Eighteen

After the children opened their Christmas presents, they had gone to her parents' home. The house was full; Ben's brother and his wife, from Toledo, were there, and Andrea's sister came from Pennsylvania with her husband, Ron, and their two girls. Bonnie and she had been close when they were young, and had exchanged warm letters and phone calls in the months after Jack's death. Andrea wondered whether things would be different if Bonnie lived nearby; if they could have kept the bond from loosening, as it always did between family crises. She missed the easy intimacy taken for granted when they were children. She'd fought back the urge to tell her older sister about Torry. Sharing the truth of the relationship with Bonnie, however, may not have inspired the closeness Andrea longed for. Instead, the confidence might well have put more distance between them. Her sister still adhered to their mother's rigid standards; and Andrea knew she would not have approved. It saddened Andrea that she could not be herself with her own family.

It had been a lovely day, nevertheless, and harmonious from start to finish, even between Andrea and her mother. The children enjoyed the time with their cousins, and everyone seemed happy with their Christmas gifts.

One of Andrea's gifts was especially meaningful. Her father had built a portable browse box for her to display matted paintings in. It was constructed of oak, sanded smooth and varnished to a satin finish. Ben had patterned it after one he'd seen at a local gallery. To Andrea, the gift meant he understood how important art shows were becoming to her and wanted to help in the ways he could.