Christmas Eve - Evening

Shane opened the door. She dropped her coat on a chair and headed for the kitchen.

"I stopped at Donatello's and picked up manicotti for dinner," Chris said as soon as Shane entered.

Alex came in.

"Any change?" she asked.

"No."

Chris placed a salad on the table, and then pulled a tray of breadsticks from the oven.

"I wish you hadn't gone to all this trouble, Mom," Shane said. "I'm not hungry."

"Well, I am."

"Me, too," Alex agreed. "At least sit with us."

"All right," Shane sighed.

In spite of Shane's protests, Chris laid a plate of manicotti in front of her, and then passed the salad and bread sticks. Shane took at few bites to please her mother.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Chris asked Shane.

"There's nothing to talk about. He just won't wake up. Everyone tells me he will, but he doesn't. I'm so afraid he . . ."

Shane couldn't finish the sentence. She stood up.

"Please excuse me."

She ran from the kitchen.

Chris and Alex finished their meal and cleaned up the kitchen. They walked into the living room to find Shane sitting on the floor in front of the Christmas tree.

"This is the first Christmas tree I've had since I left home after college," Shane said.

"You stopped celebrating Christmas?" Chris asked her.

"Yes. All Christmas meant to me was a whole bunch of bad memories."

"Because of me," Alex whispered.

Shane stood up and turned to face her.

"Because of you? This has nothing to do with you."

"Of course it does. Every time you came home to visit, we'd end up fighting, and you'd leave."

Alex brushed at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Shane. I'm sorry I messed up, ruined so many holidays, and caused you and Mom so much pain."

"Alex, it's OK. You had a problem. It took you a long time, but you chose to get help. You're fine now. Leave the past in the past where it belongs. I've forgiven you."

"You have?"

"Yes."

Shane walked over to Alex and held out her arms. Alex hesitated a moment, then reached out her arms to Shane. The two sisters embraced, and Chris smiled.

"Then why did you stop celebrating Christmas?" Alex persisted.

Shane took a deep breath.

"An unanswered letter."

"A letter? To whom?"

"God."

Alex raised her eyebrows.

"Who wrote a letter to God?"

"I did."

You wrote a letter to God, and expected an answer?"

"I was 10 years old. I wrote it the Christmas Dad left. I asked God to make Dad want to come back home. I told God I just wanted to have a happy family again. But Dad didn't come, and every Christmas since has been a reminder that Dad left and never came back. Year after year my heart froze a little bit more, and by the time I was an adult it was frozen solid. The only way to avoid dealing with that pain was to stop celebrating Christmas."

"What made you start celebrating again?"

"The answer to my letter."

"How could you possibly get an answer from God?"

Shane smiled. She walked over to the tree and lifted her necklace.

"When you asked me why I hung my necklace on the tree and I told you 'restoration', it's because the events that occurred during my first Christmas here in Denver restored my faith in God and in Christmas."

"What does that have to do with your necklace?"

Shane walked over to the sofa, sat down, and patted the seat beside her.

"Sit down and I'll tell you about it. You too, Mom."

Shane began. "It all started with another letter to God."

Shane told them about meeting Jordan, the POstal ball, Hannah, her letter to God, meeting Hannah and her family, and Oliver's suggestion that they put on a Christmas pageant at the hospital so Hannah could keep her promise to her sick mother.

"Norman assigned the parts and he made me the angel. I didn't want to be the angel. Proclaim the news of the Savior's birth when I was still so angry at God? That was the last thing I wanted to do, but since I had the choice of playing the angel or Mary, I agreed to be the angel."

Shane continued, telling them about another letter to God Oliver received from Jordan, this time with an answer, how Hannah's mother had a crisis while Oliver was trying to deliver the letter, Hannah's Dad's insistence that they put on the pageant, and how she traded her necklace to a taxi cab driver for his sheepskin, so Hannah could have a 'sheep' with her in the pageant.

"How did you get your necklace back?" Alex asked.

"A Christmas miracle."

Shane explained that the letter Oliver tried to deliver was hers, how Oliver tried to give her the answer, but she refused to read it.

"If you didn't read the letter, where did the miracle come from?" Chris inquired.

"Oliver. He told me that every Christmas I asked for hope, and hope is what I'd been given. He reminded me of the true meaning of Christmas, about God's perfect love, that casts out pain and fear and replaces it with hope. I'd asked God for a happy family, and I had one. Me, Rita, Norman and him."

"But you have a family," Alex said. "Mom, you and me."

"Family can be forged by more than just blood. The work we do, delivering the dead letters, the miracle we've witnessed, has formed a bond between us that makes us a very special kind of family."

"So you never read the letter?"

"I didn't need to. Oliver gave me the answers I needed."

"What about your necklace?"

"The pageant was over and Rita, Norman and I left the hospital. We had plans for the holiday. Oliver had none. He looked so sad standing there alone waving good bye. We got to the airport, but we couldn't leave. We missed him. We went back to the DLO. You should have seen it. Candles everywhere, garland, stockings, even a small tree that Oliver had decorated. Oliver and I taught Rita and Norman to dance. While we danced, I looked over at the tree, and saw my necklace hanging from one of the branches. Oliver had taken a taxi from the hospital. The driver was the man who'd traded me the sheepskin for my necklace.

"That was a wonderful Christmas. I started to believe again, and my necklace, once a symbol of our broken family, had become a miracle and a gift of hope for the present and the future."

Shane stood up and began to pace.

"The future. Our future. Oliver's and mine, together."

Shane stopped and faced her mother.

"Mom, I'm so scared."

"I know."

"I can't stay here. I'm going back to the hospital."

"Visiting hours are over."

"I don't care. I'll insist that I have to be with him. I don't want him to be alone."

Shane ran to her bedroom, changed her heels for tennis shoes, and headed for the entry way.

Chris and Alex waited there. Shane paused long enough to give each of them a hug.

"Don't wait up for me. I'm going to stay there all night," Shane said.

She put on her coat, picked up her purse, and shut the door behind her.