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As if I’ll have trouble remembering this Christmas. I lean into Peter while the snow crunches under our boots. We have to stop occasionally to help neighbors who haven’t quite finished their shoveling. The houses are fairly spaced out, and it’s a lot of ground to uncover.
Then we reach a pedestrian bridge where lots of people are out with shovels and salt. The road is clear, and cars move on the opposite side of the river.
The town square is crowded. It’s rectangular-ish, with one long side—I think facing the river, though I can’t see it—where there are only the snow-covered tops of trees and roofs visible, and the other long side has several buildings rising up and streets running away from it and into the city. A large tent is being erected in the widest space, and volunteers assemble smaller booths between a neat row of bare trees.
Peter finds someone who looks responsible. She barks out some instructions, but Peter gestures at me. “She speaks English.”
“Marina! Chum, und bring d’Frau an d'Büez!”
With a grin, Peter leaves me, trundling off with the shovel. A few moments later, a short, round woman about my age with a mass of curly hair that rivals mine and a delightful smattering of freckles across her cheeks approaches me. “Hello, I hear you’re English. I’m Marina.” She has an accent that might be British. I’m not sure.
“Hi, Marina. I’m Kara. American, actually.”
“Good, come help me set up the lights.”
I work for at least an hour, in which I climb up and down many a ladder, have snow fall from the trees directly into my mouth twice, and learn that Marina is from Wales and works for one of the restaurants nearby.
By the time Peter finds me, we’ve got the lights strung all the way around the square. Of course, it’s daylight, so the lights aren’t adding to the ambiance yet.
Most of the work now turns toward the individual booths themselves, but I’m not much help with my non-existent Swiss-German. I follow Peter and help where I can.
Around noon, Marina shoos us away, and we trudge back across the river and up. The trip is much shorter now that the whole path is cleared, and we arrive at the house, strip our layers off, and sit down to soup hot off the stove.
12
Peter
After lunch,Papi and I spend time in the backyard. One of the younger trees was uprooted and has to be hauled out. We check the house’s exterior for damage, and find none. While helping at the Christmas market, I’d always been able to hear Kara chattering away with Marina, even from across the square. There were so many times in my childhood that I found my sister or my mother annoying because they talked ad nauseum; with Kara, I find it endearing.
When I slip my outer gear off and climb the stairs, Kara is sitting on the bed cross-legged, head bowed over her phone, typing quickly.
I lean against the doorway, crossing my arms. “Hey.”
She glances up and breaks into a smile. My stomach flips at the warmth in her eyes, and I step into the room, taking a seat on the bed. “I was thinking we’d light the menorah tonight with my family and then go to the Christmas market. Everyone wants to go, so it won’t be just us, but we can eat there and enjoy it at our own pace.”
“Yeah, that sounds great.” She takes a deep breath, puffing her cheeks out before blowing a raspberry. “I just booked my flight home for tomorrow. The airport is open again. It’s a Christmas miracle.” She says the last bit with false cheer, or maybe that’s just what I’m hoping to hear.
Her eyes bounce back and forth between mine, reading me as I struggle to hold my disappointment. What did I think was going to happen? She can’t stay here forever. She’s got work and her family back in New York, and I’ve got mine here.
The storm has left, and so must she.
“I will take you to the airport, of course.”
She dips her chin in a quick nod. “Thanks.” She holds her phone up. “I was just telling my family about it. And catching up with Nash and Clara. Want to see their Christmas pajamas?”
“Their pajamas?”
Kara waves me to her, and I crawl up the bed and settle on the headboard next to her.
“Yeah, the family does a goofy Christmas pajamas tradition. The kids love it. They picked a theme this year: onesies.”
She turns her phone around to show me a picture of Nash and Clara posing next to a tree while wearing green onesies with big, colored Christmas lights printed on them.
“Oh, and hang on.” She swipes a few times through photos that look like a Hallmark Christmas movie until she lands on a photo of Clara’s nephew, Ricky, wearing a reindeer onesie, complete with an antler hood.
“Apparently, Molly didn’t realize that Ricky’s had a hood, and she’spissedthat her snowman doesn’t. And obviously, that’s a great reason for a six-year-old to throw a tantrum.” She flips to the picture of Molly holding a carrot like a nose. Kara hums and leans her head against me. She gives a half-hearted flip through a few more photos.
There’s a knock on the door, and Kara straightens up before answering. The door cracks open, and Sylvie peeks in. Her eyes dart between the two of us.
