at a landscape as gloomy as the sky--and her mood. She hadn't strung the
lights across the porch rail this year or hung the pinecone wreath that always
adorned the front door. Christmas had crept up too quickly. She sighed. Maybe
it would go away with the same rapid�fire anonymity with which it had come.
As though hearing her inner remonstrance, Beau lifted his big head and
with his cold, wet nose. It was a half�hearted offering, it seemed to Lara, but
then he'd always been Kira's dog. After a whole year he still insisted on
sleeping at the end of her bed. The unrumpled, untouched, solitary bed. Who
could have known her life would end at 15?
was gone, that bright spirit silenced in one irrevocable stroke.
corners too, but kept the rambling house that she and Kira had loved. Since the
divorce, it had just been the two of them. Plenty of room for a successful graphic
designer and her energetic young daughter. More than enough room now.
"You'll never know," she said wryly, imagining Lexi across town with her
even hanging wall paper with those busy hands of hers. How she managed a
family, a full�time job with Social Services and Pop's care Lara couldn't imagine.
Not even Pop's Alzheimer's could dampen the indomitable spirit of Alexis Taylor.
Lexi's unusual hesitancy, Lara would later reflect, should have been a
gladly. "Um, I have a problem I need your help with. There's this girl here
with no place to go. It's just for a few days...until after the holidays when we
can make suitable arrangements for foster care..."
But that's exactly what Lexi did mean. She knew Lara had the week off
company--just for a couple days. Then Lexi and the rest of the family would
join them for Christmas Eve at Lara's. Her big country house had always been
the favored gathering place for family celebrations.