As Grandma and I get out of our rental car and walk through the ankle-deep snow up to the front porch, memories replay in my mind of my first trip here. Gram had watched for our arrival from the window and stepped out onto the porch as soon as the car stopped in front of the house. She had hugged first Harm, of course, and then Mac, immediately telling her that she was 'Gram' around here and wasn't to be called Mrs. Rabb. By the time I had stepped into Gram's embrace, she didn't have to tell me not to call her Mrs. Rabb. It had never even occurred to me to call her anything but Gram. And every other time I came to visit after that, Gram was always standing on the front porch to greet us.

But this time, there's no Gram and my heart breaks. I remember the Christmas card that we received just two days ago – the day after we were informed of Gram's death – telling Grandma and me that she was looking forward to seeing us at the farm for Christmas as usual. Tears spring to my eyes at the thought that this year, instead of coming to the farm for Christmas, we're coming for Gram's funeral.

Grandma puts her arm around my shoulder and pulls me against her. "It'll be alright, Chloe," she says and I try to smile for her. But it's so hard.

"I wish it would be, Grandma," I say, blinking back the tears. "It's just. . . ."

"This place doesn't seem the same without her," Grandma finishes for me. Grandma and Gram became very friendly during the wedding and have kept up their contact every since. Both being farm women, they have a lot in common.

I nod as the front door opens and a familiar figure steps out onto the porch, rubbing her arms against the cold. "Martha, Chloe," Trish says, smiling sadly as we climb the steps, "it was good of you to come."

"We wouldn't be anywhere else," Grandma says as she and Trish hug. "How are you doing, Trish?"

"I thought I was surviving until we arrived here last night," she replies. "Every time I turn around, I expect to see her standing behind me with a smile and a warm hug." As they pull apart, Trish turns to me and pulls me into her arms.

"I'm sorry, Trish," I say as she holds me tight. "We all loved Gram and miss her."

We're both brushing tears from our cheeks as we pull away. "Gram would be the first to tell us that everything will be better eventually," Trish points out as she opens the door. She and Grandma step into the house. I hesitate, closing my eyes for a brief moment, before following them into the house.

Trish takes our coats and we step into the living room. I'm immediately struck by how. . . .I don't know. The only word I can think of to describe it is eerie. The house has never been this quiet in all the times I've been here.

But it's not quiet for long. I hear footsteps on the stairs that can only belong to two people and I'm shortly ambushed by two of my favorite people in the world. "Aunt Chloe! Aunt Chloe!" Matt and Sarah both cry excitedly as they jostle each other, both trying to wrap their arms around my waist. They're both wearing coats and mittens and look like they're headed outside.

Normally, I would laugh at their antics, but right now all I can manage is a weak smile. I kneel down and pull them both into my arms. "Hi, Sarah, Matt," I say. I really can't think of what else to say.

Matt and Sarah pull back and they both look at me seriously, a little more seriously than most four-year-olds would. Sarah finally asks me after a long moment, "Are you sad because Gram went to Heaven, Aunt Chloe?" she asks.

I nod as I reply to the innocent question, "Yes, I'm sad. I miss Gram."

"Mommy says Gram's an angel watching over us," Matt chimes in.

"Where is Mommy?" I ask. I'd expected Mac, if not to meet us at the door, then to come greet us after we came into the house.

"Mommy's not feeling well," Sarah says and I look up at Trish, concerned.

"Mac's taking a nap," she explains, but I sense there's something more there. "Mom's death hit her hard and she's just worn out from everything that's been going on."

It doesn't surprise me that Gram's death would hit Mac hard. I know what kind of childhood Mac had and how starved for love she was before she met first Harm and then the rest of his family. I know because that was me before I met Mac. I gained a family not only in her and eventually the rest of her extended family, but she helped me find my real family, too. As I stand, taking Matt and Sarah by the hand, I ask, "What about Harm? Where is he? How is he doing?"

Trish sighs, which really tells me all I need to know about how Harm is doing. "He's. . . .well, he's keeping a lot inside," she replies sadly, clearly concerned about his reaction. Grandma reaches out and squeezes her hand sympathetically. She then shakes her head and asks, "Would you two like anything to eat? I can't imagine you had much to eat on the flight."

"Lead the way," I say with forced enthusiasm as Grandma laughs, also a bit forced.

"My granddaughter, turn down food?" she teases. "But you're right, Trish. Airlines don't provide enough food to satisfy a small animal, let alone humans."

"Well, come on then," she says as we head towards the kitchen in the back of the house. "Deanne's fixing lunch with Lisa in the kitchen."

"Who's Lisa?" I ask. Beallsville is a tiny town – population just over 500 - and I don't recall meeting anyone named Lisa in all the times I've been here. And I think I've met just about everyone in town. Small towns are like that, especially when one of your favorite people is the unofficial grandmother of the town. I think Gram has at least a decade on the next oldest person in town.

"Uncle Sergei's girl," Sarah says excitedly. Trish shoots her one of those looks, like the ones Mac used to shoot me when I would tease her about Harm. Kids. What can you expect from them? Then again, as I said, that used to be me. Mac would probably tell you that still is me.

I'm intrigued as Trish explains further, "Lisa is a Marine at Quantico that Sergei has been seeing. She drove him to Washington after he got the call about Mom and managed to get leave so she could stay with him during this time."

Must be serious. That sounds exactly like something Harm and Mac would have done for each other – actually, have done if you count their first trip to Russia. This would normally be the kind of thing that I would be teasing Sergei about until he was ready to strangle me – just like I used to tease Mac about her feelings for Harm. I can't wait to meet her.

The funny thing is that Sergei Rabb was my first crush. I used to joke with Mac on the phone, before any of us knew about Sergei, that too bad Harm didn't have a brother. I thought it would be so cool, two sisters and two brothers. Not to mention the fact that any brother of Harmon Rabb just *had* to be something special. Then I met Sergei for the first time, that first Christmas after Harm and Mac were married, and I was in seventh heaven! He had the killer Rabb eyes, the killer Rabb smile and best of all he was only five years older than me. I figured I could wait a few years, grow up and then I could have the man of my dreams.

Sergei, however, treated me like a kid sister and it frustrated me to no end. Couldn't this guy see how much he meant to me? Of course, I was forgetting at the time that I was talking about the kid brother of Mr. Clueless. That first Christmas, I followed him around everywhere. Then again, everyone stuck pretty close to Sergei, making sure he felt welcome in the US and in the family. But I admit that I had ulterior motives. I wanted Sergei to notice me as a woman – well, as much of a woman as a thirteen-year-old could be.

Gram and Mac both noticed, but Gram was the first to say anything. One day, everyone was going somewhere – I don't remember where anymore – but Gram was staying behind to work on Christmas baking and she invited me to stay with her. I had really wanted to go with everyone else since Sergei was going, but she talked me into staying. I guess at thirteen, there were just some things that came out on top over first loves and food was one of them.

As we had rolled dough, Gram told me about her first crush. He was the oldest son of Beallsville's doctor and the older brother of a classmate of hers. She had followed him around one summer and had been devastated that fall when he got married. But eventually she got over it and found a new love. The classmate – whose older brother had so devastated her – had a best friend who was a year older than Gram whom she knew slightly from school. Most people around town thought this boy was a little strange. He wanted to follow his father, who had served during World War I, into the military. But that wasn't the strange part. The part people thought was strange was that after Charles Lindbergh's flight in '27, he wanted nothing more than to become a pilot. Boys from Beallsville, Pennsylvania just didn't become the next Charles Lindbergh, not back in the 1930s anyway.

But fly is exactly what this boy did. He joined the Navy, earned his wings in a Stearman bi-plane, and flew over Europe during World War II, eventually being shot down in 1942, leaving behind a wife and two-year-old son. As Gram told me, first crushes are nice, but they seldom develop into anything more and there's usually something better waiting just around the corner. Then I teased her, asking how she hadn't managed to notice David Rabb before, especially if he looked anything like his grandsons do, which I know from pictures I've seen that he does. Gram said sometimes people just fail to notice what's right in front of them, but that if she hadn't developed a crush on the doctor's son and been following him around, she might have missed noticing the younger brother and his best friend.

Of course, I haven't found anything waiting for me around the corner yet, but I did get over my crush and Sergei is now one of my best friends. Both he and Harm are the brothers I never had. I talked him into trying to teach me Russian – impressing his mother the first time she came to the US to visit when I greeted her in halfway decent Russian – lessons that I kept up with the help of a teacher at my school who had spent a year over there during college. Now, to keep up, Sergei often makes me write or talk to him in Russian and I have to admit it's been cool. Don't know if I'll ever really get to use it besides with Sergei or Mac, but I enjoy knowing another language – especially if I want to say something and don't want others to know what I just said.

And, of course, being like a big brother, Sergei tends to be skeptical of boys that I show an interest in. And he's not the only one. The summer I was fifteen Grandma invited everyone up to Vermont for a week at the Fourth of July. My grandfather had died a few months earlier and she was lonely. There was this boy that I was seeing that summer and one day we got home about fifteen minutes later than we were supposed to for perfectly innocent reasons. And we ran right smack into Sergei and Harm waiting up for us. After they both managed to thoroughly intimidate Kevin and scare him off with their version of twenty questions, which ran to more like fifty, I was so mad at them. Here was this boy I liked a lot and I'd be lucky if he ever spoke to me again after that reception.

After I spent about fifteen minutes railing at both of them, Gram came to see what all the commotion was about, her room being just down the hall from the living room. She let me speak first and I poured out the entire story, practically stomping my foot on the hardwood floor I was so angry. And she didn't even give Harm and Sergei the chance to defend themselves. She just looked at Harm – sucks being the oldest, doesn't it? – and proceeded to mention just about every time she or his parents had caught him sneaking around with some girl when he was a teenager and in quite vivid detail. She didn't have any similar stories about Sergei since he was an adult when they met, although she looked up at the clock, calculated the time in Svischevo and threatened to call his mother for any stories she could use against him.

They had identical expressions of horror on their face and I was practically rolling on the floor laughing, it was so funny. I forgot that I was even mad at them. Then Mac came downstairs, wanting to know why her husband wasn't in bed with her and Gram proceeded to tell her exactly why. Right before she dragged Harm upstairs, she told Gram that any time she wanted to tell any more of those stories of Harm's teenage years, she would have a captive audience in Mac. Harm shot both Mac and Gram the dirtiest look and Sergei spent the rest of the week afraid that he was going to find Gram on the phone with his mother in Russia.

Remembering Gram like that, I've got a smile on my face by the time we enter the kitchen, the twins having lost interest in me and run outside where Amanda Keeter and some of the local kids are building snow forts under the supervision of Amanda's parents. Deanne turns when she hears us enter and immediately envelopes me in a warm hug, but I'm paying attention to the petite redhead with her. She doesn't look like much, but if she's a Marine, she could probably kick just about any man's butt around the block before they even realize what's happening.

"Chloe, this is Lisa Stafford, Sergei's girlfriend," Deanne introduces us. "Lisa, this is Chloe Anderson and her grandmother Martha."

Just as I'm about to step towards Lisa to shake her hand, Trish leans forward and whispers so only I can hear her, "Behave." I turn around and give her my best 'Who, me?' look before turning back to Lisa.

"It's nice to meet you, Chloe," she says. "Sergei talks a lot about you. After your last e-mail, he was wondering if you broke up with your boyfriend after that fight."

I forgot. God, tell a guy you had a little fight with your boyfriend and he thinks he isn't good enough for you and should be dropped like a hot potato. "Not that it's any of Sergei's business," I begin, just as Harm and Sergei come in the back door wearing snow-covered boots. Trish shoots them a look and they sigh, but take their boots off and leave them by the door before coming all the way in. I continue, "but I happen to like my boyfriend."

Normally, that would be the kind of remark that would bring some kind of retort from Sergei, but his attention is entirely focused on Lisa. Boy, has he got it bad. Being the perverse person that I am, I start singing just loud enough for everyone to hear, "Sergei and Lisa, sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G. . . ."

Trish, Deanne and Grandma are all shaking their heads and Harm looks so amused, probably remembering past experiences with me. Sergei looks exasperated while Lisa is trying not to laugh. "Sergei said you were a handful," she says, not sounding upset. Lisa might be okay after all.

"A girl needs to keep herself amused and this family provides plenty of amusement," I proclaim. Deciding I will be nice and let Sergei off the hook for now, I change tactics. "Actually, I've got this very funny story about the first time I met Harm." Harm is smiling, probably because this story isn't anywhere near as embarrassing to him as it is to Mac. And since Mac isn't here to stop me. . . .

"I went by JAG right before Christmas," I begin, finding a captive audience. I was sure I had told this story before, but I guess not judging from the reactions I'm getting. "I was eleven at the time. Mac introduced me to Bud and Harriet, then Harm stepped out of his office. Mac was about to introduce us, but I stopped her and said to Harm, 'Mac's told me all about you. In fact you're all she talks about. . . .although sometimes it's hard to tell what parts are true and what parts are just, well, you know, her fantasies'."

Everyone starts laughing just as a potholder goes flying by my head. I don't even have to turn around to know who threw it. "Nice of you to join us, sleepyhead," I say without turning around as Mac wraps her arms around me from behind and squeezes. Actually, the flying potholder reminds me of something. "I was trying to remember if I'd ever told that story before and I just remembered that I have told that story – to Gram. You threw a potholder at me that time, too."

"And you got such a big kick out of telling her," Mac accuses. I just grin at everyone.

"Of course I did," I reply, as if it were obvious. "But I got an even bigger kick out of Gram threatening to knock some sense into both of you – you for telling me and not Harm about your fantasies and Harm for not saying anything when I made that little announcement. Of course, you two got back in Gram's good graces the next day with the baby announcement."

"Is that where you all walked in while they were reading the results of a pregnancy test?" Lisa asks, intrigued. I'd be intrigued too if I were hearing some of the stories about this family for the first time.

"Oh, so you already heard that story," I say with a grin. "I know lots more good stories about this family, including a few about Sergei. . . ." Sergei's looking up at the ceiling rolling his eyes at this.

Before I can say more, Mac interrupts, "You'll have to forgive my sister, Lisa. We'd love to ship her off to a hospital somewhere. . . ."

"But no hospital would have her," Harm finishes. I see Trish and Deanne both smiling, but something tells me, given Trish's concern about Harm's emotional state earlier and her comments about how Gram's death hit Mac so hard, that it is more about the fact that Harm and Mac seem to be relaxed and less what they just said.

That's my way of coping, keeping my spirits up by cracking jokes and teasing everyone. And if I close my eyes, I can imagine Gram standing here with us, having the time of her life listening to me do it.

+++

Matt: