Chapter 31

Joy shines in Melinda's face. Walt and Kristen have never seen her so happy. She holds the little dog on her lap, and pats her, stroking her fur, rubbing her ears, picking her up and hugging her close over and over and over.

Little Zoe wriggles and snuggles and cuddles with Melinda, and knows that she is home, and home for good. The little girl with the limp will be Zoe's best friend for the rest of her life, and the little dog is at peace in her heart and her mind in this, her dear forever home.

Bill Lefkewicz had been more than happy to give the little dog to the little girl. Even he had begun crying when he had seen Melinda's joy.

"Of course you can have her," he had said. "She's your dog! She's been your dog all along. I am just so sorry that I had said 'no dogs,'" he'd said. "I just didn't know."

Bill is able to get the furnace started, and as the house begins to warm, Kristen invites him for dinner. It is not much, just a chicken and potatoes, but they are happy to have him.

And Bill, settled with a family for the first time in years, finds a happiness he thinks perhaps he's never known.

After dinner, he had put on his coat and scarf, and clipped Joey to his leash.

"Next week," Bill he had said to Walt, "let's talk about you coming to work with me."

This morning, as Walt and Kristen watch Melinda cuddle Zoe and smile with all her heart, there is joy in their home that has nothing to do with the little tree or the few presents beneath it.

***

In the house in the woods, the phone rings early.

"Dad!" Eliza says, he voice squealing so high loud he has to hold the phone away. "How did you DO that? I can't believe it, I really can't believe it! Thank you so much!"

"Well, you're welcome, honey. But for what?"

"For my present! It's the best present ever!" she says, and then Bill can hear the phone changing hands, and in a moment, his ex-wife is there.

"Bill," she says, "I thought you said those people couldn't find the cat."

"Well, they couldn't," he says. "Why? What was Eliza talking about?"

"The doorbell rang this morning," she says, "and I got up to get it – it was barely light out – and when I opened the door, there was this cat, sitting there with a big red bow around its neck. I opened the door and the darn thing walked right in like she'd been living here all her life. Bill, you should see your daughter. I've never seen her happier. How on earth did you do that?"

Bill Lefkewicz can't convince his ex that he had nothing to do with it. And in the end, he just says, "I used a little magic."

But he knows, deep in his heart, that it wasn't him at all, that it wasn't any earthly being. Bill Lefkewicz sits in the quiet of his little home in the woods, and smiles, knowing it was nothing more and nothing less than the true spirit of Christmas.