going to school he’d begun to realize she needed other people, even if he didn’t.

“I usually bring Emily over before I go to work in the morning then pick her up here after school,” Aidan explained.

“What if I took her home to your house after school, instead?” she suggested. “That way she wouldn’t have such a long day.”

“Even better. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at five-thirty.” He smiled wryly as Nicola’s eyebrows shot into her bangs. “I’m on avalanche control.”

Beneath Emily’s snowsuit she wore one-piece pajamas the color of bubble gum with feet and a hood. She looked like a little pink cat without the whiskers.

“Be very quiet,” Nicola said as they tiptoed up the stairs to the second-floor bedrooms. “Aunt June and Uncle Roy are still sleeping.”

Emily made a motion as if zipping her lips. Nicola smiled; the child couldn’t be too loud if she tried. Nicola paused beside a shut door to the left of the landing. “That was your mom’s room when she was a girl. Maybe you can sleep in there until it’s time to get up for school.”

Emily’s blue eyes widened as she shook her head vigorously. “I’m not allowed to go in there.”

“Oh.” Probably June had made it into a sewing room or something, with objects she didn’t want disturbed by small sticky hands. Nicola turned to the right and opened the door to her room. “In that case you can crawl into bed with me.”

The dresser was cluttered with cameras, film containers and lenses. Her suitcase was open on the chair beside the queen-size bed, her clothes spilling out. Hastily she gathered them up and stuffed them back in, flipping the lid shut.

Emily dutifully got under the covers and lay back on the pillow. “I’m not sleepy,” she whispered in a lisp.

“You can talk in a normal voice now,” Nicola told her with an encouraging smile. “I don’t think Aunt June and Uncle Roy can hear you through these thick walls.”

“I am talking normal,” Emily said, barely audible.

“I see.” Nicola paused. “Do you ever talk louder? Or laugh?”

Emily shook her head and regarded Nicola with a puzzled expression. “Why?”

“Just for fun. Because it makes you feel good.”

“Like putting on a happy face?”

“Hmm, maybe. Show me your happy face.”

Emily scrunched up her eyes and bared her gums, revealing the absence of her two front teeth.

Nicola laughed and gave her a hug. “Snuggle down and keep warm. I’ll read to you.”

Nicola pulled a sheaf of old envelopes from the pocket of her suitcase then crawled into bed and puffed up the pillows. She chose a letter at random and adjusted the table lamp so it shone on the thin blue airmail paper. “This is a letter your mom wrote to me, let’s see, eight years ago. She used to tell me all about her life and what she was doing. I saved all of her letters because they reminded me of her and of home. Your dad’s in here, too.