On Christmas day, Mairi sat with her mother in her childhood home, in the shadow of another tree. Pine needles skated towards the hardwood floor and stuck in the carpet. It was snowing outside. She could see white flakes skating intricately over the frozen ground, not unlike the dancers she had seen just a few days before.
In a twist of fate, she was not alone. Of course, Kennan had not returned. He was gone forever. But her mother had been more than willing to let her spend Christmas at home. She had been gruff about her daughter’s return; when she had seen her, she had cried a little, reached out her arms for a hug. Then her mother had given her a bed to sleep in, fresh coffee and warm blankets and love, unconditional attention, righting her back into her world.
Mairi knew that nothing about the future would be easy. Nothing about the past had been easy.
But this time, when a kick came against her ribs hard enough to make her lose her breath, it was a child, and she wasn’t fearing for its life – she was experiencing life unfolding, right underneath her fingertips.
YOU ARE READING
Misunderstood Miracles
Short StoryMairi wants a miracle for Christmas. But the things she has taken as miracles - Kennan and his love, eighteen and its freedom - have only been prelude to a misunderstood pattern: the nature of life is not that it gives, and that it takes away. It...
