Page 68 of Snowbound with the Santas

“She dropped you there. Wait, is she not with you?”

“Nope.” Freida pops the P and then meets my eyes. “She left on some sort of trip.”

Amanda has every right to comment on my lack of parenting in Freida’s early years, and deep down, I can’t know the struggle of raising a child, but this news angers me. Every year, Amanda rubs in my face how much of a family Christmas she hosts and how I haven’t earned her forgiveness enough to be a part of it. Each year, I grit my teeth and accept it because I live in hope that eventually, I’ll have shown her enough how much I’ve changed. Knowing she’s chosen to abandon Freida and have her spend this Christmas with her grandparents when she could have been with me is infuriating.

I grip the phone and keep my smile level. “Is it a business trip?”

“No, she said it was something important she had to do,” Freida replies. “I don’t mind. I like Mee-Maw’s house.”

“I know, sweetie. I’m just… surprised because if she needed someone to watch you, then I would have been happy to.”

My daughter’s face crumples slightly. “Oh. I would have liked that.”

“I know.”

“But then she’d know I’m talking to you.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” I assure her quickly, and the screen fuzzes from the bad connection. “I’m always asking after you, regardless of whether I hear from you or not.”

“Really?”

While that seems to lighten her spirits a little, there’s still concern in her eyes, so I balance the phone down on the dresser. “Hold on.” Darting away, I return a minute later with her Christmas present. “Look, I made this for you.” I hold up the badly knitted Christmas sweater, and Freida bursts out laughing.

“Dad, you made that for me?” She giggles. “I love it!”

Just as my heart flips once more, there’s a knock at the door and Rayne’s head pops through the gap.

“Hey, Archer says the—” She pauses when she sees the screen and immediately straightens up. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you were in the middle of something.”

“Who is that?” Frieda demands immediately, peering around me.

I hold out one hand to Rayne and smile. “It’s okay. Do you want to say hi to my daughter?”

“Oh, sure!” Rayne eases in through the door and quickly smooths her hands down her hair as she approaches. Once in the line of sight, she gives a nervous wave. “Hi.”

“Freida, this is Rayne. The woman I was telling you about?”

“Oh!” Freida’s face widens and she grins brightly. “Hi! Dad told me he found you in a princess dress!”

“Oh.” Rayne laughs. “It was pretty princessy, that’s for sure. Not as princessy as your dress, though. Oh, goodness. Are those bows?”

I watch my daughter light up and dance away from the screen, spinning as she shows off her dress. “Yes! You like it?”

“Oh, I love it. And the little reindeer along the hem? Beautiful!”

“Thank you.” Freida jumps back at her phone. “I wanted to show Dad since I won’t get to see him here for real.”

“That’s a shame,” Rayne says softly, and she flashes me a sympathetic look. “I know he would be there if he could.”

“I’m not so sure I want him to now. Look at that sweater!”

As Rayne takes in the bad knitting and wonky hem, they both start laughing heartily, and there’s something so achingly familial about the whole thing. Emotion stings at my eyes, and I swallow down a growing lump in my throat.

“I tried, okay?” I laugh along with them. “Next time, you can show me where I went wrong.”

“Oh, I will, absolutely, because?—”

The connection wavers and the call dies, bringing with it a painful silence as theNo Signalwarning flashes across my old phone.

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