Christmas, Present by Jacquelyn Mitchard Read Free Book Online Page A

open. “Put a check in it, Ell,” she told him. “A big check. She has pots of loans to pay off. Will you do that?”
    “We have three girls to educate, Laura,” he reminded her, hating himself.
    “But Ell, I’m so young! And you didn’t want to take out insurance on me, remember? You said I was basi- cally an at-home mom? But I said that was all the more reason, that I wasn’t a real contributor so it would be like a sort of savings account for the girls? Well? You’ll have piles of life insurance! You’ll be rich, by our standards. You can take them to Paris, when Amelia is big enough. Will you do that, Ell? Will you?”
    He promised.
    He could not imagine doing anything like that. “And I don’t care,” Laura added, “if you take a new

    wife with you. I really want you to get married again, Elliott. I mean it. You’re the marrying kind.” Both of them smiled. This has been a private joke all their lives together. It had been Elliott, not Laura—Laura yearned to travel and “be free and poor”—who begged to marry early, and he was relieved when the accidental pregnancy happened. Elliott didn’t want to leave home even to visit the Grand Canyon, much less the Grand Caymans, and had spent three weeks assem- bling a folder of tips, maps, and coupons for a five-day excursion to Disney World with a one-day stop to see his father.
    Oh, Elliott, she thought. If only I could donate something from my body to you . . . something, some gene on which was encoded the will to take chances.
    Laura felt the urgent need to begin to dictate her list, spraying out information like scattershot, in no order of importance: There were stickers in the heart- worm box Elliott should put on the calendar to remind him to give Athena her pills. All the doctors’ and dentists’ names, including the orthodontist Rory would surely need, were in the left-hand drawer of her office desk, in a

    file marked Girls/Personal. Baptismal records and birth certificates, with copies, were in the same folder. Their life insurance policy and their wills were in the fireproof safe. The combination was 6345789. He must ask for Miss Cook for Amelia for first grade. Rory is only paid up at the gym until February, and the Y coach said she’d gone beyond him; she needs private instruction.
    “Oh!” she cried suddenly. “I forgot all my friends!” The scope of her ability to attend had diminished to a single point of concentration, like the pinprick cam- eras they made with Sister Julian in fourth grade, with shoeboxes and black construction paper. She could see only her family in that small lighted circle. “I need more cards, Elliott! I need one for Rebecca and Whit- ney! And one for the women in the book club, Marley and Elizabeth . . .”
    “I’m not getting any more cards,” Elliott said, his fea- tures visibly blurred with exhaustion. “You’ve gone far enough with this. It’s like you’re organizing a fund-raiser.” Laura bit her lips. “You’re right,” she said. “But you will tell them, especially Rebecca and Whitney, how
    much I . . . ?”

    “Laura, could you possibly think they don’t know?” “I would want a good-bye,” Laura said, biting her lip thoughtfully. “And I can’t bear calling them.” At last, Laura asked a nurse for a sheet of plain paper and wrote what she actually felt, rather than what she thought she should : Miss me, you guys. Miss me and talk about me. Try to include the girls with your kids, and
    help Elliott find a wife.
    “That’s insulting,” Elliott said. “You make it sound like, make sure the poor old doofus buttons up his sweater. I would never, ever get married again. Who could love the girls the way I do? Who could I love... the way I love you? It’s ridiculous. Laura, don’t. It’s crude.”
    “Elliott,” Laura said suddenly, “people always say they never will. And they mean it. But I’ve read arti- cles that say if you like being married, chances are you’ll marry