Christmas On Sutter's Mountain: Country Roads Series, #1

By S. K. McClafferty

Christmas for a single-mom is hard enough, and the last thing Maggie needs is to be called back home to Sutter's Mountain to deal with a father she hasn't seen or spoken to in fifteen years.  She's been asking for help and advice, but for some reason, God doesn't seem to be listening.  Or maybe He has a round-about way of getting things done, and getting stubborn folks to stop hurting one another... and Maggie, and her father, will have to learn the hard way.  A Christmas short story about the generations of one family coming together and mending past hurts that will warm your heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue-Eyed Dog Publications
• Release date: Jun 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498925372

S. K. McClafferty

Veteran author S. K. McClafferty, aka Selina MacPherson, aka Sue McKay, published 13 mass market novels and numerous short stories before walking away from traditional New York publishing.  She now writes and publishes independently.  The author lives in Pennsylvania with dogs, Sparky and Mr. Boo.

Book preview

Christmas on Sutter’s Mountain: A Novelette

By

S. K. McClafferty

Christmas on Sutter’s Mountain by S. K. McClafferty

Copyright © Susan Kay McClafferty 2013

CHAPTER ONE

December

MAGGIE... IT’S DAVID.

Her brother’s voice turned her heart into a hard, cold lump in Maggie’s chest. They didn’t talk often—just a Facebook message now and then, or a text message on birthdays and holidays. David was three years older than her, and their family had always been dysfunctional... not because of alcohol or mental illness—but because they’d never learned to form any type of close bond. They’d been four individuals living under one roof, with their mama providing the glue that held them together. Then, she’d come down with pneumonia and passed suddenly, leaving David, Maggie, and their father, Jacob Matthew Sutter, rudderless in a cold and tumultuous sea.

What is it?  Is Jannie okay?  The kids? Rapid-fire questions. Let’s get this over with so I can take a breath without feeling like the weight of the world is on my chest.

Don’t freak. We’re good, he said, but his tone was just as dead. It’s Dad.... Maggie, I hate to ask, but I really need your help with this.

The conversation didn’t last ten minutes, but the elephant on Maggie’s chest didn’t rise and walk away. Instead, it squatted on her sternum, and the lump of dread that was her heart was actually painful.

David had laid down the situation he’d been trying to deal with, but she could feel his frustration. He and their dad weren’t close. In fact, they barely communicated. David lived in West Virginia, a few miles from Sutter’s Mountain, while Maggie was in Ohio, in the suburbs of Akron. Because he lived nearby, he shouldered the responsibility of looking in on their father from time to time... and Dad made those visits as gut-wrenching as possible out of pure spite.

She’d always felt guilty about David shouldering that burden alone—though her interference would not have been welcomed by the old man had she lived next door.

The only real parent she’d ever had, had died when she was fifteen. Her dad was what was left to them, and now, he was seemingly in a bad way.

For a few minutes after she hung up the phone, she ran through her options. She could beg off with an excuse. It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough on my plate right now as it was. The ink wasn’t even dry on her divorce papers—a divorce her twelve-year-old son Matthew wasn’t taking very well. And Abby, her ten-year-old, was just Abby—always a joy. She could put it off, and pray for a resolution—though God didn’t seem to be listening to her these days. She’d asked for help with her failing marriage, and Tommy had moved in with his girlfriend, anyway. Or, she could pack up the car and the kids, and take their Christmas to the mountain....

After a sleepless night, Maggie still had no solution... until Abby brought the Christmas card to her attention. It was late afternoon the following day, and the kids blew in from school like mini-tornadoes. Matt headed for the fridge. He was always hungry, and growing like a bad weed. Abby put the mail down in front of her. Christmas cards. Can I open them?

Abby loved Christmas, but she was ten. She didn’t have the stress of a single-parent holiday season, the certainty that they’d be disappointed, no matter what she did, simply because their dad was gone and didn’t seem to recall he even had a family—except to send the child support check. Sure, why not?  Who’s it from?

Aunt Jannie. She has the worst handwriting.

She does, she agreed, but we won’t tell her that.

Mother, she said, using the formal term she reserved for duh moments of utmost preteen disgust. I’m always polite.

You are. And I appreciate it so much.

She unsealed the envelope and extracted the card: a snowy photograph of an old clapboard house. Done in sepia tones, a single set of footprints led through a yard buried beneath a foot of snow. A plume of smoke rose from the old brick chimney and was lost in a winter sky.

It was as stark as it was beautiful.

Simplicity, and aloneness.

A life forgotten.

Christmas Eve on Sutter’s Mountain, Abby read the caption. She scrunched her face in deep thought, making the connection. Your name was Sutter, before you married Daddy."

That’s right. Maggie left off stirring the soup she was making and came