A mrs miracle christmas, p.1
A Mrs. Miracle Christmas, page 1
Christmas 2019
Dear Friends,
My readers have always been vocal, and I appreciate it. You let me know what you’re thinking. Your comments inspire and encourage me. Mrs. Miracle first made her appearance back in the late 1990s and struck a chord with readers. Three Hallmark movies followed. Still, you have let me know you wanted more. This story is the result of your request.
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is what the inspiration is for my stories—where the ideas come from. Most often, they come from life itself or people I meet. In this book, the idea formed when I met Beth Broday, the wife of my film agent. Beth told me the long, difficult journey of the adoption of their daughter. Their story brought tears to my eyes. Later, I met Liberty Lee, the daughter who miraculously came into their lives. It was the miracle part that got my attention and my imagination. Hence, the book you are about to read. I hope you enjoy meeting up with Mrs. Miracle once again. (And just for fun, I threw in a bit of intervention from Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy!) My wish is that my special angels will bring a bit of charm and a smile to your Christmas.
As I stated earlier, my readers are always welcome to contact me. I read every comment and take them to heart. You can reach me through my website or on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. If you want to use snail mail, then my mailing address is: P.O. Box 1458, Port Orchard, WA 98366.
The very warmest of holiday greetings,
A Mrs. Miracle Christmas is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Debbie Macomber
Excerpt from Alaskan Holiday by Debbie Macomber copyright © 2018 by Debbie Macomber
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Hardback ISBN 9780399181399
Ebook ISBN 9780399181405
randomhousebooks.com
Title-page and chapter-opener art: © iStockphoto.com
Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for ebook
Cover illustration: Tom Hallman, based on images © Olga S. Andreeva/Shutterstock (lampposts and water), © iStock/Getty Images Plus (puppy), © Mark Winfrey/Dreamstime.com (house)
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Contents
Cover
Author's Note
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Dedication
Ballantine Books from Debbie Macomber
About the Author
Excerpt from Alaskan Holiday
CHAPTER ONE
Laurel McCullough arrived home to find two police cruisers parked in the driveway with their lights flashing. If that wasn’t enough to get her heart racing, it was seeing her grandmother on the front porch, clearly distressed, wringing her hands and looking around anxiously.
Laurel slammed her vehicle into park and leaped out of her car, nearly stumbling in her eagerness to find out what had happened.
“Nana,” she cried, rushing toward her grandmother.
The instant Laurel came into view, Helen covered her mouth with her hands, and her eyes, filled with dread, looked to the ground.
“Laurel, oh dear, oh dear,” she said, her shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Laurel wrapped her arms around her grandmother, hoping to comfort her. “Officer, what’s going on here?”
“Are you Laurel Lane? This is your grandmother?”
“Yes, but McCullough is my married name.”
“I’m so sorry,” Helen repeated, worry lines creasing her face. “When I woke from my nap, my mind was fuzzy. I was afraid because you weren’t home from school, so I called the police.”
“Your grandmother reported that her ten-year-old granddaughter hadn’t returned from school,” the kind officer explained to Laurel.
Laurel swallowed down her shock. Nana had been mentally slipping for a while now—little things she couldn’t remember, small details—and this was the second major incident within a short time period.
“As you can see, I’m a bit older than ten,” Laurel told the officer. “I’m sorry that we’ve troubled you. She’s a bit confused right now. I came to live with my grandmother when I was ten.”
“No trouble, Miss. We’re just happy we aren’t looking at an abduction.”
After answering a few more questions for the officers, Laurel gently led her grandmother back into the house and had her sit in her favorite chair.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Helen said, and moaned, covering her cheeks with her hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”
Helen wrapped her arms about herself like she needed to hold on to the present and leave the past behind. “I…I looked at the time and you weren’t home and suddenly you were ten years old again. I was convinced something dreadful had happened to you. What’s wrong with me?” she cried. “How could I have done something so bizarre? Am I going crazy?”
Laurel went to her knees in front of her precious grandmother. “Of course you aren’t crazy, Nana. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Those officers came right away and were so kind. I feel terrible to have troubled them.” She looked up, seeming to be struck by inspiration. “I should bake them cookies to apologize for wasting their time.”
“It’s over. I’m home now, and everything is okay.”
Laurel brewed tea, thinking it would settle their nerves. She sat beside her grandmother, reassuring her several times.
Laurel’s brain raced with how best to deal with this latest situation. Last week, her grandmother had lost her way in the neighborhood, the very one she’d lived in for more than fifty years. Nana had gone out to collect the mail and noticed that the neighbor’s new puppy, Browser, had escaped his yard. She’d followed him to try to bring him back and hadn’t been able to find her way home. Eventually, the neighbor had found the puppy, along with Helen, and had brought Laurel’s visibly upset grandmother back home with her.
Nana looked pale and frightened. “The doctor said that would happen, didn’t he? Me getting more and more confused? Wasn’t it only last week when I got lost? This is all part of having dementia, isn’t it?”
Laurel nodded. The dementia had become significantly worse over the last several months. It was at the point that she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her grandmother alone. But what choice did she have? Their financial resources were tight. All she could do was pray that she and Zach, her husband, could come up with a way to manage these new issues that Nana was having.
“I don’t want you to worry about me, Laurel,” Helen insisted. “I won’t be calling the police again, and I won’t be going outside on my own anymore, either.”
Laurel couldn’t bear the thought of her grandmother being stuck inside the house by herself for hours on end, afraid to leave for fear she’d be unable to find her way home.
“You have enough on your plate,” Helen continued. “I don’t ever want to be a burden.”
“You will never be, Nana.” Her grandmother had always put others ahead of herself. Laurel set aside her tea and knelt before her nana the way she had as a child. Resting her head in her grandmother’s lap, Laurel mulled over this latest development, uncertain what to do.
Helen gently brushed Laurel’s hair with her fingers. “You know, I’ve been praying for you.”
Her nana was a prayer warrior. While Laurel wanted to believe God answered prayers, she’d given up all hope. She couldn’t help being discouraged. Every road she’d taken to bring a child into their family had turned into a dead end. She couldn’t do it any longer. Couldn’t hold on to a dream that ended in pain each time. She’d given up and closed the door on the possibility. Laurel had tried to stay positive, but it seemed a baby wasn’t ever going to happen for her.
“I guess I should be saying prayers for myself,” Nana teased, and gripped hold of her granddaughter’s hand. “God has a baby for you. I feel it in my heart, Laurel. Don’t give up hope.”
Laurel didn’t know how to make her nana understand. She and Zach finally had realized that they weren’t meant to have children. They’d decided to move forward after coming to terms with their situation. Neither of them was willing to go through yet another failed attempt at the process of bringing a child into their home, into their f
“Remember Hannah?” Nana reminded her. “She desperately wanted a child, and God gave her Samuel.”
Her grandmother was well versed in the Bible and began to recount the stories of other women who had dealt with infertility.
“And Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.”
“I do.”
“And Rachel.”
“Yes, Nana, you’ve shared these stories with me before,” Laurel gently replied. She thought to herself that the Bible didn’t recount the women who had been unable to have children.
Her grandmother continued to tenderly brush Laurel’s head. “Don’t lose faith, dear one.”
It was too late. Tears leaked from Laurel’s eyes, which she hurriedly blinked away. Disappointment had followed disappointment. The IVF treatments had been costly in more ways than one. The financial burden was only half of it. The emotional toll had been devastating. Hope had been shattered with each negative result, until Laurel had no option but to abandon her dream of ever being able to give birth.
While making payments to the fertility clinic, Laurel and Zach moved in with her grandmother. It was the only way they could make it financially. Nana needed them, and they needed her. It was a win-win for them all.
When the IVF treatments had failed, Laurel and Zach contacted a reputable adoption agency and filled out the paperwork. That had been followed by extensive interviews before they were eventually placed on a waiting list. A very long list. In fact, they were informed that it could easily take several years before they’d be able to receive a baby. Years. And as each year went by, they knew that their chances to be chosen to parent an infant would decrease.
Month after month followed with no word of a baby being available. What little hope Laurel had hung on to dwindled down to a mere speck. She wanted to believe God heard her prayers—she truly did. She wanted to think positively, but after years of trying and years of dreaming, only to have those dreams shattered again and again, she found she couldn’t. And it wasn’t only hope that had diminished; her faith had also hit rock bottom.
Both she and Zach loved children. They would be good parents, and yet they’d been unable to have children of their own. She didn’t know where the logic was in this. Why, of all people, had they been denied what they desired the most? It was unfair. Wrong. Devastating.
It was when Laurel was at this low point that Zach had suggested adoption through a fostering program. To her absolute delight, they were given a newborn, a boy, almost immediately. Jonathan had been born to a mother who was addicted to drugs, and he’d been removed from her care. Those first few hellish weeks, the undersized infant had cried incessantly, but Laurel and Zach had stuck it out. They’d loved little Jonathan with all their hearts. Zach had been wonderful with the fussy baby, endlessly comforting him, never growing impatient. He seemed to instinctively know when Laurel needed a break and when to take over. Jonathan responded to Zach’s gentle touch and calming voice. Laurel was in awe at what a patient and loving father her husband was.
But then, two weeks before the adoption was to be finalized, Jonathan’s birth father had been located. He’d known nothing of the baby and decided he wanted his son. Jonathan had been taken from Laurel and Zach, ripped from her arms. Numb with grief, she’d sunk into a deep depression that had lasted for weeks.
Reeling from the heartache of losing their foster baby, as well as the failed IVF treatments and the endless waiting list from the adoption agency, Laurel decided her heart could endure no more grief. They both agreed it was time to let go and accept that this was the way their lives were meant to be.
“I have the children in my class,” she murmured out loud to her grandmother, trying to reassure herself. As a first-grade teacher, Laurel loved every student. Teaching was her calling and her joy, and every day she looked forward to spending time with these precious little ones who were craving to learn.
“You’re a wonderful teacher,” Nana said. “You’ll be an equally fantastic mother.”
The front door opened, and her husband called out to announce he was home. Zach was Laurel’s rock, her voice of reason, the one who kept her on balance through the worst part of this vicious roller-coaster ride. A computer programmer, he worked at the downtown Seattle offices of Amazon.
He paused when he saw Laurel on the floor in front of her grandmother. Alarmed, his eyes quickly met Laurel’s.
Scrambling to her feet, Laurel stood and hugged her husband, loving the solid feel of his body against hers. “It’s been quite the day.” She hated to hit him with unwelcome news the instant he walked in the door. “Did you happen to see the police cars leaving the neighborhood on your walk home from the bus stop?”
Perplexed, Zach said that he had.
“I’m afraid I’m the culprit,” Helen announced. “I called the police because I thought Laurel had been kidnapped.”
“What?” Zach burst out.
“It’s all been taken care of,” Laurel hurried to say, not wanting to upset her grandmother further. “Just a misunderstanding.”
“I forgot that Laurel is an adult,” Nana explained to Zach. “In my mind she was still a schoolgirl, and she wasn’t home from school, and I got worried, so I called the police, and they came, and…oh dear, I’ve really made such a mess of things, haven’t I?”
Zach gently touched her shoulder and looked lovingly into Helen’s eyes. “Are you okay? That’s all that matters.”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I feel so foolish.”
His brow furrowed and he shared a worried look with Laurel. “Let’s just be glad everything turned out okay. What’s for dinner?” He looked over at his wife. This was a code the two shared that meant they needed to talk privately.
“Meat loaf,” Laurel said, heading toward the kitchen. “I need to get it in the oven.”
“I’ll help,” Zach said, following close behind.
The minute they were sure Nana couldn’t hear their discussion, he expressed his concern. “What was Helen thinking calling the police?”
“I know. And it was only last week when she got lost in her own neighborhood. What are we going to do?”
Sinking into a kitchen chair, Zach folded his hands, a habit he had when deep in thought. “This can’t continue. We need to bring someone in.”
“But who?”
“There are agencies that provide this kind of care. It’s time we looked into it.”
Neither of them dared to mention the expense. Somehow, they’d make it work. They both knew that Nana wouldn’t do well in an assisted-living facility. She was most comfortable in her own home, surrounded by all that was familiar and by those she loved.
Laurel lowered into the chair across the table from her husband. Her heart sank as she shared more unfortunate news. “Nana called me Kelly last week.”
Zach placed his hand over Laurel’s, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Kelly was Laurel’s mother, who had died in a freak accident when Laurel was ten. Her mother had slipped on the ice, hit her head, and died shortly afterward. Laurel’s father, Michael, regularly traveled out of state as a business consultant, and, unable to change his work commitments, he reluctantly sent Laurel to live with her grandparents. Eventually, her father had remarried and moved to another state with his new wife. Rather than uproot Laurel, he knew it was best for his daughter to stay with her grandparents. Laurel’s relationship with her father remained close, and they’d talked almost every night. He’d always stop by to visit when he was in the Seattle area, and she spent many school breaks with him and his new family. Laurel never doubted her father’s love and was grateful that he’d seen the wisdom of keeping her with her grandparents.
“I’ll research a few different home-care agencies tonight and give them a call before school starts in the morning,” Laurel said. Zach was right. The dementia was getting worse. They couldn’t risk leaving Helen alone any longer.
