“It is sparkly. Would you like some help getting it out of the container?”
“Yes, please,” she said, raising her shoulders and grinning at David in anticipation. David sat with his hands in his lap, a small smile on his lips while Carrie squeezed the colors onto a paper plate.
“I have towels for you when you’re finished.”
As the kids began to paint, Carrie used a fine point bottle of green to outline the holly leaves around their tiny, red fingerprints. When they were all finished, she used a cranberry paint and wrote their names in curly lettering at the top.
“Oh, I like that, Carrie!” Olivia said, waving the rag and wiping her fingers clumsily as she attempted to get the red paint out from under her fingernails. David had been so careful with his that his hands were already clean after only one wipe. He inspected his stocking carefully, a satisfied expression on his face. He folded his arms and sat back in his chair, clearly happy with himself.
“We’ll let these dry all day. Let’s leave them on the table. Is everyone cleaned up?” Both children nodded.
“Hello,” Joyce said, walking into the playroom. Carrie stopped talking and turned around. Joyce had her gray hair pinned back into a clip and a heather-blue sweater that came up to her neck, giving her creamy skin a rosy glow. Carrie hadn’t noticed until then how much David favored her. “Good morning.” She walked over and peered at the stockings. “These are beautiful.”
“Carrie did the leaves,” Olivia explained as she rummaged around in her dress-up box. She pulled out a pink boa and a flouncy hat and put them on.
“I did all the dots on mine,” David said, looking up at her.
“It’s lovely, David. You have perfect dots. I can see your fingerprints!”
Olivia called from across the room, “Grandma Joyce, will you stay and play with us?” She’d taken her hat off, and her hair was puffing out in untamed strands as the static took hold in the dry air.
“I’d love to.”
“Want to play trains?” David asked, getting a bin full of track pieces from the shelf. Olivia slipped her feather boa off and let it shimmy to the floor. She lowered herself down onto her knees next to the train bin and pulled out two pieces of track.
“Certainly, we can play trains,” Joyce said. “Your grandpa Bruce collects them. Do you remember his big tracks up in our attic?” The kids both shook their heads, and Joyce’s face fell just a little, but she recovered well. She turned to Carrie. “It’s been a long time since Adam’s brought the kids to our house. I don’t think they remember much at all about their visits.”
Not knowing the best way to handle a comment like that, Carrie said simply, “He seems like a very busy man.” What she thought but didn’t say was, He shouldn’t be too busy for his own family. Even right now, he was snowed in, unable to go to work, and where was he? The office. While his entire family sat downstairs. Who does that? Wouldn’t he feel inclined to entertain them? And more importantly, didn’t his own mother find it strange? Why wasn’t she throwing a fit? “Is he always this busy?” she asked.
“Yes,” Olivia answered. “Daddy is very busy.”
Joyce snapped two pieces of track together and handed them to David. “Olivia’s right,” she patted Olivia’s leg. “Adam works quite a bit. It’s a tough job your daddy has, running that brewery. It takes all his time, doesn’t it?” David handed Joyce two more pieces of track. She clipped them together for him and attached them to the other pieces on the floor. “He wasn’t always this way,” she said. “But he found that he was quite successful at building this business, so he works very hard to stay successful.”
“He likes work,” David said from the other side of the giant oval of track that they were building. “He said so, one time on the phone—that he loves his work and that’s why he does it so much.”
Carrie felt her stomach sour with that statement. What does that tell the children? They believed that Adam spent time on what he loved, and he never spent time with them. With his actions, every time he chose work, he was telling them that he loved work more than he loved them. Her heart broke for these kids. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t get involved, but she knew that she’d break that promise because she couldn’t sit by and watch two beautiful children with a wonderful family believe that they weren’t loved, that work was more important than they were. She’d only planned one art project today, but, suddenly, she changed her mind. Carrie got up and pulled a small canvas from her bag of crafts and set it on the art table. Then, she turned to Joyce. “I actually need to speak to Adam. Would it be possible for me to slip out for just a moment?”