Read Online One Snowy Night Before Christmas by Pamela Fryer - Free Book Online Page B

What
we need right now is some warm clothing for these two, and I could use a new
pair of gloves. Gortex, if you’ve got them in my size.”
    “Of course I do. You know that!” The flamboyant woman
gestured dramatically as she led them around the store. “And you’re all welcome
to come over if you’d like to have Christmas dinner circus style!”
    “Mandy has more kids than anyone else in town,” Jessie
explained as they followed Mandy to the section of store where kids’ jackets
hung on a round display.
    “Twelve, including my sister’s three and a trouble-makin’
cousin from New York currently under my care,” Mandy said brightly.
    “How do you take care of them all?” Tom asked. One sullen
six-year-old had reduced him to quivering, stammering coward. This was
definitely a woman whose advice he would treat like gold.
    “Faith, love, and a whole lot of patience,” Mandy told him,
giving him a wink. “And also patience. Did I mention patience?”
    He bought a pink winter snowsuit for Amy with matching hat,
mittens and booties, and heavy snow gear and a pair of subzero boots for
himself. Jessie paid for her new gloves first then collected Amy as Mandy rang
up his purchases. The bill was enormous, but he was warm for the first time in
days. It was well worth it.
    * * *
    “How about we put those new gloves to the test?” Jessie
tried to sound cheerful, but Amy seemed in a mood not to be swayed. She would
rather be back at the hospital chatting with Santa, the only person who shared
her beliefs about Christmas. Jessie realized she and Tom must seem like some
sort of punishing authority, she as much at fault as her father for keeping her
away from her mother and her home, and now from Santa. Unfortunately there was
no real way to communicate to a six-year-old in words she wasn’t the enemy.
Only her actions would convince the little girl.
    She gestured through the glass to Tom, pointing to the
snow-covered park. He nodded.
    She took Amy’s hand and walked her across the street.
    “What are they doing?” the little girl asked as she watched
two boys roughhousing, using a lumpy snowman as a shield between them.
    “They’re having a snowball fight.”
    “Is that a fort?” she asked.
    “It’s a snowman.”
    Amy’s eyes grew wide. “That’s a snowman?”
    “Well, sort of.” With one stone remaining as an eye and a
curved twig pressed into the face to denote the mouth, it just barely resembled
one. “Haven’t you ever played in the snow before?”
    Amy shook her head. “Mm-mm.”
    Jessie could hardly believe it. She had to stop and remind
herself Amy was only six. She’d probably never even seen snow, and her
knowledge of snowmen solely provided by a Frosty the Snowman cartoon.
    “It’s fun,” Jessie tried to convince her.
    Amy didn’t smile.
    “You can roll in it and play in it. Come on, I’ll show you.”
    They entered the park and Amy stepped into the snow for what
Jessie wagered was the first time ever. Her composure brightened as her boots
crunched the lightly packed crust. She bent and scooped up a handful.
    “You can eat it, if it’s white,” Jessie told her. “But don’t
eat yellow snow.”
    Amy regarded her with wide eyes. Jessie scooped up a handful
and took a small bite. Amy brought her glove to her face and gingerly touched
her tongue to it. “It’s cold! What is it?”
    “Well, it’s frozen water. Sort of like frozen rain, but the rain
drops freeze into tiny crystals as they fall through the sky. If you look
really close, you can see.” She leaned down and showed Amy the palm of her dark
blue glove where a single snowflake had landed. “No two snowflakes are alike.”
    “You mean all this is from little snowflakes like that?” Amy
glanced around at the smooth, white landscape. “Gosh.”
    “This is how you make a snow angel.” Jessie stepped off the
trampled path onto a wide, unmarred section. She lay down and swept her arms up
and down, and her legs open and