With a final glimpse at the delicate ornament, January pulled the tissue paper to the side tenderly placing the ornament back in the packaging. But as she looked inside the small green box, a piece of glass catches January’s eye, and she sets the star on her kitchen counter.
“What the. . .?” January questioned as she gingerly lifted the weightless glass from the box.
She felt her mouth drop as she stared at the fragile ornament in her hand. A snowflake. A beautiful and flawless glass snowflake that January was so afraid would crumble in her grasp that her hand shook in fear.
Something began to tickle the back of her hand and she almost dropped the ornament until she realized that a small note was dangling from the ribbon tied through a hole at the top of the snowflake.
Make a wish
Say it twice
Close your eyes
And say goodnight.
When you wake
You will see
Just place this snowflake
On your tree.
January reread the note three times and still had no idea what it meant, or why it was with her package, but she knew that it didn’t belong to her.
“Deckard,” she moaned just as her phone in the bedroom began to ring.
“Shit.”
Doing her best to place the snowflake gently back in the box, she waited for it to settle in place before she ran toward the sound.
Tripping over her own feet on her rush to grab the phone before the call ended, January had to catch her breath before she could respond to the call.
“Hey,” January said as she pressed the button on her phone to answer.
“Ms. Douglas, did you forget about the meeting this morning?” her boss, Mr. Roberts, asked with his signature tick sounding in his voice.
“No, sir.” She had most definitely forgotten, but with Deckard making an unscheduled appearance this morning, her schedule was completely thrown out of sorts. “I’m on my way now. I’ll be there before it begins.” January ended the call before her boss could get in another word, probably not the best decision, but it was too late to backtrack.
Grabbing the ornament box along with her purse and jacket, January shuffled out her door and drove toward Nick’s Knacks, determined to return the snowflake back to Deckard and demand an explanation. But as traffic grew heavy on her way, she resigned herself to waiting until after her workday to track him down and give him a piece of her mind.
“He’s on a tirade today,” Samantha whispered as they both scooted into the conference room at the last minute. “And he wants to know where you are with the festival piece.”
“Great,” January groaned. Her day was quickly going downhill as fast as a snowball on a mountaintop.
After the four-hour meeting listening to her boss drone on about the upcoming articles and then another hour listening to him discuss the cruise he and his third wife were leaving for the next day, she was finally free. Or so she thought. As she ducked into her office to avoid the Secret Santa sign up going around, she found a small gift sitting on her desk.
She knew what it was without even having to slip the lid of the box open. Her mother had a particular way of wrapping gift boxes. The top and bottom were always done separately, never together, then tied with a ribbon around the corners to hold it together.
It was another Christmas sweater. The tradition that hadn’t waned in twenty-five years.
January knew that she should call her mother to thank her for the gift and that she was sorry to miss her, but just as she sat at her desk, the phone rang.
“Hello, January Douglas speaking.”
The rest of her afternoon went that way. Interviewees called to add some more information to their story, or members of the festival committee finally returned her messages. It was such a chaotic afternoon that she didn’t have the opportunity to slip out for lunch. Instead, Samantha dropped off a sandwich, even going so far as unwrapping it for her.
When the clock at the bottom of her computer screen changed to 5:30 p.m., January slouched back into her chair with a heavy sigh. The day had been lost in a sea of phone calls and office visits. She barely had time to catch her breath, let alone make a run downtown to confront Deckard about the extra ornament.