17
Jasmine was overcome with excitement on Christmas morning. It was Evie’s first Christmas in the presence of a child, and she found the little girl’s pleasure infectious. Jasmine cried out with delight when she opened a box to find a grinning Shirley Temple doll inside. Even Douglas managed to crack a smile, and was willingly drawn, once the Christmas dinner had been consumed, into assisting his daughter in the construction of a Bayko suburban house, with its own garage made of bakelite bricks held together by steel rods.
From time to time, Evie glanced at her finger where the ring Douglas had given her sparkled. She watched her husband playing with their daughter, and contentment suffused her. It had been a long and difficult road but she believed that at last she had arrived. She was
