Read Change of Address for Free Online Page B

exercising
Juno?”
    “Both, I think.”
    Amanda giggled. “Do you suppose she’ll bring back anything
we can cook?” It was a funny thought, at first. When they lived at Holingbroke,
Mrs. Castling always relied on the housekeeper to order supplies and suggest
menus, freely admitting her ignorance concerning kitchen matters.
    But now the woman who cared more about her horse than her
house would be required to manage it all. The thought was suddenly not the
least bit amusing.
    “It’s all your fault,” Honoria grumbled.
    “Oh no.” Amanda shook her head. “You cannot blame me. I
wanted to stay at Holingbroke.”
    “Not that. I meant having to cook.”
    “Yes, if we’d stayed at Holingbroke we wouldn’t have to
worry about cooking.”
    “And we wouldn’t have had to worry about cooking if we’d
accepted the Hilliar’s invitation to Christmas dinner.”
    “That is only one meal. What difference would that make in
our situation?”
    “It’s Christmas . On Christmas you should be warm and
happy and thankful. But instead we will be hungry and sad because you didn’t
like the look of pity in their eyes . Hmpf.” She turned her back to Amanda.
    “It is only one meal,” Amanda muttered as she reached for
her cloak. Since the damp coal would not light directly from the embers, she
would collect some kindling to build up enough flame to light the coal.
    “It’s Christmas,” Honoria muttered in return. “Our first
without Papa.”
    Tears began to sting the corners of Amanda’s eyes as she
pulled her cloak closed and stepped outside into the cold.
    Immediately her eyes watered in earnest, though whether the
tears were caused by the memory of her father or just the wind she could not
say. The air was wet and heavy as if filled with invisible snow.
    She bent to pick up sticks, having left off her gloves so
she could tell by touch whether they were wet. Most of them were saturated but
the few that were not she tucked into her apron. Her hands soon ached from the
cold.
    Honoria’s voice rang in her head. It’s all your fault. That
it certainly was not. If they’d listened to her, they’d be comfortably
ensconced at Holingbroke writing letters of appreciation to the servants who
were doing all the work that they now had to do for themselves.
    On Christmas you should be warm and happy and thankful. Well, once Amanda got the fire properly lighted, they would be warm. They could
be thankful for that. And happy was something they were going to have to
do without for a while. Forever maybe.
    Our first without Papa.
    Amanda tucked her hands under her cloak and stared up into
the gray sky. He was up there somewhere, wasn’t he? His soul, the part of him
that would remember being their Papa. Remember being with them reading funny
stories aloud and taking long walks along the stream with his “sun girls”, as
he called them, because he said they were worth more to him than any son.
Remember before the illness made it too difficult for him to walk, to talk, to
read, to even stay awake.
    “You remember us, don’t you?” she asked with a lump in her
throat. “You’re not too busy with heavenly things to remember your ‘sun girls’?
We miss you.”
    The sky said nothing.
    “We’ve never had a Christmas without you.”
    The sky remained silent and after another moment, she turned
her gaze back to the earth. Cold, hard, dark and very real. That’s what life
would be from now on, and there was no use trying to pretend otherwise.
    It’s all your fault…having to cook.
    Well, that was her fault, at least to a degree. Life might
be cold, hard and dark overall, but their Christmas would not have to be, if
Amanda had only swallowed her pride.
    Perhaps it was not too late to amend that. For Honoria’s
sake, and her mother’s as well. She could endure the pity of their
elegant—their better—new neighbors. She could accept their charity, for the
sake of her mother and sister.
    Amanda emptied her apron of its