A Mummy for Christmas

Travis shook his head. “You’re too heavy, sweetheart.”

“I’ll be right behind you,” Holly promised. Sophie coughed again, harder this time, her congestion evident. “You still have a vaporizer?”

“Yep.” Travis strode down the hall and deposited his daughter on the white trundle bed in her room. He stepped back to let Holly take over. “I’ll get it out for you.”

She drew back the pink-and-white covers, and Sophie climbed beneath them. Holly grabbed a tissue from the container on the bedside table and gently wiped the moisture from beneath the child’s nose.

“You always make me feel better.” Sophie flashed a wan smile.

“Being around you always makes me feel better,

too,” she said with a burst of maternal love. She tucked the covers around the little girl.

Travis came back in carrying the vaporizer, he set it atop the bureau and plugged it in. The muted sound of the motor and a whoosh of cool moist air immediately followed. “That’s going to help you feel better,” he promised. Then he looked at Sophie. “Anything else you want me to get you while I’m at the drugstore?”

“No.” His daughter snuggled next to Holly and held her hand tightly. “I have a mommy to make me feel better. That’s all I need, Daddy.”

SOPHIE’S WORDS WERE LIKE a blow to Travis’s heart, bringing up every anxiety he had ever had about parenting his two little girls on his own. From the look in her eyes, Holly seemed equally taken aback, unsure what to say. Because he had no clue, either, Travis simply nodded in understanding and headed off for the pharmacy.

When he returned twenty minutes later, medicine in hand, the younger kids were still coloring, laughing and talking. Holly was upstairs with Sophie, propped against the headboard, reading to his daughter.

And while his little girl still looked physically miserable, emotionally she was much better off. Feeling a bit frustrated that he hadn’t been able to reassure her himself, Travis measured the medicine in the little plastic cup, stood by while she drank it, then handed her the juice box chaser that would kill the yucky taste of the antihistamine decongestant mix.

“Can Holly spend the night with us?” Sophie asked.

“No, honey, I can’t,” she said, keeping her glance averted from his. “But I can stay a little longer this afternoon if it’s okay with your daddy.”

“It’s great with me,” he agreed, letting his tone tell Holly how much he appreciated her being there, since she still wouldn’t look him in the eye. Probably because she was afraid she’d give too much away if she did. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” he said.

Both of them nodded. Judging by the silence that followed, he would barely be missed.

A half hour later, Holly came downstairs and said hello to the kids, who were now congregated in the family room, busily rearranging all the kid-safe decorations on the lower limbs of the Christmas tree.

She moseyed over to the kitchen, where Travis was sitting. “You doing okay?” she asked softly.