For the first time, the approaching holiday seemed less like an obligation he had failed to fulfill and more like a day that might arrive without demanding something he could not give.
That afternoon, Caleb took Samuel to clear snow from the barn entrance. Adeline stayed inside with the girls, making a small wreath from dried grasses and the few evergreen branches she found in the woodpile.
They hung it above the kitchen door.
Grace stepped back to admire it.
“It needs a ribbon.”
“We haven't any ribbon,” Adeline said.
Grace's face fell.
“I could use the blue strip from my doll's dress.”
“You love that dress.”
“But Christmas needs a ribbon.”
Adeline looked at the rag doll in Grace's lap, then at the little wreath.
“Your mother might have used the ribbon from an old bonnet,” she said gently. “Sometimes the best decorations come from things we already have.”
Grace thought about it.
Then she ran upstairs and returned with a faded blue ribbon she had found in Sarah's sewing basket.
“Will this do?”
Adeline accepted it reverently.
“I think it will be perfect.”
They tied it around the wreath.
When Caleb came in, he stopped beneath the doorway.
For an instant, he could almost see Sarah standing beside the table, holding a ribbon between her fingers and telling him that the children had made something beautiful out of scraps.
He gripped the doorframe.
Adeline noticed the change in his face.
“Would you like me to take it down?” she asked softly.
He shook his head.
“No.”
He looked at the wreath again.
“Leave it.”
Then he removed his hat and went to wash his hands.
The following morning, he rode as far as the creek to check the cattle. The snow had eased, but the cold had sharpened, and the horses' breath rose in white clouds. He found the herd huddled beneath the ridge and was relieved to see that most of the animals had weathered the storm.
On his way back, he noticed a small shape beside the fence.
At first he thought it was a fallen branch.
Then the shape moved.
A young fox, thin and shivering, had become trapped between two rails where the snow had packed tightly around its body. It struggled when Caleb approached, showing its teeth with frightened desperation.
He dismounted slowly.
“Easy, now.”
The fox snapped at his glove.
Caleb worked the snow away from the rails and freed the animal. It stumbled into the drift, paused as if uncertain whether freedom could be trusted, then vanished beneath the fence.