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“Do I have to? I want to stay with Mabel.”

“I don’t want to play with Daddy,” Poppy said. “I want to play with Izzy and Jason. I’m going to find them and tell them we can build our snowman.”

“No!” Brooke grabbed her daughter to stop her leaving the room. “You mustn’t disturb them. They might be—er—asleep. Or something.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Poppy said. “She’ll be too excited to sleep.” She squirmed and tried to escape but Brooke held her firmly.

“Not every adult wants to get up early on Christmas Eve.”

Poppy clearly found such a thing unfathomable.

Mabel added to the attempt at distraction. “I would appreciate help opening this box, Poppy.”

Poppy stopped squirming. “What’s in it?”

“We could find out together.”

Brooke released Poppy. “Are you sure, Mabel? Because if you’d rather open your box in private we can give you space—” She gestured to the kitchen but Mabel shook her head.

“No. I think we should open this together.”

Poppy crossed the room to Mabel, Izzy apparently forgotten for the moment.

Mabel’s fingers shook a little as she unfastened the clip that held the lid in place.

The last time she’d touched this box she’d been crying so hard she couldn’t see straight, but now she was seeing clearly.

“It’s a notebook.” Disappointed, Poppy went to stare out the window again, but Elsie stayed by Mabel’s side.

“Why is there a notebook in the box? Is it special?”

“Yes, it’s special.” Mabel lifted the book out of the box. She was almost afraid to open it. Opening would mean remembering, but she was already remembering so what difference did it make?

“Can we read it?”

Mabel opened the book. It had been eight years since she’d last seen it, but she remembered every word. Every stroke of the pen.

Elsie sat on the chair next to Mabel and peered closely at the notebook. “The Careless Witch and the Accidental Christmas,” she read and took a breath. “You did write a Christmas book.”

“Not exactly. But I started one. With my daughter. That’s why it’s special. It was the first and only project we worked on together.” Her throat thickened as she remembered that time. The buzz of excitement that came from creating something with her daughter. The laughter. The pride.

“Is she a writer, too?”

“No, but I always thought she should be. She had talent, but no confidence.”

“Why didn’t you finish it?”

Mabel closed the book. “Because we had a falling out. And after that, I wanted to throw it away, but Walter wouldn’t let me. He insisted on storing the book in the attic until Chrissie and I were ready to work on it again. He was sure that would happen.”

Brooke’s eyes were dark with sympathy. “But it never did.”

“No. Not only that, I didn’t write anything else, either. Chrissie was always my inspiration, from the moment she was born. To begin with, I wrote stories for her. I read them to her in the hospital as a distraction for both of us. She wanted more. Always more. Soon, I had an entire series. And then Walter made me send them to an agent.”

“But we wrote a story together yesterday,” Elsie said, and Mabel smiled at her.

“Yes, we did. And it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Thank you for that.”

“Maybe we could do some more writing later?”