Removing the dried plant, she placed it onto the small table by the door where her father kept his wallet and keys, then joined her mother in the car, leaving her frustrations with work behind. Maybe a day spent fashioning something entirely new was just the ticket to get those creative juices flowing.
The Joy property was a quick drive to Main Street, made occasionally longer when stuck behind a snowplow, like they found themselves today.
“That was a big storm last night.” Paula snapped on her blinker to turn left, skirting the plow and picking up speed on an open stretch of white road. “Your poor father was outside at the crack of dawn, shaking the snow from the branches of that tree with a broom. I keep telling him nobles are built for these conditions, but he won’t listen.”
“He’s really got it in his head that it’s going to win this year, doesn’t he?”
“He’s got it in his head and in his heart.” Letting her gaze leave the windshield for a brief moment, Paula’s eyes met her daughter’s across the cab. “This Christmas would’ve been Grandma Birdie’s ninetieth birthday. I think he’s looking at this win as a gift for her. A tribute of sorts.”
How had Rachel not remembered? Had she been so wrapped up in her own world that she’d completely forgotten the one she came from?
Grandma Birdie’s birthday was always a cause for celebration, and even after she’d stopped having them here on this earth, the family still acknowledged the day with fanfare and festivity. It was a tradition that spanned the many years since her passing, and Rachel suddenly understood her father’s determined passion.
“Ninety years old.” Rachel inhaled slowly. “I wonder what she would be like.”
A single chuckle parted her mother’s lips. “Oh, I imagine she’d be even more opinionated than she already was, and her collection of fancy gloves and scarves even larger.”
It was true; the woman had more opinions than a candy cane had stripes, but Rachel loved her all the more for it. It was at Grandma Birdie’s consistent nudging that Rachel even applied for college in the city. Her encouragement was the push she needed to step out of her comfort zone and spread the wings that would ultimately carry her away from Snowdrift Summit.
“At one point in time, these hills were the land of opportunity for our family. But it wasn’t our ancestors’ intention that we settle here and never leave,”Grandma Birdie had confessed to Rachel one night over a pile of college applications and scholarship submissions.“Every generation needs to forge their own path, Sugar Plum. And that brain of yours is big enough to take you anywhere you want to go. Let the only limit to your dreams be the wide open sky.”
“You okay, sweetie?” The car rocked back at the four-way stop. Paula paused, glancing over at her daughter once more.
“What do you think would’ve happened if I stayed in Snowdrift?”
Even though it was their turn to go, Paula’s foot hesitated in finding the gas pedal, her words taking time too. “Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders to her ears, catching her dangling earrings. “You would’ve gotten bored here, constantly competing with that Holden kid. You needed a bigger challenge.”
“What even started that?”
“Started what?” Paula maneuvered the SUV onto Main Street and, after a quick search around the block, angled into an open spot along the curb. She shut off the engine.
“That whole thing between me and Holden?”
“You honestly don’t remember?”
Rachel’s front teeth pressed into her lip. She shook her head.
Her mother’s mouth sputtered with a breathy laugh. “It all started when he asked you to the Winter Ball in eighth grade.”
“He didn’t ask me. I went with Cody Walters.”
“But hedidask you. It was this whole elaborate ask too.” Paula slid her purse onto her shoulder, her hand pausing on the inside door handle, about to exit. “Don’t you remember the whole cookie decorating thing? All those cut-out letters you had to unscramble and arrange into the words, ‘Will you go to Winter Ball with me?’ It took you almost an hour to figure it out.’”
“Yes, but it was Cody who put all of that together.” Rachel got out of the car first.
“No.” Her mother shook her head. She left the vehicle to join her daughter on the sidewalk. “Cody just happened to come over for tutoring the same night you had the cookies on the counter. He thought you were asking him.” She laughed a little. “And apparently, you thought he was asking you.”
“Because hewasasking me. We went to the dance together.”
“You went to the dance together, but he wasn’t the one who originally asked you.”
Rachel’s brow tightened. “How do you even know all of this?”
“Because Jill Hart sometimes comes here too, and things have a way of getting around the knitting circle.”
Before Rachel could snap her unhinged jaw back into place, Paula grasped the handle to In Stitches and waltzed into the shop, a chorus of cheery greetings from the women inside drowning out the question on the tip of Rachel’s tongue.
“Paula!” A woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Claus bounded toward them, her white bun on her head like a perfectly rounded snowball. “You made it.” After squeezing Paula in a hearty hug, she swooped around to bring Rachel into her arms too. “And you brought a friend.”
