Those Christmas Angels (Angels Everywhere #5)(45)

“I think I’ll see how the Huskies are doing.” He picked up the remote. The University of Washington football team was her father’s favorite.

“You aren’t going to help decorate?” Julie hated the thought of doing it all by herself, but she didn’t want to force her father to participate. Lectures from her wouldn’t do any good, as Emily’s e-mail had reminded her that morning.

Her father’s eyes grew sad. “I’m sorry, Kitten, but I just don’t have the heart for it this year.”

He hardly ever called her Kitten, a name from her childhood, and she blinked away tears. After everything they’d endured, Julie couldn’t complain about his unwillingness to take part in an activity that brought back memories he might not be ready to face. “That’s okay,” she told him, although her heart was breaking. This was hard, so much harder than she’d realized it would be.

“I can do it,” Julie said more to convince herself than her father. Maybe it wouldn’t be as painful if he stayed in the room. “You can be my adviser.”

He acquiesced with a reluctant nod. Settling down in his usual chair, he flipped through several channels, then found the Huskies game.

Humming “Deck the Halls” to herself, Julie located the string of lights and began to weave it around the base of the evergreen, working her way upward. This task had always been reserved for her father. Afterward, Julie and Emily—before her twin sister’s marriage—along with their mother, took over the task of hanging the decorations. It had been an important tradition, representing a time of family fun, laughter and music. Now it seemed bleak and sad….

“Did you check those lights before you started putting them on the tree?” her father asked during the first commercial break.

“Uh…”

“I can see that you didn’t.” He clambered out of his chair. “Oh, all right, I’ll do the lights, but that’s it.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

“I should’ve known,” he muttered. “All you wanted me to do was put up the tree, you said. Well, I did that. Next thing you know, I’m stringing the lights. Are you plotting against me?”

“Would I do that?” she asked in a singsong voice that didn’t conceal her amusement.

Since there wasn’t much she could do while he strung the lights, Julie went into the kitchen and put a package of popcorn in the microwave. It was cheating, she supposed; her mother had done it the old-fashioned way. Still, popcorn was popcorn.

“If you’re going to be popping corn, I want the buttered kind.”

“Yes, Dad.”

He was almost finished with the lights by the time she returned to the living room, carrying a large bowl filled to overflowing with popcorn. She set it in the center of the coffee table and got down on all fours to sort through the boxes he’d brought up from the basement. Pulling out the small stack of CDs held together by a rubber band, she placed it conspicuously beside the bowl.

“Oh, go ahead, then. Put one on.”

She smiled and did exactly that, choosing a selection of instrumental Christmas classics.

Her father plugged in the lights. “I’ll probably be hanging the ornaments, too,” he grumbled. He paused long enough to grab a handful of popcorn. “Did I ever tell you about Christmas the first year your mother and I were married? We were too poor to afford a tree. A friend gave your mother a poinsettia, and we put our gifts under that.” He smiled at the memory. “It was the most pitiful-looking thing, but you’d have thought it was as grand as a fifteen-foot tree.”

Of all the gifts Julie had received through the years, perhaps the best was the fact that her parents had loved each other deeply.

“What I remember was all of us attending Christmas Eve services and then coming home and opening one gift each.” Julie and Emily were eight years old before they realized that the one gift they were allowed to open always turned out to be pajamas.

“I’m going to miss Mom’s turkey stuffing,” Julie said, sitting back on her heels. For both Thanksgiving and Christmas, her mother had prepared the traditional turkey. Every year she fretted over her stuffing and every year she outdid herself.

“Yours wasn’t bad,” her father assured her.

Like her mother, Julie had worried excessively over her first attempt at cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. “Thanks, Dad. I guess I must’ve picked up something all those years I spent helping Mom.” It felt good to be able to talk freely about her mother. Her father seemed to revel in it, too, although she knew he’d felt wary about reliving the past. Sharing memories made missing her less painful, and Julie knew that these memories would get them through the Christmas season. There would be poignant, tearful moments, but happy ones, too.

“Are you cooking a turkey for Christmas?” her father asked.

Julie hadn’t given the matter much thought. Christmas was still two weeks away, and it seemed a bit early to be thinking about what she’d serve. “I suppose.”

“Seems to me we had leftover turkey for at least a week after Thanksgiving.”

Julie took out the ornaments, examining each one. “Would you rather I made something else?”

“No, no, I like my turkey. It just seems a waste to buy a big bird for the two of us.”