A Mrs. Miracle Christmas - Debbie Macomber

CHAPTER ONE

Laurel McCullough arrived home to find two police cruisers parked in the driveway with their lights flashing. If that wasn’t enough to get her heart racing, it was seeing her grandmother on the front porch, clearly distressed, wringing her hands and looking around anxiously.

Laurel slammed her vehicle into park and leaped out of her car, nearly stumbling in her eagerness to find out what had happened.

“Nana,” she cried, rushing toward her grandmother.

The instant Laurel came into view, Helen covered her mouth with her hands, and her eyes, filled with dread, looked to the ground.

“Laurel, oh dear, oh dear,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Laurel wrapped her arms around her grandmother, hoping to comfort her. “Officer, what’s going on here?”

“Are you Laurel Lane? This is your grandmother?”

“Yes, but McCullough is my married name.”

“I’m so sorry,” Helen repeated, worry lines creasing her face. “When I woke from my nap, my mind was fuzzy. I was afraid because you weren’t home from school, so I called the police.”

“Your grandmother reported that her ten-year-old granddaughter hadn’t returned from school,” the kind officer explained to Laurel.

Laurel swallowed down her shock. Nana had been mentally slipping for a while now—little things she couldn’t remember, small details—and this was the second major incident within a short time period.

“As you can see, I’m a bit older than ten,” Laurel told the officer. “I’m sorry that we’ve troubled you. She’s a bit confused right now. I came to live with my grandmother when I was ten.”

“No trouble, Miss. We’re just happy we aren’t looking at an abduction.”

After answering a few more questions for the officers, Laurel gently led her grandmother back into the house and had her sit in her favorite chair.

“I don’t know what came over me,” Helen said, and moaned, covering her cheeks with her hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”

Helen wrapped her arms about herself like she needed to hold on to the present and leave the past behind. “I…I looked at the time and you weren’t home and suddenly you were ten years old again. I was convinced something dreadful had happened to you. What’s wrong with me?” she cried. “How could I have done something so bizarre? Am I going crazy?”

Laurel went to her knees in front of her precious grandmother. “Of course you aren’t crazy, Nana. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Those officers came right away and were so kind. I feel terrible to have troubled them.” She looked up, seeming to be struck by inspiration. “I should bake them cookies to apologize for wasting their time.”

“It’s over. I’m home now, and everything is okay.”

Laurel brewed tea, thinking it would settle their nerves. She sat beside her grandmother, reassuring her several times.

Laurel’s brain raced with how best to deal with this latest situation. Last week, her grandmother had lost her way in the neighborhood, the very one she’d lived in for more than fifty years. Nana had gone out to collect the mail and noticed that the neighbor’s new puppy, Browser, had escaped his yard. She’d followed him to try to bring him back and hadn’t been able to find her way home. Eventually, the neighbor had found the puppy, along with Helen, and had brought Laurel’s visibly upset grandmother back home with her.

Nana looked pale and frightened. “The doctor said that would happen, didn’t he? Me getting more and more confused? Wasn’t it only last week when I got lost? This is all part of having dementia, isn’t it?”

Laurel nodded. The dementia had become significantly worse over the last several months. It was at the point that she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her grandmother alone. But what choice did she have? Their financial resources were tight. All she could do was pray that she and Zach, her husband, could come up with a way to manage these new issues that Nana was having.

“I don’t want you to worry about me, Laurel,” Helen insisted. “I won’t be calling the police again, and I won’t be going outside on my own anymore, either.”

Laurel couldn’t bear the thought of her grandmother being stuck inside the house by herself for hours on end, afraid to leave for fear she’d be unable to find her way home.

“You have enough on your plate,” Helen continued. “I don’t ever want to be a burden.”

“You will never be, Nana.” Her grandmother had always put others ahead of herself. Laurel set aside her tea and knelt before her nana the way she had as a