least the quilt was old and worn . . . and warm. She crawled underneath it, not wanting to ever come out.
She hated herself for what she’d done. She’d never stolen anything before in her life. Not even gum from her mom’s purse. She didn’t know what had come over her. She’d needed a drink and she’d seen the cellar’s password hanging from the magnet on the refrigerator. It was just that sometimes it was all too much . . . Life. Drinking helped to dull the pain. But now, drinking was going to force her to apologize to Donovan. Her dad.
Ella buried her face in her pillow, feeling horribly embarrassed. He probably hated her now and would tell everyone that his daughter was a thief. And then everyone would know what a loser she was. They would think she didn’t know right from wrong.
There was a knock on the door. “Ella?” her mom said. “It’s been fifteen minutes. The pity party’s over. I need help in Elsie’s studio.”
She wished her mom would leave her alone. “I have homework to do.”
“You told me you finished it,” her mom said.
“Fine.” Ella sat up. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
“And, Ella?” Her mom’s voice was muffled, like she had leaned her head against the door.
“What?”
“You might as well get it over with. He’s in the garage.”
Great. Ella was so looking forward to it. “Fine.” She crawled out of bed, blew her nose, and opened her door, expecting her mom to be standing there, tapping her foot impatiently. But the hallway was empty.
She walked down the stairs and past Elsie’s studio, where her mom and a lot of the other women from town were working and laughing like crazy. At least someone was having fun. She exhaled and marched on. The doorway at the end of the hall led to the humongous garage.
She didn’t see Donovan at first. But then she spotted him in the corner, pulling boxes down from a shelf. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if maybe she could just skip this part; her mom would never know.
But I would.
“Hey, can I talk to you?” Ella said quietly.
He didn’t turn around. “Sure. Come help me with these.”
She walked down the four steps into the garage. “What are you doing?”
“Just checking out the Christmas decorations. Rick bought a bunch of new stuff while we were in Anchorage but I wanted to use some of my grandparents’ too.”
All of a sudden it hit her that he was talking about her great-grandparents, part of her family. A whole family she knew nothing about. “What were they like?”
Donovan looked over his shoulder, a warm smile on his face as if he was remembering something nice. “They were the best, the most welcoming and patient people I’ve ever known. Nan seemed to always have home-baked cookies in the oven and Grandpa was always whistling while fixing something around the place. Your mom could tell you. She loved it here. We used to have so much fun, playing in the woods and fishing in the river. You should ask her about it.” He turned back to his boxes. Ella thought he was done talking but then he said, “Have you ever been ice fishing?”
“Yeah. Mom takes me a couple times every winter,” Ella said, coming closer. She picked up a glass bauble that had a poinsettia on it. “It’s usually a lot of fun.”
He didn’t look up but had stilled. “Would you go with me while I’m here? I haven’t been since I was about your age.” He seemed frozen, waiting.
“Sure,” Ella said, feeling weird about this. “Can we bring Mom along?”
“I don’t think so, not with her bum ankle.”
“Listen,” Ella said, not wanting to talk about ice fishing, “I’m sorry I took the wine. Mom said you were going to dish out the punishment because it’s your lodge and all. And I doubt ice fishing is the consequence for what I did.”
He faced her then. “Ella, I’m an alcoholic.” His expression looked worried. “I started drinking heavily when I was about your age.”
She put the ornament back in the box. “Well, I’m not an alcoholic and I don’t drink heavily, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I don’t think you’re the kind of kid who steals either. Yet you were reckless enough to take wine that you knew you shouldn’t take. And you knew that we’d installed security cameras all over.”
She hated that he was right on all counts.
“You’re a smart young woman,” he continued, “yet