Alaska

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Six weeks...

One week later, just three days before Christmas, the streets of Riverblossom were covered in a thick blanket of white snow that many children went out to play in.

Lexi spent the majority of the beginning of Winter Break, cooped up in her bedroom or bathroom, throwing up or crying profusely.  Sometimes, Katya's soothing text messages all the way from Luxembourg weren't enough, so she had to take refuge in a box of chocolate or two.

"Lexi, darling," came the voice of Pat.  Lexi looked up from her bed and found her mother, who was standing in the doorway of her room holding a large box of Christmas decorations.  "Shawn and I are going to put the Christmas tree up.  Would you like to join us?" She asked, hopefully.

Lexi's parents or brother hadn't seen much of her over the past week since she found out she was pregnant.  She didn't want to attract too much attention to herself though, so she made a large effort to get up from her very comfortable bed and follow her mother down the stairs and through the double sliding doors of the dining room, which contained a large dining table that could fit twenty people.

Shawn was already sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, untangling a very expensive set of Christmas fairy lights.

"Here," Pat handed the box over to her daughter and left the room to retrieve the other boxes.  Lexi exhaled and set the box down beside her brother and opened the flaps, pulling out a plastic box of Christmas glass ornaments that her parent's had gotten as an Anniversary gift.

"Where's the tree?" Lexi wondered out loud as she scoped the dining room for a tree.

"Dad went to pick it up from the Acrewood Outdoor Tree Store," Shawn muttered. 

Lexi nodded understandingly and set the ornaments down on a table, then paced over to a condensed window and peered outside at the snowy grounds.  The sky was a black color and the only source of light came from the illuminated lamp posts on every three metres of the streets.

"Do you think Angel will make it in this weather?" Lexi questioned.  The weather wasn't perfect for a six hour drive to Pennsylvania all the way from Ohio.

"She'll be here at abut ten AM tomorrow, so yeah, I think she'll make it," Shawn replied, standing up.

The doors to the dining room swung open again and Pat entered, holding two more boxes stacked on top of each other.  Behind her, carrying a large floor-to-ceiling tree was their father.  He settled it down beside the fairy lights and adjusted the branches, then patted his Tommy Hilfiger suit making sure he hadn't dirtied it.

"When does Ann come back?" He asked, referring to the Whitmore's housekeeper that had been gone for about three weeks.  Bill Whitmore hated doing dirty work and expected everything to be done for him, so he was in a very grouchy mood, having to drive an hour to the forest area of PA to purchase a Christmas Tree.

"Her daughter just had a baby, Bill.  She'll be back on Boxing Day," Pat replied, admiring the tree from a distance.  Lexi flinched at the word 'baby' and tried to back away from her parent's conversation.  She didn't want them to notice how uncomfortable she was.

"So what!" He barked.  "It's not like she's the one with the baby!"

Pat sighed.  "They're a very poor family and she needs all the support she can get.  She deserves a Christmas break after all she's done for us."

Bill snorted and shook his head.  "We pay her more than we should, that's for sure," and he walked out of the dining room.

Pat tied her long dirty blonde hair up into a high ponytail and began unboxing all the boxes.  Shawn started hanging red, green and gold glass balls onto the Christmas tree and Lexi wrapped a silver line of tinsel round it, inhaling the lovely fresh smell of pine.  It was one of her favorite smells.