Episode 956: Carol Of The Bells

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I should come to you with this, ultimately, it hadn’t really been anything and it seems like you’re moving on. Maybe I should just leave.”

“No, wait, is this,” he glanced at the girl at the tree and lowered his voice. “Is this about us, or Hope?”

“Hope. But it isn’t anything really, I just thought it wasn’t right for you to be out of the loop when-”

“Diane,” Paul turned to the other woman. “This is my friend, Lucy. Do you think maybe you could give us a minute to talk. It’s important.”

“Sure, I’ll pop some popcorn for us to string. Nice meeting you, Lucy.”

“Thank you for helping me with my gift shopping, I wouldn’t have gotten it done without you,” Phillip said. He knocked his hot chocolate mug against his granddaughter’s in a cheers gesture. The girl decidedly lacked in the cheers department these days. She had nearly for a year now.

“You would have done fine,” Tansy replied. “You would have hired somebody to do it for you, like you used to.”

“There’s that forthright spirit I enjoy so much,” Phillip said. Unfortunately she still hadn’t been forthright about what troubled her, no matter how hard he’d tried to coax it out of her.

Clearly there was more to it than some girl bullying her at that animal shelter. It had been a long time since she’d volunteered there. If only she’d confide in him. He didn’t like the idea of hiring someone to look into the matter, and he knew she definitely wouldn’t like that if she found out. But how else could he help?

Caroline wanted to open her gift from Jesse until she was alone, well, with her little sister, in her room. Her boyfriend understood they were friends. It was just that Jesse had brought over his gift at the same time her boyfriend had brought his. She hadn’t wanted any awkwardness, for them to start doing some dumb boy thing, like comparing her reaction to each gift. She was determined to do everything in her power not to let this friendship turn into unnecessary drama.

Episode 957: A Marshmallow World