The Trouble With Angels Page 0,45

be here, ready to listen."

"Stop," she pleaded on a ragged whisper. "Please."

"Dad," Paula called, and an instant later burst into the kitchen with Karen. The two girls smiled knowingly at each other.

"See, what did I tell you?" Karen said with a grin as broad as the Grand Canyon. "He's about to kiss her again, and my mom's going to let him."

Paul glanced around the dinner table at his two children and the mates they'd chosen. His son-in-law, Eric, was a fine young man. And the more Paul was around Annie, the more he liked the woman who would soon be his son's wife.

"Pass the potatoes," Joe said to his sister, who made it seem as if the bowl were much too heavy for her to lift. It was a game from their childhood days. Bethany loved to tease her brother about the amount of mashed potatoes he managed to consume.

"Dad, is that dinky little tree the only one you're going to put up this year?" The question came from his daughter.

"I'm too busy to deal with Christmas."

Paul noted the way his son and daughter exchanged glances. He didn't know what he'd said to give them pause, other than the truth. "I've got better things to do than fuss with a Christmas tree," he reiterated. "It surprises me the way you kids are making such a commotion about my decorating the house for the holidays."

"Mom - "

"It was different when your mother was alive," Paul agreed smoothly.

"But the house looks so drab," Bethany said. "What about the ceramic angels Mom used to set out?"

"And the snowmen I made in Boy Scouts years ago? Remember the ones made of huge balls of cotton?" Joe added.

Both his children were regarding him expectantly. "All the Christmas decorations are in the attic," Paul told them. He certainly had no intention of getting them down himself.

"Great. We'll decorate the house for you," Bethany said eagerly, sounding like a five-year-old all over again. "And after Christmas Eric and I will come back, take everything down, and put it away for you."

Paul wanted to tell his children not to bother, but it seemed so important to them. "All right," he agreed reluctantly. "If that's what you want."

"We do." Somehow it seemed to Paul that his son-in-law didn't look all that excited with the project - and Paul didn't blame him.

By the time they'd finished dragging down the boxes from the attic, Paul felt as if his world had been invaded by four monsters. Bethany and Eric strung lights around the living-room windows and set the three brightly colored angels on the windowsill, peering out into the dark night.

Joe and Annie set about decorating the fireplace just the way Barbara had. Four hand-knit stockings hung from the mantel the same way they had for more than twenty years.

Paul had wanted to remove Barbara's knit stocking the year before, but the kids had insisted they put it up. Their mother was as much a part of their family now as she had been before her death.

Paul hadn't had the strength to argue with them then, and he felt even less inclined to argue this year. It hurt to see the colorful red stocking hanging next to his own.

A swell of sadness all but paralyzed him.

"Where should we put the nativity scene?" Joe asked him.

The words came at Paul as if from a great distance and were barely discernible. He couldn't stop looking at the stocking and remembering all the happy Christmases he'd spent with Barbara at his side. How empty the holiday seemed now. How lonely his life was without her. Even with his children at his side, busily going about cheering him up, nothing felt right. He doubted that it ever would again.

Decorations wouldn't replace his wife.

Presents wouldn't lessen the ache in his heart.

A stocking, hung with loving hands on a fireplace mantel, wouldn't repair the giant hole left in his life with her passing.

"Dad?" Joe said, and this time his voice was more distinct.

"Sorry," Paul said, turning to look at his son. Joe and Annie held the figurines from the nativity scene that had been handed down to him from his mother many years earlier. "Yes?"

"Where do you want us to put these? Same place as before?"

Paul motioned toward the television. "Yes. On top of the television will be fine."

On the pretense of retrieving something from the attic, Paul left his children in the living room. He walked up the stairs, and the old wood creaked as