Lindsey couldn’t believe Christmas was already around the corner. She’s been so busy settling in and adjusting to her new home. That she lost what month it was. Her foster mother took her to a Christmas tree lot and bought a fresh cut fir tree. They took it home and set it up in a home-made tree stand.

Barbara stands back and look at the tree after they decorated it.

“My great, great, great grandfather built that Christmas tree stand a long time ago. It was a gift to his little girl. They had just moved here from Sicily, Italy.” Barbara couldn’t believe her family use to be part of the mafia in the early 50’s. They had been part of the DiGiovanni brother’s family.

Later that day, Barbara had to go and meet a potential client. So, she left Lindsey at home in her bedroom practicing on the Casio. She has seen a major change in Lindsey since she bought the Casio for her. If she wasn’t doing her homework, she practiced the saxophone. When she wasn’t practicing the saxophone, she was playing and composing music on the Casio.

The music she heard coming from Lindsey’s bedroom sounded a little jazzy. She knew Lindsey has been enjoying herself on the synthesizer. She had listened as Lindsey mixed sounds or cords from the synthesizer and the saxophone together.

Lindsey records a few series of cords she did with her saxophone and then added in the cords from the synthesizer. She had to tweak the cords some, but it blended nicely. She listens to what she recorded, and a smile appears on her face. It sounded, like she imagines it would. She takes a break and heads into the kitchen to make a sub for lunch. After she makes her sub, she sits down in the dining room and eat her lunch. So, far things have been going good for her. She’s worried something bad is going to happen soon.

She takes a bite of her sub and just watches the lights on the Christmas tree blink on and off. This will be her first real Christmas with a person who cares about her. After she finishes her lunch. She goes back to her bedroom and record a few more tracks with just her saxophone and synthesizer. By the time she stops to take another break. It was dark outside and her foster mother wasn’t home yet.

Lindsey pulls her cell out and dials her foster mother to make sure everything was okay.

Restaurant:
Barbara was having a nice dinner with a few co-workers when she hears her cellphone ring. She looks at the screen and notices it was Lindsey calling her.

“Hi Lindsey.”

“Hi Barbara, I was calling to see if everything was okay?”

“Everything is fine, Lindsey. I’m here having dinner with a few co-workers. Why don’t you fix yourself some dinner or if you want? I can call any place you like and place an order for you.”

“I’ll fix here Barbara. Just be careful and have fun.”

“I will Lindsey and make sure you, clean-up after yourself. I’ll see you when I get home.”

Lindsey disconnects from Barbara and heads into the kitchen to fix herself some dinner. They had gone grocery shopping two days ago, so there was plenty food to choose from. She grabs the box of Steak-Umm, onions, mushrooms and cheese out of the refrigerator. She makes herself a foot-long Philly Cheese steak sub. She found a recipe on the internet and follows it. The last one she had, she loved. She didn’t care for the ones they had at Subway. Those weren’t real Philly Cheese steaks.

Lindsey cleans up after herself as she sits down and eats her sub. When she is done eating. She heads into the bathroom and takes a nice relaxing soak, while listening to waves crashing against the shore. She had scented candles burning as she closes her eyes and enjoy the warmth of the water and smell of the candles. She never got to enjoy doing this when she was at the boys group home or at a few of her past foster parents.

She closes her eyes and just let herself drift and relax. Let all the emotions she has held back come out and drift on the air. She hears the start of additional tracks of the piece she is working on in her head as she relaxes. She hums the tune as it appears in her head. She grabs her note book she brought her into the bathroom and writes the start of the tune down. She’ll go and play it when she gets out of the tub.
She closes her eyes after writing the notes down and stay in the tub, till the water gets cold. Once she gets out, she slips on her nightgown. She plays around with the notes she heard in her head and see if it sounds better with the Casio or with the saxophone. As she plays the music, it sounded better with the saxophone.

She glances at the clock in her bedroom and it showed it was almost 10:00pm. She wonders how much longer Barbara was going to be? She continues to play with the cords to see if maybe it would better in a different key. By 11:30pm. She hears the front door open. She stops playing and head towards the living room to make sure it was Barbara.

As she peeks in, she notices Barbara kissing some guy as they head towards her bedroom. She heads back towards her bedroom and lock her bedroom door. The last time she stayed with her aunt. There had been a man that stumbled into her bedroom and thought she was her aunt. She wasn’t taking that chance any more. She crawls into bed and falls asleep.

Since she didn’t have school in the morning. She sleeps in and is woken-up with Barbara knocking on her bedroom door. Lindsey stumbles out of bed and walks over to the door and unlocks it.

She sees Barbara standing at her door in her nightgown.

“Good morning sleepy head. Greg and I were talking about going out for breakfast. So, why don’t you get dress and come along with us.”

Barbara could tell Lindsey was still waking up.

“Okay Barbara.” Lindsey shuts her door and check the temperature outside.

She dresses warmly, since the temperature outside was in the low thirties. She follows Barbara to her car, while Greg drives his. They headed to a Golden Corral for breakfast. Lindsey didn’t mind the buffet style breakfast place. She starts off with a fruit bowl and then go back and get scramble eggs, bacon and a lot of sausages.

She finds out that Greg works for the local news company. Him and Barbara had been seeing each other for a while. They were old High school sweet heart. After everyone was done with breakfast. Greg had to go back to his place to get ready for work, while Barbara took her home. Barbara was meeting a couple about a house right around the corner from them.

Once Barbara drops her off. She goes inside to work on her music. She didn’t have any friends to hang around with and with the temperature being like it was. She couldn’t do anything outside. She wasn’t into video games or spending a lot of time on Facebook.

Since she had such a big Breakfast, she decided to skip lunch. She practices the piece they have to play for a concert in Spring. Her music instructor gave it to them to practice over the Christmas holidays. She practices the piece on her Saxophone and on her Casio.
By the time evening comes around. Barbara shows back up and starts dinner for them. She informs Lindsey that Greg won’t be around tonight, but he has invited them for lunch tomorrow. Barbara tells her about the couple buying the house right behind them. How they have a son that will be going to her school after the Christmas holidays. Barbara wants Lindsey to get to know him and make him feel welcome to the neighborhood.