Christmas On Snowbird Mountain

“Very good. You’re an excellent reader.”

Ryan watched the exchange from the other side of the kitchen table. After he and Susannah had returned to the house, he’d been put to work peeling potatoes for supper, penance ordered by his grandmother for sassing her earlier.

Nana Sipsey had threatened to take a hickory switch to his backside if he didn’t watch his tongue. She’d do it, too, no matter that he was a grown man and outweighed her by seventy pounds.

He hadn’t meant to be disrespectful, but he didn’t share his grandmother’s quick acceptance of this woman. Susannah. The name fit her. He’d never seen skin so creamy. Her eyes were as blue as a robin’s egg.

She seemed nice, friendly. He’d enjoyed talking to her at his workshop. Still, she was a stranger, a drifter who had no more regard for her own safety than to throw herself off a bridge.

Going by the quick look he’d gotten at that list of hers, she had a skewed perspective on what was important in life, too. And Nia didn’t need to get attached to someone who would inevitably leave.

Regardless of his grandmother’s insistence that Susannah had been sent to heal his daughter, he was not allowing her to stay. She could be bad for Nia, and a distraction for him, as well.

They were alone in the kitchen except for Nia. His mother and grandmother had suspiciously disappeared to the second floor. Susannah looked up and her smile turned his insides liquid.

Pretty. Too pretty. He’d never get any work done if she was around.

“You’ve done a great job teaching Nia to read,” she said. “You should be proud.”

“The praise belongs to her. She learns quickly.”

Nia touched Susannah’s necklace. “Why is your ring here?”

“Because I outgrew it. My mother gave it to me when I was a little girl about your age. When it wouldn’t fit anymore I put it on this chain so I could still wear it.”

“The blue rock is pretty.”

“That’s a sapphire, my birthstone. I used to believe the ring was magic and would give me courage.”

Nia wanted to slip it on, but Ryan told her she couldn’t. He was afraid she’d break the slender chain.

“Can we read another book?” she asked Susannah.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I need to be going. I enjoyed having you read this one to me, though. I don’t think I’ve ever met a little girl who reads as well as you do.”

“When will you be back?”

“Well…” She appealed to Ryan for help explaining.

“Susannah has to go home, Nia,” he told his daughter. “She won’t be back because she doesn’t live around here.”

Nia wrinkled up her face, confused. “Where do you live?”

“I used to have a house in a state called Georgia, right below this one, but I don’t anymore. I sold it because I wanted to sleep in different places, to travel and see new things.”

“Sleep here.”

“No, I can’t do that.”

“Daddy can tuck you in. You said you don’t got nobody to tuck you in.”

His gaze met Susannah’s and her pale complexion flushed slightly.

“I can’t stay, Nia.”

“He gets the covers just right and everything. Please, please?”

“Nia,” Ryan warned. “Don’t pester Susannah. She’s already told you she has to go.”

“But I don’t want her to.” She slammed the book on the table, crossed her arms in defiance and stuck out her bottom lip. Her eyes narrowed.

“Nia,” Ryan warned in a low voice.

Instead of apologizing, she knocked the book to the floor.

He ordered her to go to her room until she could behave better. She climbed off Susannah’s lap and stomped down the hall in her socks, smacking her fist loudly against the wall because she couldn’t make any noise with her feet. He made her come back and return the book to the table.

“Don’t leave that room until I tell you to, young lady.”

“You don’t love me,” she spat.

He knew she didn’t believe it, but the words still broke his heart.

“I love you more than anything in this world, but I don’t like being around you when you act like this. Tell Susannah goodbye and that you’re sorry for being so naughty.”

He wasn’t sure she’d do it, but she finally whispered it through her tears. She ran off to her bedroom.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “She’s had a rough time lately. Normally she’s a great kid.”

“Did your wife die recently?”

“Carla wasn’t my wife, only Nia’s mother,” he felt compelled to explain for some reason. “She died in March, not long after being diagnosed.”

“Stomach cancer? I believe that’s what Nia said.”

“Actually it was her pancreas, but Nia calls it stomach. She’s had trouble dealing with her mother’s death, although Carla lived abroad and never had custody of her.”

“I lost my mother last year, so I know some of what she’s feeling. Healing takes time.” Her expression turned sad. “I don’t think it’s possible for a child, regardless of age, to ever completely get over losing a parent.”

“Was your mother’s death from illness or accident?”

“Complications from Alzheimer’s.”

“I’ve heard that’s really hard on a family. Emotionally. Financially. Physically.”

“Hard doesn’t even begin to describe it. Luckily my dad had done well in the plumbing business, and he and my mom invested wisely. Money wasn’t a problem until the last couple of years of her life. The physical part, though, was very difficult.”

“And the emotional part?”