Chapter 1 - The Dinner in the Snow
The little girl was carrying the only hot dinner her mother would have that Christmas Eve when a man in an expensive black coat knocked it out of her hands.
The cardboard container struck the sidewalk outside Bellweather Market. Turkey, gravy, and mashed potatoes spread across the salted snow. Eight-year-old Rosie Bell stood perfectly still. Her red coat was too short at the wrists, one mitten had a hole in its thumb, and the toes of her boots had been repaired with silver tape. She looked at the food, not the man.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You should be,” said Gordon Pike, the market manager. “I told you not to beg outside my store.”
“I bought it.” Rosie showed him a crumpled receipt. “I used my birthday money.”
Gordon snatched the receipt and tore it in half. “Your mother can stop pretending she’s sick and come back to work if she wants dinner.”
Rosie bent to collect the food. Gordon caught her sleeve and hauled her upright. Her boots slid on the ice; she stumbled against the shopping carts and struck her shoulder. It was quick, ugly, and frightening. The man released her as though the child had inconvenienced him.
“Leave before I call security.”
From a bench beneath the store awning, an elderly stranger rose slowly. His gray hair was wet with snow. His wool coat was worn shiny at the elbows, and he leaned on a wooden cane.
“You’ve made your point,” he said.
Gordon looked him over. “You too. This isn’t a shelter.”
The old man glanced at Rosie, who was trying not to cry. “No,” he said. “It certainly isn’t.”
Gordon disappeared through the automatic doors. Rosie knelt beside her ruined dinner. Her small fingers shook as she rescued the sealed bread roll that had landed away from the gravy.
The stranger lowered himself onto one knee, careful of his bad leg. “Did he hurt you?”
“My shoulder’s okay.” She tucked the bread into its paper sleeve. “Mom likes the rolls best. She says they taste like Sunday.”
“Where is she?”
“Home. She has a fever.” Rosie swallowed. “She cleaned his office all week. He said he’d pay her Friday, but he didn’t.”
The man took off his gloves. “I can buy you another dinner.”
“The store’s closed now.” She looked at the lit windows. “And he won’t let me back in.”
Across the street, a church bell rang six times. Rosie held out the surviving roll. “You can have half. You look cold.”
The stranger stared at the bread. “You just lost your supper.”
“It was Mom’s supper.” Rosie split the roll with both hands. “You can still have half.”
He accepted it, but did not eat. For a moment he looked like a man who had forgotten how.
“What's your name?”
“Rosie Bell.”
“And your mother?”
“Anna.”
The man’s expression altered. He looked at the red coat again, at its crooked brass buttons and a narrow strip of blue fabric visible where the collar had come loose.
“Who made that coat?”
“My mom fixed it. It used to belong to somebody else.”
“May I see the label?”
Rosie hesitated. He stayed where he was, waiting. At last she turned her collar outward. The ordinary manufacturer’s tag had been replaced with a hand-sewn rectangle. Two names were embroidered in tiny blue letters.
MARGARET AND LUCY. ALWAYS HOME.
The stranger stopped breathing. His cane fell against the bench.
“My wife sewed that,” he said.
Rosie backed away. “No. Mom says it belonged to my aunt.”
“Lucy was my daughter.” His voice barely worked. “She disappeared twelve years ago.”
The market doors opened again. Gordon emerged with a security guard and pointed at them.
“There. That old thief and the girl.”
The stranger rose, placing himself between Rosie and the men. He took out a plain phone, dialed one number, and said, “Martin, bring the car. And find out who owns Bellweather Market.”
Gordon laughed. “Who do you think you are?”
The old man looked at the blue stitches inside Rosie’s coat. “Someone who has been looking for that name for twelve Christmases.”
Rosie clutched the coat closed. “Mister?”
“Yes?”
“My mom told me if anyone asks about Lucy, I’m supposed to run.”
A black car turned onto the street. The stranger’s face went white.
“Who told her that?”
Rosie glanced toward the vehicle and whispered, “The man who comes to our apartment every December.”
May you like
The car stopped. Its rear window lowered. Someone inside said the old man’s name before he had told it to the child.
“Arthur. Step away from her.”
