The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

the doorbell rang, it was Miriam, her daughters and grandchildren. Rachel's Aunt Jo and her husband came next, followed by their children and grandchildren. Rachel's sister Ann and her husband, Greg, came last.
    Everyone came with a stack of presents, which they piled under the tree.
    Zach gaped at them and tugged on Sam's pants leg. "Are all those for us?"
    "For everybody here," Sam said.
    "Wow! Can we open 'em now?"
    "In a minute," Rachel said. "We have to do something first."
    "What?"
    "The ornaments," she said.
    He pointed to the tree. "It's got orn'ments."
    "Special ones," Sam said.
    "Those look special."
    "Extra special," Sam said, nodding toward Gail and Ellen, who'd come into the room with three boxes. "You'll see."
    Miriam and Jo took their places beside the tree, because this was Rachel's mother's family tradition, and damned if it didn't get to him every time they did it. Gail and Ellen put the boxes down beside the two women, who looked very much alike at the moment and reminded him of Rachel's mother. Frank tapped a spoon against a glass to get everyone's attention and welcomed them all, telling them he was happy they were all here to see another Christmas together, and then he turned things over to Miriam and Jo. They opened the first box and from among the tissue paper pulled out one delicate glass ornament each.
    "It looks like a snowflake," Zach said. "Or a star."
    And they did. They were some of the first projects Rachel's grandfather made when he started working with glass, long before he hit on his success with snow globes.
    One year, he had some diamond-shaped pieces of beveled glass, and he put them together into three-dimensional ornaments. He trimmed them in a gold tone and engraved each one with his three daughters' names and the date of their birth.
    They loved them, and the next year, all the relatives had their own ornaments that went up on the tree Christmas Day as they all gathered together, and one of their most sacred traditions was born. It was a way of remembering everyone they'd loved and lost, of remembering all the blessings they had and the strength that comes from family.
    This was the house where the tradition first began.
    Sam and Rachel were the caretakers now of both the house and the ornaments. Jo still made them, just like her father had taught her. One day when she was gone, Rachel would make them.
    Miriam and Jo put their ornaments on the tree, then ones for their own mother and father. Frank put up his and his wife's next, and they went on like that, one by one.
    Finally, it was Rachel's turn. She took Sam by the hand and pulled him to the tree with her. Jo handed him his ornament. It read Sam and the year he and Rachel were married.
    He remembered that year so well, how bewildered he'd been to find himself in the middle of a Christmas celebration like this. It had awed him, thinking Rachel had come from this, something this strong and this enduring. All of this love.
    She put her ornament on the tree, and he hung his next to hers. Sam and Rachel. And when he would have stepped back so the others could hang theirs, she held him there and took another ornament from Jo.
    It said Hope.
    "You do it," she said, giving it carefully to him.
    "You're sure?" he asked.
    "Yes," she whispered.
    They'd never hung this ornament before. He knew it existed at one time. Her grandfather had it ready for them the first Christmas after they lost her, and it had caused a horrible scene. Rachel had refused to put it on the tree, had run out of the room in tears. Sam had never seen the ornament again, but Rachel's grandfather must have saved it. Maybe he'd been trying to tell them even then that they had to deal with the loss, they had to remember her. Maybe he knew what it would cost them if they didn't.
    Sam reached out and found a branch, a sturdy one, right below where his and Rachel's ornaments were hanging, and with a hand that positively shook, placed their baby's glittering star carefully on the tree.
    He and Rachel stood there together, looking at the three ornaments rotating slowly and glittering in the light. Sam took a breath, a slow, deep one, and Rachel slipped an arm around his waist.
    "No more tears," she said. "You made me promise. She'll always be a part of us, but no more tears."
    Sam nodded. It was all he could do.
    They went to step back once more and Jo said, "Wait. We have new people in the family. We can't forget them."
    And then she held the box out to them, three