Free The Christmas Train by Rexanne Becnel Page A

or even because of her selfish mother and stupid father. She was crying because life wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been fair to Miss Eva and Nana Rose, to Mutti or Papa or that nice lady, Hilda. And it had never been fair to her.
    She stared out the window as the train began its slow, ponderous start, straining away from the station and toward the bleak future that awaited her. She tried not to cry, to catch her tears before anyone could notice. But the tears wouldn’t stop.
    It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t really need to hide her tears. Because no one was watching out to make sure she didn’t have a reason to cry. Not anymore.
    M ISS Eva talked in her sleep, but in German, so Anna didn’t know exactly what she was saying. But she heard the word Weihnachtsbaum. Christmas tree, she now knew. And several times the word “Ennis.”
    This train wasn’t as crowded as the last one, and most everyone else was asleep. Only Anna, the conductor, and a lady holding a fussy baby were awake.
    She looked over at Miss Eva, who muttered softly between even softer snores. Nana Rose used to talk Italian sometimes. Not a lot. But Anna knew mangia meant let’s eat. And there’d been this painted sign in Nana Rose’s kitchen that Anna’s mother had given her for Mother’s Day long before she’d grown up and turned so selfish. It said una mamma italiana è una benedizione di dio. Nana Rose explained that it meant an Italian mother is a blessing from God.
    It had hung above the stove. But Anna didn’t know what had happened to it, or to any of Nana Rose’s stuff. Her mother had moved into the house with her for two months until the house sold. She could have kept the house. They could have lived there and Anna could have stayed at her old school. But her mother had plans for that money, and plans with her new boyfriend, Eddie. They were moving to Dallas, buying a condo, her mother said. And Anna was just in the way. That’s when her mother had decided to send her to her father. And now here she was, almost to Ennis.
    She stared at the dark countryside speeding past her like she was the one standing still while the world raced on without her. It was scary—the fences, the electric poles, the distant points of light that said somebody lived out there, somebody Anna would never know. All of them whizzing by then disappearing, like they’d never existed at all.
    She must have dozed off, because she awoke with a start. Just the tiniest change in the movement of the train, the first step in the slowing-down process, but it started her heart racing, and under her shirt she began to sweat.
    Her father was just ahead. How would she recognize him? And what if he didn’t want to keep her? What if he had other children he loved better than her? What if he had told her mother not to send her, but she did anyway?
    Anna’s worried gaze veered over to Miss Eva, asleep with her mouth a little bit open, and breathing in the heavy, hard-to-catch-your-breath way Nana Rose used to do sometimes.
    Miss Eva was so happy to get back to Ennis. But what if she was confused? She grew up in Germany, not America. What if the Ennis she remembered was in Germany? After all, there was Paris, France, and Paris, Texas. And Nana Rose said there was Barcelona, Spain, and Barcelona in Sicily. What if Miss Eva was going to the wrong Ennis and her brother, Karl, wasn’t there?
    Anna swallowed hard and blinked back tears, knowing they wouldn’t help her now. She had to be ready for anything, she realized. If her father didn’t want her, she would go with Miss Eva to her brother Karl’s house. Maybe he would need help taking care of his sister.
    And if Miss Eva was confused and this was the wrong Ennis, then . . . then they would just go back to Miss Eva’s house in Arkansas and she would stay with Miss Eva and they would take care of each other. Just like she and Nana