“And is it the life you want?”
That question was more loaded than Santa’s bag of presents. “I think so.” Her shoulders scrunched to her ears. “I don’t know.”
“I know Bethany always dreamed of the city, ever since she was a young girl. I just never fully realized it was your dream too. Growing up, you girls shared a lot, from bedrooms to clothes. But you both had your own gifts. And you’re allowed to have your own dreams.”
The teapot on the stove trilled a whistle. Paula snagged it from the burner before the screeching increased to full volume. She poured a generous mug for Rachel, sliding it over the granite island between them.
“I have my own dreams.” Rachel squeezed a dollop of golden honey into the hot water. “And my gift is that I get the chance to achieve them, even though Bethany no longer can.”
Her mother’s hand smothered Rachel’s and pressed down. “I know losing her changed you, sweetheart. It changed all of us. I just want to make sure you’re not losing yourself too. You have every right to fulfill your own destiny, one that you dream up all on your own. You need to know that.”
“I do know that.”
They shared a cup of tea, but no more words after that. Paula headed to bed and Rachel retreated to the spare room, her mother’s confession working its way right past her brain and straight into her heart.
Losing her older sister had steered everything in Rachel’s world off course, like a snow globe turned upside down and never righted. She had been a mess of wayward emotion that year. Throwing herself into her studies helped, and latching onto the path Bethany had once hoped to take marked out a journey Rachel could easily follow. A blueprint she could read.
As kids, they had always talked about sharing an apartment in the city. How they’d each have designer purses and dogs, with more money than they would ever know what to do with. It was a game of pretend, until the point Rachel made it reality.
But without Bethany to share it with, it all felt utterly pointless.
Rachel fell asleep that night wondering what her life might look like had she forged her own way instead. Carved her destiny and set out on her own journey.
With these thoughts, she slowly slipped into a dream, and the place her heart took her sure looked a lot like Snowdrift.
* * *
“What project areyou working on with those PVC pipes, Dad?”
Stewart’s fork, loaded with scrambled eggs, stalled several inches from his mouth. “What are you talking about, Sugar Plum?”
“Those pipes behind the old shed. With the markings on them like a tape measure.”
Her father’s utensil met his breakfast plate with a clatter and the nails-on-a-chalkboard screech of his chair legs had Rachel’s shoulders jumping to her ears. Stumbling out of his slippers and into galoshes, Stewart barely had one arm in his jacket and he was out the back door, not even bothering to close it behind him.
Paula and Rachel locked eyes, brows raised.
“Should we go?” Rachel started to say and then they were both outside, similarly clad in a mix of outdoor gear and flannel pajamas.
The women scurried to catch up.
“Someone’s been snooping around here. I can feel it,” Stewart grumbled, head swinging. He sniffed the air like a bloodhound on a scent.
“And see it.” Paula pointed to the tracks leftover from the night before. A dusting of snow had filled them slightly, but they were still easily visible. “Looks like it was two snoops.”
Stewart had the pipes in his grasp. Nose tipped, he eyed the marks over the top rim of his glasses. “Someone’s been trying to get a measurement on our tree!”
“How do you know that?” Paula asked.
“Because this here is a manmade measuring stick. The only reason anyone would need something this tall would be to measure something tall…like our noble fir.”
“Who would want to do that?”
That above-rim gaze moved from the tool to his wife. “Do I really need to answer that?”
“The Harts wouldn’t stoop that low.”
“Oh, really?” Stewart nudged his glasses back up his nose with his knuckle. “You don’t think so? They’re still boiling over the fact that Holden’s essay was disqualified for that college scholarship. They think Rachel stole their son’s only chance at a fancy education. Well, you know what? They’re not going to steal our tree’s rightful spot as the town Christmas tree, that’s for sure.”
