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sycamore trees became Santa’s husky laughter as he directed his sleigh over head. The pale moonlight wavered, was gone, prisoner again of the capricious clouds. How many years had it been since she’d pictured plump and luscious sugarplums on an avenue of silver?
    How many years…? She moved restlessly.
    Max’s arm tightened, pulling her nearer. “Penny for your thoughts?”
    Christmas memories fluttered like brightly patterned cards slapping into a pile…a heavy snow and the rush of icy air as her sled careened down a hill…her mother’s face flushed from the heat of the oven as she lifted out loaves of pumpkin bread meant for gifts, but there was always one for Annie…the procession at the Midnight Service, joyous and triumphant…opening presents on Christmas morning…
    â€œHe was never there.” Her voice ached with unshed tears. “I used to think…oh, when I was really little…that someday he would come. I even wrote letters to Santa Claus. Oh well.” Now her voice was dry, removed, cool. “I grew up.”
    Max gently turned her to face him and their faces were inches apart on the pillow. “Annie, maybe—”
    â€œIt’s too late, Max.” But she knew as she spoke that her father’s unexpected appearance, this confrontation with a past that she had never even known, had cast her adrift on a sea of memories, expectations, losses—and fears. Was her father’s instability a part of her? She’d always made plans, followed them. How much of that tenacity sprang from her early loss? Would she ever walk away from those who cared for her?
    â€œBut he’s alive.” Max’s hand gripped hers. “My dad…well, I guess I always knew he wasn’t really there for any of us. I kept thinking some Christmas he would really see us, my sisters and me. But he could scarcely wait for the presents to be unwrapped to leave. He went to the office on Christmas Day.”
    At her involuntary movement, he rolled over on his elbow, stared down in the darkness. “I mean it. Christmas Day. There was always something he had to see to. Oh, he came home for dinner, but I don’t think he was ever aware of us. It’s like we were invisible and he lived in a world bounded by work. If he had lived…But I don’t think he would have changed. I swore that I would never be like him. Never.”
    Annie felt a rush of tenderness for the little boy whose father never saw him. Maybe that was worse than a father who was never there. At least she hadn’t had to deal with a quartet of stepfathers. She reached up, gently touched Max’s face.
    He turned his mouth, kissed the palm of her hand.
    She felt his lips spread in a smile. She looked up and the moonlight flared again and she saw his familiar grin and the gleam in his blue eyes.
    â€œBut you can’t say the girls and I didn’t have fun with Ma.” His voice was light and lively. “And I guess she made us feel good about Dad because she’s always had good taste in men—so he must have been fun sometimes.”
    Fun. Annie felt a pang. Max had devoted his life to fun. No one pursued pleasure and good times with more élan.
    Fun—wasn’t that why her father had left her mother? She and her mother had never talked about her father, about who he was or why he left or what he had done with his life, but she remembered standing outside theliving room one afternoon when she was fourteen and listening to her mother and Uncle Ambrose and hearing her mother’s quiet, bitter comment, “All he wanted was to have a good time.” Annie had known they were talking about her father. That was all she heard, whirling around and hurrying down the hall to her own room, flinging her schoolbooks on the bed and thinking: So that’s why he left, so that’s why!
    â€œHey, Annie, let it go.” Max’s arms slipped around her;