SNOW KISSED CHRISTMAS: Sweet Historical Romance Novella--Short Read (2 page)

She was so lucky. William never went to the saloon after work the way some of the miners did. She knew his whole life centered around her and his children. His only vice was his smokes, and he made a single pack last the entire two weeks between paydays. William Bradley was a good man, and she loved him.

“Steve was just here, he says Lilya has been cooking all day, we’re to go down early.”

A shadow passed over William’s face. His gray-green, dark-lashed eyes darkened, and he blew out a long breath. “Ye did’nae say about me goin’ lookin’ fer work, did ye, Anna?”

Anna’s heart sank. She wouldn’t lie to her husband, even knowing it likely would land them back where they’d been that morning, arguing. Fighting. She drew in a deep, tremulous breath.

“I did, William. He asked where you were, and I said. He needs someone to help in the dairy, he said you should have come to him.”

“Ahhh, lass, I wish ye had’nae.” William sounded weary instead of angry. “Steve’s a kind man, generous, and he’d make a job out of the air, should he ken I needed it.”

Anna wanted to say, “And what would be the harm in that? He knows you’re a hard worker, honest and loyal to a fault.” But she held her tongue. It was Christmas Eve, the first Christmas she’d ever spent without her mother. She so wanted peace, and what bits of joy and happiness they could share on this blessed holiday, her and William and the children.

“Well, what’s done is done,” William said. “Dinnae fesh about it, lassie. Now, where are the wee ones clothes, I’ll warm them by the heater.” He went into the front room and loaded more coal in, and then hung the children’s long underwear and socks over the iron fireguard to warm before they put them on, and then he helped them dress. William folded Sophie’s long woolen socks carefully over her underwear, and fastened the buttons on Thomas’s shirt while Anna brushed Sophie’s long golden curls and tied them back with a blue ribbon. With the excited children dressed in their best and warned against getting soiled, Anna followed William into the bedroom to change.

William wore his black wedding suit and the freshly ironed white shirt Anna had ready, and she couldn’t help but admire him as she knotted his tie for him. Broad shouldered, tall, with muscles in his arms from digging coal and hair the dark reddish brown of autumn leaves, William Bradley made a fine figure of a man. And he was hers. He dug in the pocket of his work pants and pulled out three oranges. “I shoveled out the alley behind the hotel so the delivery wagon could get through, they paid me a dollar. One fer each of the bairn’s, and one fer ye, my bonnie lassie.”

Anna tucked the oranges into the trunk. They’d be a special treat for breakfast.

William put his mouth organ into his suit pocket as Anna twisted her own long curls into a chignon, and then slipped into her dress. She had a voluminous blue woolen one that she’d made and worn when she was expecting Thomas, and William fastened the buttons on the back for her, and then turned her into his arms.

“Ye’re that lovely, lass. Carryin’ bairns suits ye, yer skin is glowin’ and those blue eyes shine like the summer sky.”

Anna felt her cheeks grow warm. “Good thing you fancy fat women, sir,” she teased, but in her heart she knew he was as thrilled about the coming child as she was.

“Can I wear the shawl Mormor gave me, Mommy?” Sophie already had it wound around her shoulders.

“Of course you can, Mormor would be pleased,” Anna said with a tremulous attempt at a smile.

They all donned their heavy coats, boots and hats, long woolen scarves. Anna’s coat barely fastened over her stomach. She made sure everyone had their mittens before they headed out.

The thickly falling snow made rainbows around the lantern William carried, and the trail along the shoveled path and down the hill was soft as whipped cream beneath their feet. The world was still. Thomas and Sophie ran ahead, holding out their tongues to catch the flakes, spinning and jumping in the snow, hardly able to contain their exhilaration. William held Anna’s arm in a firm grasp, his other arm around her waist so she didn’t slip.

Mazaruk’s house was ablaze with lantern light. Lilya met them at the door, helping the children off with their coats and boots and then gathering them both at once into her arms, holding them tight—Thomas always said she squeezed his gizzard—before she released them and welcomed Anna and William.

Anna saw the gleam of tears in the older woman’s faded blue eyes. She was plump, not much taller than Sophie, with thick black braids wound round and round her head in a coronet, a wide, generous mouth that smiled all the time, although the smile never reached her eyes. She stroked Sophie’s curls. “Like my Mary,” she whispered, and the tears escaped and ran down her cheeks. She brushed them away with the back of her hand, drawing them all into the overheated kitchen with it’s counters overflowing with pots and basins and bowls filled with food. The fancy iron cook-stove, trimmed with silver, was roaring hot, and a squat icebox sat in a far corner. The wooden kitchen table was laden with pastries, cakes, cookies, pies and puddings. Anna could glimpse the dining table, set up in the living room.

“Papa is out to the barn, he will come soon,” Lilya said. “Come, come, my Zaichiks, Mama has hot milk for you.”

Anna saw the horrified look Thomas and Sophie exchanged. They hated hot milk. It was the skin that formed on top that they disliked, but because Mama made it for them, they both always dutifully drank it. Anna sympathized. She didn’t think she could choke it down, even to please Lilya.

“I’ll go out and give Steve a hand,” William said, pulling his coat and boots back on.

Thomas opened his mouth to ask if he could go along, but closed it fast when Peter appeared from the living room, tall and fat, red faced, his large head covered in a thick thatch of curly brown hair. He had a booming laugh, and he bent over Thomas, ruffling his hair and filling the boy’s pockets with handfuls of hard brown candy he dug out of his own pant’s pocket. “Come with me, young man, I’ve got a story to tell you about trains.” He led Thomas away, leaving Sophie with the dreaded hot milk, but Mama went bustling after Peter with the other glass in hand. “His milk, Petya. The boy needs his milk.”

From her reticule, Anna dug out the gifts she’d made and took them into the living room to place under the tree. Two aprons for Lilya, fancy hemmed handkerchiefs for Steve and Peter.

Sophie finished her milk with a tiny shudder. “Please, Mama Mazaruk, may I look at the books?”

The Mazaruks had a fully illustrated set of Encyclopedia Britannica on shelves just inside the living room. Sophie, who’d learned to read even before she started school, was enthralled with such riches. She curled up on the horsehide sofa and reverently opened the first heavy volume.

Back in the kitchen, Anna helped Lilya with the meal preparation, mashing potatoes with cream and homemade butter, scooping the dressing from the monstrous turkey into a bowl.

“Lilya, there’s enough food here for an army.”

Lilya looked around, startled, eyebrows raised, as though she hadn’t realized how much there really was. Then she lifted her hands heavenward, palms up. “I start, I can not stop,” she declared. She reached out and placed a gentle, chapped hand on Anna’s belly. “The dorogaya, the little one to come, she makes you still sick when you eat?”

Anna had had attacks of nausea after every meal for the first five months. Lilya had given her an herbal concoction that helped.

“Not any more, thank goodness. That medicine you made me helped a lot, and now I’m just hungry all the time.”

Lilya smiled and nodded. “This is good, this is very good. You will enjoy your dinner.” She took a small plate and loaded on little dumplings, added sour cream and butter, and handed it to Anna with a fork. “Sit, eat now, eat. Still another few minutes before dinner, better you don’t go hungry.”

“These are delicious. You must teach Sophie and I how to make them.”

Lilya’s face lit up. “This I would like very much. My mama, she teach me, I teach my Mary.” The ever-present tears came and she absently wiped them away with her thumbs. “Now I will show you and Sophia, together we will make pelmeni. Also golubtsi, we will make.” She pointed to the pan of cabbage rolls smothered in rich red sauce. “Always, the mama teaches her daughters to make these, the way her own babushka—how you say, grandmother?” At Anna’s nod, Lilya went on, “the way her grandmother made.” Lilya tapped her chest. “Woman to woman to woman, secret recipes.”

“Did you know your grandma, Lilya?” Anna felt again the deep ache in her heart, the loss of her own mother. She’d never met her grandmother. Maria had come as a young bride to Canada, leaving her family behind in Sweden. She’d never seen any of them again.

Lilya nodded her head. “My babushka, yes, she lives with us in same house, and also prababushka, her mother. Great-grandmother, yes? All together we live. In Russia, all the family shares one house.”

“Did you and Steve marry before you came to Canada? Or did you meet him here?” Lilya had once shown Anna a daguerreotype of them the day they married. Lilya was breathtakingly beautiful, delicate and tiny, swathed in what seemed miles of white lace, Steve so young, serious and proud, his high collar meeting his chin.

“Stevie, he is son of my father’s friend. From when I am little, it was planned we would marry.”

An arranged marriage, then. And it had lasted all these years. She wanted to ask Lilya if she’d loved Steve when they married, but Anna felt it would be rude. Lilya surprised her, though.

“I fight with my father, there is another boy, Nikolai, I love him, I want to marry. But my father will not allow it. Stevie is son of a rich man, Nikolai is poor. Peasant, like us.” Lilya shrugged. “Father, he is right. Stevie is good man, good husband to me. When my Mary goes, Stevie, he take care of me. I am—“ with her forefinger, she made a circular motion by her head. “Many men, they would put me in crazy house, but Stevie stay with me, make me eat, make get out of bed, make me dress myself.”

Anna pressed her hand against her belly and shuddered, unable to imagine the full horror of losing a beloved child.

“And you, Annushka? How you come to marry your William?” Lilya was holding a brown, fragrant loaf of fresh bread against her chest, expertly slicing it with a long knife. Anna had seen her do this before, marveling always that she didn’t hurt herself.

“Mama and I were living in a boarding house in Vancouver, mama was cooking and housekeeping for the owners, I was working at the post office. William had just arrived from Scotland, he stayed for a month. And at the end of the month, we got married.” She’d fallen like a stone the first moment he appeared at the breakfast table. He had a smile she wanted to tuck in her apron pocket and keep forever. He had eyes that seemed to be ten colors at once, grey and green ringed with gold, drops of blue, shades of brown—and his accent. From the first word, she’d fallen for his Scot’s accent, the way he called her bonny lassie.

“He heard about the coal mines, he’d worked as a miner in Scotland. So right after we were married, we got on a train and came to Michel and he got a job working underground.”

She’d looked out the window of the train that early spring day and seen the slag piles, the miner’s dismal cottages, the coal dust blowing sheets of grime over the narrow valley. The huge, high Rocky Mountains seemed to overpower the town, looming on either side, and she’d felt like weeping at the thought of living in such a remote, dirty place.

But William had money saved, and he bought their acre of land outside of town, where there were green fields and dandelions and pine trees and no coal dust. Together, they’d built the house, living in a tent that first summer while they desperately scrounged lumber from an old sawmill. William worked his ten hours at the mine and came home to hammer nails and measure planks. They’d had one room that first winter, and then two by the following fall. Now, there were two bedrooms, a kitchen, the little room off the kitchen he’d added for Maria, and a large living room. They’d spent all of William’s savings on the house, and now there was no work and no money. The little worm of worry that always seemed to lodge in Anna’s chest wiggled itself to life again.

Steve and William came in just then, shaking the snow off on the rug.

“Good thing Father Christmas, he has big sleigh,” Steve bellowed. “The snow, she is coming down like feathers from a goose down mattress. And we are hungry like bears, Mama.”

Lilya had been bustling back and forth to the living room with bowls and platters, where a long oak table covered in a cream lace cloth was set with beautiful red and green dinnerware and heavy silver cutlery. Along the middle was a row of gold candlesticks with tall white tapers ready to light.

“Come, come, we eat now,” she ordered, shooing the men and Anna to the table. “Petya,” she hollered. “Bring my Thomas and come eat.”

Peter carried Thomas in on his shoulders, swooping the boy down into the chair Lilya indicated, sitting down beside him, tucking the snowy linen napkin into the top of his own shirt, under his double chin, and then reaching over and doing the same for Thomas.

When everyone was seated and the candles were lit, Steve cleared his throat and everyone joined hands and bowed their heads while he said the grace. “The poor shall eat and be satisfied, and those who seek the Lord shall praise Him; their hearts shall live forever! Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. O Christ God, bless the food and drink of Thy servants, for Thou art holy, always, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.” And then, before anyone could open their eyes, he added, “And please bless Father Christmas and his deer, and guide them so they find their way tonight to the house of the Zaichiks.”

Everyone said amen again, and then the food began to make its rounds. The feast began with beet soup, then the little cabbage rolls, eaten with sour cream. There were mashed potatoes, buttery turnips, coleslaw, pickled gherkins, turkey dressing, cranberry sauce, baskets of bread and rolls. And the huge turkey itself, golden brown and glistening. Steve got to his feet to carve, putting the fat drumsticks on the children’s plates.