Their Christmas Angel. Tracy Madison

Six years. How had that even happened?

      In that time, he’d packed up his two young daughters, Erin and Megan, and moved them to his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to settle and get away from the constant memories of Bridget. Remaining in Boston, with the same restaurants and parks and shops and, well, the same everything, let alone living in the house they’d shared as a family, had quickly become an act of torture. For him, but more important, for his daughters.

      Erin had been only four, Megan two, when Bridget’s cancer won its long-fought, grisly battle. The aftermath of losing their mother had left his little girls in a somber, colorless world filled with pain and heartache. Him, too, naturally, but age made a huge difference in how a person processed grief. As an adult, he knew he had to push through the darkness of Bridget’s death in order to find whatever light existed at the other end.

      His girls, though? They did not understand this, and the morning Parker had found Erin and Megan huddled together in his bedroom closet with their mother’s clothes wrapped around their small, slender bodies and tears coursing down their cheeks had made that fact crystal clear.

      That morning had ended his ongoing mental debate on whether they should stay in Boston, where the familiar could, over time, prove healing, or relocate to Steamboat Springs, where the girls might find breathing—just breathing—a little easier. So, despite his mother- and father-in-law’s objections and just shy of a year following his wife’s passing, Parker sold his house, quit his job and brought his family here, to a less expensive home and new surroundings.

      And in the five years since, he’d doubted this decision only once. A skiing accident had come too damn close to taking his life and leaving his precious daughters as orphans. In those precarious seconds and minutes after the accident, and during those first awful few weeks in the hospital, his choice to move had seemed foolhardy. If they’d stayed in Boston, he likely would not have found himself twisted in a broken heap halfway down a friggin’ mountain.

      Fortunately, he’d survived, and another three years had somehow elapsed, along with a multitude of other positive and affirming changes. His girls were flourishing here, and Parker’s momentary doubt had long since faded into nothingness. Steamboat Springs had become more than a new place with new surroundings. They had created a home here, in every way possible.

      But yeah, the damn dancing snowflakes reminded him of those ballets and, therefore, his beautiful, loving wife. The good—the glorious years they were lucky enough to spend together—and the bad, the years since, the years that cancer stole from his family.

      Sighing, Parker stopped at a red light about three blocks from the elementary school and yanked himself to the present. Two hours ago, he’d driven this exact path to pick up his daughters and take them to dinner. Now they were returning to the school for the upcoming Christmas play tryouts. Afterward, they’d go home and finish their evening routine, and since it was a Friday, he’d let the girls stay up a bit later than normal. Then he really should put in a few more hours of work, otherwise he’d have to fit it in over the weekend.

      In Boston, he’d supervised the marketing department of a large national corporation. Ever since their move, though, Parker had worked for himself. In the beginning, he focused solely on designing websites, blogs and the like, but due to his clients’ needs, he had eventually broadened his scope to include a range of internet marketing services.

      Finances during those first few years were rough, but he budgeted every penny of Bridget’s life insurance benefit, along with what was left over from the sale of the Boston house after buying their home here, in order to make the transition a success. He used the living room, kitchen, his bedroom and sometimes—specifically the nights either Erin or Megan were ill or having trouble sleeping—the hallway outside their door as his roaming office. Didn’t matter, really, where he worked. To him, the point was that he was at home. With them.

      And he continued to work entirely from home until his youngest daughter, Megan, was firmly settled in first grade. By then, Parker’s business was solvent enough to rent actual office space about three miles from the school. Most of the time, he managed to complete his work responsibilities during their school hours, but every now and then—like tonight—he’d finish one project or another at home, using his laptop and the kitchen table as his desk.

      Life was busy, but good. Oh, there were the stray melancholy moods that elicited memories of his wife, along with the random bursts of loneliness that sometimes popped into being, but Parker was grateful that he had nothing of true merit to complain about.

      Thanksgiving was a mere two weeks away, and he had so very much to be thankful for. His daughters were healthy. He was healthy. They had food on their table every night, a roof that didn’t leak over their heads, sufficient funds in the bank account, friends and family to cherish, and plenty of activities to keep them involved and happy. Other than the impossible wish of having Bridget back in their lives, what else could he want?

      Braking again, this time at a stop sign, Parker glanced in the rearview mirror and said, “Almost there now, girls. Are you excited?”

      “Yes!” said eight-year-old Megan from the back seat. “I can’t wait! I want to be one of the angels! But so does Erin. Do you think both of us can be picked for angel parts?”

      “Don’t be silly, Megan,” said ten-year-old Erin, offering her opinion in her typical to-the-point fashion. “There’s lots of angels in the play, so of course we can both be angels.”

      “Only if we’re chosen,” Megan argued. “Only if we’re good enough.”

      “Well, I guess I don’t know if you’re good enough, but I am. So maybe I’ll be one of the angels and you’ll be a...a...star or a tree or—”

      “Daddy!” Megan squealed, interrupting her sister. “Erin’s being mean! And besides that, she’s wrong. If only one of us can be angels, it will be me because...because I have blond hair, like angels are supposed to!”

      “Angels can have any color of hair, even red,” Erin fired back, her voice indignant. “And telling the truth isn’t the same thing as being mean! And I didn’t say you weren’t good enough to play an angel, Megan. I said that I didn’t know if you were. That’s different!”

      “Girls, stop,” Parker said, crossing the sleepy intersection and driving toward the school parking lot, which was about a half a block straight ahead. “Hair color doesn’t matter at all. And you’re both good enough, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get the parts you want.” Every kid who showed tonight would be involved in the play, in one way or another. Whether that would be as an angel, a star, a tree, some other part, or helping behind the scenes. “Let’s try to remember that the goal is to have fun and celebrate Christmas. Okay?”

      The girls were silent for a few seconds before a muffled chorus of “Okay, Daddy,” reached his ears. He hoped either they’d both be cast as angels or neither would, otherwise keeping the peace for the next six or so weeks would become highly difficult.

      On the other hand, he supposed if such a scenario were to happen, it would provide a valuable life lesson that the girls would eventually have to learn. He just hated any possibility that brought so much as a lick of pain or disappointment to his daughters. In his estimation, they’d already faced their fair share of heartbreak in their young lives. If the choice was his, Parker would move heaven and earth to keep Erin and Megan from experiencing another drop of sadness. He couldn’t, naturally, but the wish remained.

      “Oh! Look, Erin,” Megan said as they approached the school, “is that a—”

      “Watch out, Daddy!” Erin hollered. “Don’t hit the angel!”

      Don’t hit the...what? But her words, along with her volume and the frightened quality of her tone, shocked Parker into a state of alert awareness, and his heart leaped to his throat as he saw that, yes, an angel—or rather, a woman dressed as an angel—was barreling at top speed from the sidewalk to the street, in chase of some type of large, fast-moving animal. A dog? Maybe, but the beast seemed to have horns, so