A Family for Christmas. Kate Welsh

heard nothing directly from him. She’d returned, not knowing his decision regarding their marriage. And, of course, he had no idea at all that she and the children were back. Which left Maggie alone with three children to face the house and its memories. She had no idea how they’d react.

      “There’s the river down there,” Daniel shouted. “Does that mean we’re on the Sure-kill?”

      “Yes, this is the Sckuykill Expressway.”

      “Uncle Trent calls it the Sure-kill Distressway,” Rachel added, “but I don’t think it’s so funny anymore.”

      “I’m sure he doesn’t, either,” Maggie said, then gritted her teeth. Uncle Trent again. Children were so easy to read. Rachel and Daniel and even Grace in her limited capacity had talked incessantly about their uncle in the last several days. His absence was clearly noted, and it just as clearly caused worry. He’d checked in on Mickey, calling to talk to the boy’s doctors and Mickey himself every other day, but there’d been not a word for Maggie.

      He didn’t return her calls, either. When the offers of help had come from the Shriners organization for Mickey to enter their new facility in North Philadelphia, and from Angel Flight East for their transportation, she’d called Trent all weepy and grateful. It had been such a weight off her shoulders and such a tremendous answer to desperate prayer that she hadn’t been able to help the frequent breaks in her voice. All he had done in response was to say a few stiff words, and to contact the Florida doctors to help coordinate Mickey’s eventual move.

      Didn’t he realize the strain all this had been? Maybe not, a quiet voice argued. She certainly hadn’t understood what it would take to just start her day at seven making breakfast. After feeding and dressing three children, it was off to the hospital. And even that was complicated. She had to shepherd all the children to the car, get two buckled in their seats and Grace in her safety seat, then drive to the hospital. In the parking lot, it started all over again. The walk into and through the hospital, keeping track of them, was complicated as well. And now after two weeks alone, she was tired and scared that it might continue that way for the foreseeable future.

      And what would she face when she reached the house? When she’d been there last month, the kitchen had looked like a war zone, but Michael had done wonders by her last visit, a week before they left on vacation. It was just that the house needed so much more. Maggie had never understood how Sarah had kept her sanity while dealing with a house that looked for all the world as if it were in the middle of being torn down.

      “Aunt Maggie, do you know about the water?” Daniel asked.

      Maggie started at the sound of his voice. “The water in the river?” she asked.

      “No, silly, the water at our house. You said we were still going to live there, right?”

      “We’re almost there. What about the water?”

      Rachel sighed. “It was just that Daddy didn’t know. But Mommy wasn’t mad,” she was quick to reassure Maggie.

      Maggie didn’t feel reassured. Instead she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Daddy didn’t know what?”

      “About the old heater. We just camped. You know.”

      Maggie didn’t camp. Had never ever wanted to camp. Couldn’t imagine anything worse than camping with little children all under the age of nine. “Camped?”

      Was that a squeak in her voice?

      “Yeah, like when we go camping and Mommy and Daddy cook the water for dishes. We have to cook it at home, too. Just like camping! But just ‘til the new heater is hooked up, Daddy said.”

      “Sarah, you were amazing,” Maggie whispered, and prayed for strength.

      The house came into sight just then. It sat high on a rise at the end of a drive that was several hundred yards long; it seemed to peer imperiously down the hill at them through two eyebrow windows cut into the roof. Michael had called the house a “grand old lady.” To Maggie, the peeling paint and half-finished porches made it look more like a derelict. But although the house looked less than inviting to her, it was home to these children, and Maggie would do nothing to change their perceptions of it.

      She stopped the van in front and started to set the brake.

      “Um, Aunt Maggie,” Rachel said, her voice hesitant, “I think maybe we should go in the back door.”

      Maggie hated to ask the obvious question, but it just seemed to pop out anyway. “Why?”

      “’Cause Daddy finished undoing the front of the house.”

      Maggie gulped. “Undoing?”

      “The old walls and the floors,” Rachel answered.

      “And the steps,” Daniel chirped. “Don’t forget he pulled down the old rickety steps.”

       Don’t jump to conclusions, Mag old girl They’re only little. They probably don’t mean it the way it sounds. Besides, you were here a week before they left. And anyway, he couldn’t have taken out the heater, taken down the walls and stairs and torn out the floors. There’d be nothing left! He couldn’t! Could he?

      Maggie forced herself to put the car in park and to stomp down on the parking brake. “I only have a front door key, kids. It’s this way or the highway.”

      “We were just on a bunch of highways,” Daniel complained. “I want to get out and ride my Big Wheel”

      Maggie chuckled as she turned off the car. “That’s sort of an old expression my grandfather used. ‘It’s my way or the highway,’ he always said.”

      “What’s it mean?” Daniel demanded.

      Maggie shrugged. “This way or forget it, I guess,” she said, a little distracted as she unbuckled Grace from her car seat.

      “That doesn’t make sense,” he grumbled. “Why are big people always using old sayings that don’t mean what they say they do? I think it’s a ‘spiracy to keep kids from being too smart.”

      “Oh, no. Here we go again,” Rachel groaned and rolled her eyes.

      Too late Maggie remembered Daniel’s penchant for needing to know the literal meaning in everything he heard. “We’ll sort it out later, Daniel Right now Grace needs a nap, and I think you could use a little lie-down, too.”

      Grace perked up, and her eyes opened from their half-mast position. “Not tired,” she chirped, then ruined her lively pretense with a wide yawn.

      Maggie tapped Grace’s little nose. “Careful before you catch a fly in that mouth.”

      “Where’s a fly?” Daniel asked.

      Maggie laughed and changed the subject. “Let’s get a move on, everybody. Into the house. We’ll worry about the luggage later.”

      They proceeded as always with the routine Sarah had used, and which Maggie had adopted. She took Grace’s hand, Rachel took Daniel’s and they walked across the yard, up the steps and up to the front door. Maggie unlocked the door, opened it and peeked in. She stifled a gasp.

      Rachel and Daniel had been alarmingly close in their description of Michael’s latest demolition. The only thing left of the interior front of the house were studs, subflooring and the central staircase horses. Wires hung everywhere. There were holes here and there in the subflooring. She couldn’t take the children in there! It was a minefield.

      Maggie felt Rachel tug on her sleeve. “You want me to go and open the door? Mickey did it for Mommy. I’ll be careful and not touch a thing, and I’ll watch out for the holes.”

      Just then, however, the door from the kitchen pushed open and a man in jeans and a dark T-shirt came toward them. Dust motes floated in the sunlight between them. “Maggie? What are you guys doing here?”

      Maggie