Yes, for thirty-some years, and then she’d watched him sacrifice himself, like stabbing a knife through her own heart, in order to cleanse the world, to wipe the slate clean. Mary had mourned him for three agonizing days, and then, the miracle of miracles, her baby had come back.
Grace was out there somewhere, right now, without her. That knowledge was like a hole inside of her, a void that was made to be filled, a vacuum created by her daughter’s absence, and in its place was a pain so vast Leah could barely contain it. She knew everyone was watching her, worrying about her, talking in whispers like she couldn’t hear or understand them.
Leah had done her best to smile. She’d even caught herself laughing at some of Erica’s goofy jokes and Rob’s gentle teasing. She didn’t want to ruin everyone’s Christmas, after all. And in spite of Grace’s absence, she was very glad to be home. She turned away from the painful sight of the nativity, smiling at the pile of gifts, their Christmas stockings stuffed to the brim.
It looked as if “Santa” had already been there to fill their stockings. Too heavy to hang, they were in front of the tree, amidst the gifts that had been accumulating all month in preparation for Christmas day. Erica and Leah had bought things to put into Rob’s. Solie had a stocking too. Leah thought about her mother again, how her stocking at home would be empty that morning. She missed Ada, their housekeeper, who would come bring them breakfast every Christmas morning, leaving her own family to tend Leah and her mother.
Leah knelt in front of the tree in her nightgown, touching the stocking she had knitted for Grace during her last month of pregnancy at the maternity home. It was red and white candy-cane stripes. It had taken her hours, and she had spent all of them thinking about how she could possibly manage to keep her baby.
A sound startled her and she looked up in the dimness, seeing Erica appear at the end of the hallway. She had her coat and boots on. Both girls stared at each other for a moment, too stunned to speak. Then Erica grinned, one of her mischievous smiles that stretched wider and wider as she held out her hand.
“Come on!” Erica urged. “You have to see.”
Leah stood, frowning, looking at her friend’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “Where were you? Were you outside?”
Erica grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall toward the warehouse door. It was a big steel entry affair with a bolt on the inside. Erica drew it, glancing back at her friend as she swung it open.
Leah gasped as cold air swept in. “Erica, I’m in my nightgown!”
“So? Put this on.” She grabbed Leah’s long wool coat off a hook, tossing it to her. “And these.” She kicked her tall winter boots.
Leah pulled on her coat more to keep warm than anything else-the air from outside was bitter cold.
“Come on!” Erica complained, standing in the doorway, her breath rising up like steam.
“Okay, okay!” Leah grumbled, yanking on one boot-she was barefoot and it wasn’t easy-barely getting her foot into the other one before Erica grabbed her again, pulling her out the front door.
“It’s snowing!” Erica declared, raising her arms and twirling in the orange halo of a streetlight, big, fat flakes of snow falling all around them.
Leah shivered, hugging herself and watching Erica sticking her tongue out to try to catch snowflakes, and she couldn’t be mad that her best friend had dragged her out into the snow in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. She could never stay mad at Erica too long, no matter what. She couldn’t imagine her life without her.
“Snow angels!” Erica announced, grabbing Leah’s hand and pulling her along the unshoveled sidewalk. There was at least of foot of snow on the ground already and they had to shuffle their way along toward the other side of the warehouse, away from the street.
“Plow!” Erica called, turning her back and covering her head. Leah was a little too late and the truck with the flashing orange lights and the big blade on the front sprayed her with snow as it slid by, clearing the city streets. The snow was heavy and wet, and a good chunk of it ended up sliding down inside Leah’s boots.
“Erica!” she protested, shaking snow out of her hair, but her friend just laughed, dragging her around the corner into the empty lot behind the warehouse.
Leah couldn’t remember what the warehouse used to be, but there had been a parking lot behind it, and beyond that, a plot of grassy land in the middle of the city with no purpose whatsoever. It had come along with the sale of the warehouse, and although Robert Nolan had been approached by several Detroit developers looking to expand their business, he refused to sell it.
“Ready?” Erica held Leah’s hand in hers and the girls grinned at each other. “One… Two… Threeeee!”
They fell back together, letting the white blanket of snow catch them. Leah felt her breath leave her body for a moment as she landed, and then she was gasping, laughing, looking over at Erica, her blond hair making wet punctuation on her ruddy cheeks.
“It looks like we’re gonna have a white Christmas!” Leah laughed as they scissored their arms and legs in the snow, leaving impressions like white butterflies, satisfying angelic prints that would abide until warmer weather came to melt them away, just like they used to do when they were little.
“The morning star!” Erica pointed and Leah saw it, knowing, thanks to their senior year high school science class, that it was just the planet Venus appearing before sunrise. “On Christmas morning. It has to be lucky. We should make a wish.”
“Okay.” Leah reached over and took her friend’s gloved hand in her bare one. “Ready?”
“Star light, star bright…” Erica began the familiar rhyme and the girls finished it together. “Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight…”
Leah closed her eyes, her silent wish so big, taking up so much space in her head, she was sure she must be bursting with it. When she opened her eyes, she saw Erica watching her, looking thoughtful.
“What did you wish for?” Leah wondered aloud.
Erica shook her head. “Can’t tell or it won’t come true.”
Leah squeezed her friend’s hand, smiling. “But we tell each other everything.”
Their eyes met and Leah felt the weight of that statement, knowing there were things she wouldn’t- couldn’t-share with Erica now. And Erica… she had changed too, while Leah was gone. She was different, distant, and wary. They’d both been through so much separately, Leah wondered if there was anything that could bring them together they way they’d been before.
“I wished for Grace,” Erica whispered to the stars, not looking at her friend.
Leah felt tears sting her eyes. “Me too.”
And as miraculously as the morning star had appeared, so long ago, to lead three wise men to a baby in a manger cradle, the gap that had grown between the girls during Leah’s absence had been bridged, just like that. Magically, like the snow falling on Christmas or the bubble lights that burst to life in their little girl memories, they came together again, could breathe and talk and laugh together again.
They didn’t talk as the sun began to rise in the east, casting the snow in a dusky blue morning light. They just rested together in their angelic snow patterns, melting the snow with the warmth of their bodies as it fell and trying to catch the big flakes that drifted lazily down toward their open mouths.
“I think I’m frozen to the ground,” Leah finally announced. Her calves ached with cold from the snow inside her boots.
“What time is it?” Erica wondered out loud. “Is it present time yet?”
“Erica! Leah!”
They looked at each other, wide-eyed, hearing Erica’s father calling them. He sounded angry. Maybe even a little scared.
“We’re here!” Erica sat up, struggling in the snow, helping Leah, and both girls couldn’t help stopping to look at their snow angels, the imprint of their bodies surrounded by heavenly wings.
“Rob! We’re here!” Leah called. She could hear him but not see him, and then he was there, appearing around the corner, clutching his coat around him, still wearing pajama bottoms-and no shoes at all.
“Daddy, get inside before you freeze to death!” Erica protested, waving him on as the girls approached.
“I could say the same thing.” Rob frowned, looking between them, back and forth. “What in the world are you two doing out here at five in the morning?”
“Making snow angels.” Erica shrugged, smiling, looking sheepish.
“You two.” He shook his head, that angry look in his eyes melting when he glanced at Leah, shivering and wet. “Don’t ever leave like that without telling me! I thought-”
