The Christmas Children. Irene Brand

Carissa asked.

      Alex shook his head.

      “Is he living?” she persisted.

      “We don’t know. He left when Julie was just a baby. We ain’t seen him since. I don’t think he’s dead, though. Every so often, we’d get some money that we figgered he’d sent. No word from him since Mom got sick, so he might be dead, for all we know.”

      Paul’s arm tightened around Julie, and he looked at Carissa, whose face was white and drawn. Lauren was still crying, her head on the table. Carissa moved closer and put her hand on the girl’s trembling shoulder. She looked as if she was ready to start crying, too.

      The misfortune of these children had reminded Carissa of how bereft she had been when her own mother died. If her grandmother hadn’t taken her in, where would she be today?

      “Surely you have some other relatives who will take care of you until your father can be found,” she said around the knot in her throat.

      “Just aunts and uncles. None of them wanted to take three kids, so they planned that we’d all go to separate homes in different states,” Alex said. “We’d never have been together again. Mom wouldn’t have wanted that. Nobody could agree on who was gonna take us, so we stayed in our home until the rent was due. The preacher and his wife kinda looked after us.”

      Lauren lifted her head. “We didn’t want to be parted. So we run away.”

      Julie had relaxed in his arms, and Paul realized that she’d gone to sleep. “We’d better have the whole story before we decide what to do with you,” he said. “Alex, you can’t go on like this.”

      “We’ve been traveling from place to place on buses for two weeks, sleeping in bus stations, but when we got to Yuletide, we didn’t have much money left. I was in the grocery store in Yuletide and heard your sister say she was leaving for Florida for two months. I found out where she lived, and thought we could stay here for a little while. I didn’t know anyone was going to be living here.”

      “Obviously you’ve been eating food from the kitchen, but where have you been staying?” Carissa asked. “Last night I was sure there was someone in the house, but where have you been in the daytime?”

      “In the furnace room. We took some blankets from the bedroom and fixed our beds. It was warm down there, and nobody could see the lights at night. We stayed on this floor during the daytime.”

      “I can’t understand why you thought you could get away with this,” Paul said. “Where’d you get the money to ride on buses?”

      “Our neighbors collected some money for us to use until we could find a home.”

      “This is incredible!” Carissa said. “I’d think there would be a nationwide hunt for you.”

      “Maybe nobody knows we’re gone,” Alex said, a crafty gleam in his brown eyes.

      “What does that mean?” Paul said severely.

      “Alex wrote notes to our aunts and uncles so each would think we were with another one. He left a note for the preacher that we’d gone to visit with our uncle in—” Lauren broke off the sentence when Alex shook his head at her.

      “Alex, what kind of kid are you, anyway? You lied to your family, you jimmied the lock and came into my sister’s house, and you’ve been stealing food from her kitchen. I know you’re young, but can’t you comprehend how much trouble that’s going to cause you?”

      Alex straightened in his chair, an indignant expression in his brown eyes. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “I didn’t steal nuthin’. I kept track of all the food we took,” he said, adding, “so I can pay it back someday.”

      He handed the paper to Paul, whose throat constricted when he read the daily entries: “three glasses of milk, three sweet rolls, three sandwiches.”

      Paul passed the paper to Carissa.