Free Summer of Joy by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

chair in her mother’s living room on Christmas morning and opened up gifts of sweaters and gloves and sometimes underwear.
    Every Christmas since she could remember, before they could pick up all the gift wrapping her parents had found some reason to start sniping at one another.
    Something always turned out to be wrong. The doughnuts her father had brought in for breakfast weren’t fresh enough. The oranges weren’t juicy enough. The thermostat was set too high or too low. Her father didn’t want to go to her mother’s sister’s house for dinner. Every year the same presents. Every year the same arguments.
    But this year was going to be different. This year Leigh was going to put the joy back into Christmas. Gifts didn’t matter. Stale doughnuts didn’t matter. When they celebrated didn’t matter. Leigh hadn’t figured out exactly how she was going to break that last one to her mother, but she knew in her heart that if she had even a hint of an invitation, she wanted to be at David’s house with a whole new family on Christmas morning.
    And she was going to insist her mother and father meet David. Her mother kept making excuses. She didn’t feel well. The house wasn’t clean enough. And heavens no, she couldn’t go out to eat. Her feet were too swollen to wear anything but house shoes. Her father was playing golf or his favorite team was playing basketball on television.
    Her mother didn’t want to meet David. She didn’t want to like him. She didn’t want him to be real. She didn’t want Leigh to be in love. She gave the excuse that David was too old for Leigh, but the truth was that she wanted Leigh to move back home, and how could that ever happen if Leigh found a man to love. A man to love her.
    Could it be true, Leigh wondered as she turned down the street to her parents’ house. Had she found a man to love her? No doubt she’d found a man to love. She felt the song “Joy to the World” swelling up inside her again. She loved Christmas. At Christmas anything was possible. A baby was born to a virgin. Angels sang to shepherds. Wise men followed a star to Bethlehem. The world rejoiced as salvation was born.
    Anything was possible. She could get something besides a sensible beige cardigan for Christmas. She could resist all the Christmas candy people kept pushing in front of her. She could keep from gaining back the weight she’d lost. A good man like David could fall in love with her. Her mother could smile and be happy for her.
    Leigh knew just as soon as her mother met her at the door with her coat already on and carrying her big black purse that the being happy for Leigh wasn’t going to be possible that day.
    “You’re late,” her mother said without even saying hello.
    “Not much,” Leigh answered as she gave her mother a little peck on her cheek. “Are you ready to go get some shopping done?”
    “Just a week late,” her mother said. “We always go shopping the first Saturday in December. Not the second Saturday.”
    “I was busy last week. I explained that to you. Hollyhill was having its Christmas parade.”
    “So you said, and you had to take that preacher’s daughter and that baby she has to the parade. Looks like he could have taken her himself.” Her mother pulled the door shut behind her as she stepped outside.
    “He was taking pictures for the paper. And I didn’t have to—I wanted to. Parades are fun. Don’t you remember when we used to go to the Christmas parade downtown here?”
    “I can’t even imagine standing on a street, watching a parade now. Not with the way my legs are. I don’t know how I’ll make it shopping today.”
    Leigh looked at her mother’s feet. They were swollen but didn’t look too bad. Her mother was too heavy, had always been too heavy ever since Leigh could remember.
    She’d told Leigh it ran in her side of the family and so Leigh shouldn’t worry about being too heavy herself. That there wasn’t anything she could do about