“I know.” Kelli came up behind Jules, wrapping her arms around her and burying her face in her hair. “I know he’s been lonely, though.”
“Marianne going with you?”
Kelli shook her head, making Jules’s head move, too. “He asked me to come by myself.”
Jules turned to her. “What do you think that’s about?”
“No idea.”
Jules scraped the eggs onto the waiting plates. “Will you stay there for dinner?”
“Not sure yet. I’ll call you.”
They ate breakfast, filled travel mugs with coffee, and left at the same time. Two and a half hours later, Kelli pulled into her dad’s driveway in Hagerstown. Before she could knock, Jerry opened the door and pulled her into a hug.
“Hi, Kelli. It’s good to see you.”
She accompanied him inside. “Dad, the house looks good.” She looked around more carefully. “Some of these decorations are new.”
“Come on to the kitchen. I’ve got some gingerbread and tea waiting for you.”
Kelli frowned. “Gingerbread? Since when do you bake?”
He chuckled. “I still don’t. Someone…someone made it and gave it to me.”
Puzzled, Kelli sat while her father cut thick slices of gingerbread and set a mug of tea in front of her. He kept clearing his throat, something he did when he was nervous or didn’t want to talk about something. Kelli spread some butter on her gingerbread, waiting for her father to sit. He joined her with another mug.
For long seconds, he didn’t say anything, just looked at her. “You look so like your mother.”
Kelli set the gingerbread aside and leaned her elbows on the table. “Dad, what’s up?”
“Always straight to the point.” He ran his hand through his hair and cleared his throat again. “I’m not sure how to tell you this.”
Kelli grabbed his arm. “You’re not sick?”
“No, no.” He placed a hand over hers. “Nothing like that. I’ve… I’ve met someone. A really nice lady. Actually, I’ve known her for years. She was married to Walt, down at the hardware store. You remember him.”
Kelli nodded. “He had a heart attack and died a couple of years ago.”
“Yeah.” Jerry stared hard at his tea. “Anyway, Evelyn has been alone since then. And after your mom…well, she started looking in on me, bringing me a homemade meal or a cake every now and again.”
Kelli heard the quaver in his voice and felt the pounding of her own heart as she listened.
“We started going out, you know, to dinner or movies.” Jerry met her eyes. “It was just so lonely, Kelli, coming back to this empty house every evening, walking around, looking for… I don’t know what.”
“Dad, I’m sorry—”
Jerry waved his hand. “It’s not your fault. You and Marianne have your lives and families. I had to find a way to start over without Carol. But I really do like Evelyn. I’d like you and your sister to meet her.”
Kelli sat back. “That’s why you wanted to talk to me alone.”
Jerry shrugged. “You’re the reasonable one. You know what your sister is like.”
Kelli snorted, remembering only too well the hysteria when Marianne found out her husband was cheating on her. “Yeah. I know.”
She frowned. “But isn’t it kind of soon?”
“It’s been ten months, Kelli,” Jerry said quietly. “I know it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, and in some ways it hasn’t, but it’s been ten months of being alone here.”
They sat in silence for a bit, Kelli picking at her gingerbread. She pointed at it. “She made this?”
Jerry nodded.
“It’s good.”
“Kelli, I’d like you to invite Evelyn for Christmas.”
“What?”
“Her kids are scattered and won’t be home. She’ll be alone. I know you’re going to have a full house that day—and we’ll only come for the day.”
Kelli had her mouth open, ready to argue that Christmas was different, a day for family, when Jerry added, “Remember when you asked us to invite Jules?”
Kelli closed her mouth.
“You like her this much?”
Jerry nodded. “I do.”
“Do you…do you love her?”
“I think I might.” His hands tightened around his mug—strong hands that Kelli remembered could fix anything, hands she had watched clench in despair at hearing Carol’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and knowing he couldn’t fix that.
Kelli reached out to him again, squeezed his hand. “I’ll talk to Marianne, and we’ll invite her for Christmas.”
Jerry blinked away sudden tears. “Thank you.”
Jules was just leaving the elementary school when her cell phone rang. She looked at the screen. “Hey, Donna. What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. I, uh, I just wanted to thank you and Kelli for having me over the other week. It was really nice.”
Jules pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it as she got into her car and tossed her briefcase to the passenger seat. This wasn’t like Donna. She put the phone back to her ear. “You’re welcome. I’m glad you came.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” Jules closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I know it hasn’t been the easiest thing for us to stay friends, but… I’ve missed you. I hope we can figure out how to be around each other again and have it be okay.”
There was a long silence.
“I’d like that, too,” Donna said at last.
“So was there a reason you called?”
“Well,” Donna began and then paused. “I was wondering if you or Kelli could get me Toni’s phone number.”
Jules chuckled. “Gonna give her your dry cleaning bill?”
Donna laughed a little. “Something like that.”
“I don’t have it, but I’ll have Kelli give you a call.”
“Thanks. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Catch you later.”
“Bye, Donna.”
Jules hung up and sat staring at the phone, wondering why it felt weird to see Donna interested in someone else. They’d both been involved with other people since their breakup, and Jules had cheered Donna’s split with Elaine—she was never good enough for Donna, but then, neither was I.
She turned the ignition and drove home to find Kelli’s Tahoe in the garage. She deposited her briefcase in the foyer and found Kelli in her studio.
“Hi. I didn’t expect you home so early.”
Kelli didn’t answer immediately, her head bowed over a pot she was painstakingly glazing with a fine brush.
“I had lunch with Dad and came on home.”
Jules sat and waited with both cats pushing for space on her lap.
Kelli finally sat up and swiped her forearm across her nose, her eyes red and swollen. Jules went to kneel beside her.
“What is it? What happened?”
“Nothing really. I’m just being silly.” Kelli looked at Jules. “Dad has found someone. Evelyn. She’s the widow of a man Dad worked with at the hardware store. He really likes her, maybe loves her, and wants us to invite her for Christmas.”
Jules fell onto her butt. “Holy shit.”
“That is exactly what I was thinking, but I didn’t say it.”
“Marianne.”
Kelli scoffed. “Yeah. That’s why he wanted to talk to me alone. I get to tell my sister.”
“Holy shit.” Jules shook her head. “Christmas is two weeks from tomorrow.”
“I know.”
They both sat in silence for a moment.
“Are you going to invite her?”
Kelli gave a tight smile. “He reminded me of when I asked them to invite you.”
Jules dro
pped her forehead onto her hand. “He had you there.”
“Yup.”
Jules released a long breath. “This Christmas just keeps getting better and better.”
Jules refolded Kelli’s new sweater three times before she was satisfied it looked right. She reached for the box to find Holly tucked up inside it.
“Get out of there.”
She shook the box free of cat hair and carefully laid a sheet of tissue paper printed with Christmas trees inside, only to turn and find Mistletoe curled up on the sweater.
“You two are so much help.”
She gathered both cats in her arms and dumped them unceremoniously in the hall, shutting the office door before they could shoot back inside. She got a sticky roller and rolled the cat hair off the sweater as two cat paws reached under the door, trying to rattle it open.
“It’s not going to work.”
It was probably stupid to worry about cat hair. As soon as Kelli wore the sweater and picked up one of the cats, it would be flocked anyhow, but at least it could look new when she opened it.
She taped the box shut and pulled out a length of wrapping paper printed in holly leaves. Try as she might to get the ends neatly folded and taped, her packages always looked as if a ten-year-old had wrapped them. She held the package up, inspecting it.
“Whatever. A bow makes everything better.”
She stuck a large red bow on the box and set it with the others. She had so little time alone in the house that she had to take advantage of the evenings Kelli worked to get her shopping and wrapping done.
The cats had finally given up on the door. She heard the thunder of cat paws running down the hall as they chased each other downstairs. She was reaching for the next thing to be wrapped—an Ohio State University sweatshirt for Ronnie—when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Is this a good time?”
Jules smiled. So like her grandmother. No hello or how are you. Just get down to business. “This is a good time. What’s up?”
Mae sighed. “It’s the girl.”
“Ronnie? What’s going on?”
“We’re not sure. She’s acting up a bit.”
Jules frowned. “Acting up how?”
“Bertha says she’s been snippy and rude lately.”
“That’s not like Ronnie.”
“I know,” Mae said. “She even said something about not coming with us.”
“What?”
“I reminded her she promised to help me with all the driving, so she said she’d come, but she didn’t sound happy about it.”
“She’s probably missing her mother,” Jules said. “She was already thinking about this last summer, what it would be like to spend Christmas away from her mom.”
“Girl’s been through a lot.”
“I know.” Jules fingered the sweatshirt. “When are you coming?”
“We’re planning on leaving here the morning of the twenty-first. Is that okay with you and Kelli? You can put us up for that long?”
Jules smiled. “We both took the whole week off and we have plenty of room. No problems. But we may have more people here on Christmas Day than we had planned on. Just to let you know, it’ll be a houseful.”
Mae was quiet for a moment. “Been a while since I’ve had a houseful. Might be nice.”
“We’ll see you soon.”
“Bye.”
Jules hung the phone up. She knew Ronnie was much better off living next door to Mae with Bertha Fahnestock and getting away from her mom and stepfather, but better off didn’t always equal easy. With a stab of guilt, she realized she hadn’t sent Ronnie an e-mail for a couple of weeks. She flipped open her laptop and dashed off a quick message saying she and Kelli were looking forward to seeing them and wishing her luck with end-of-term exams.
She got back to wrapping and was placing all the wrapped packages under the tree by the time Kelli got home from the hospital.
“Hey.”
Kelli gave her a hug and kiss. “You’ve been busy, I see.”
“Yup. And no shaking or poking.”
Kelli held her hand up. “I promise.” But she peeked over Jules’s shoulder toward the tree. “What’s that big one over there?”
“Never you mind. Go shower. I’ve got the oven heating up for some fresh biscuits with our soup.”
“Wow. Soup and biscuits? I love it when you’re all domestic. Be down in a minute.”
Kelli ran upstairs for her shower—“got to wash the ICU off me,” she always said—and was back downstairs by the time the biscuits were done baking.
Jules ladled soup into two bowls and carried them to the table while Kelli filled two glasses with water.
“Mae called,” Jules said as they sat.
Kelli glanced up as she buttered a biscuit. “Everything okay?”
“Something’s bothering Ronnie, but she won’t talk about it to Bertha.”
“Holidays without her mom?”
Jules nodded. “That’s my guess.”
Kelli reached for Jules’s hand. “We haven’t really talked about this, but how are you this Christmas? It’s the first one since…”
Jules looked down at their intertwined fingers. “A little bittersweet. In some ways, it’s the happiest I can remember being since before Hobie died, but it feels as if he just died this summer, not twenty-four years ago. Now that I can let myself remember him more, it’s been kind of hard.”
Her jaw worked back and forth as she swallowed hard. “Your first without your mom, too.”
Kelli nodded, her eyes bright with tears. “Will it always be like this?”
“Maybe not like this, but it’ll never be the same as it was.”
Jules’s phone pinged.
Pick up a bottle of wine. White.
Why? she texted back to Kelli.
You’ll see.
Oh, that sounded ominous. Surely, Kelli hadn’t invited Elaine and Carrie to the house?
She swung by the grocery store on her way home and picked up a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and then on impulse, another of Riesling. She knew nothing about wine other than color, but knew she preferred the sweet ones. And she had a feeling she might need a whole bottle herself.
When she got home, there was an unfamiliar car in the driveway. When she entered the house, she heard Kelli talking to someone. She dropped her coat on a chair in the foyer.
“Hi, Jules!”
“Toni,” Jules said as she set the bag on the island. “Nice to see you.”
“Thanks. I hope you don’t mind me barging in on you guys for dinner tonight,” Toni said as she peeled an avocado. “But Kelli invited me, and it sounded way better than another night of a microwave dinner for one.”
“So, should I open a bottle?” Jules asked.
Kelli turned from the stove and looked at the two bottles of wine Jules held. “I’ll have Pinot. Toni?”
“Sure. Whatever you’re having.”
The avocado pit popped loose and shot at Jules.
“Sorry. Gosh. I am so sorry.” Toni scrambled to pick up the slippery pit.
Jules looked at Kelli. “White. Not red tonight.”
Kelli grinned. “No stains.”
Toni, who hadn’t heard that little exchange, stood up with the pit in her hand. “Got it. Sorry.”
She tossed the pit in the garbage and turned back to the avocado as Jules poured three glasses of wine—Riesling for herself.
The doorbell rang.
“Get that, will you?” Kelli asked as she flipped the chicken tenderloins sautéing in the pan.
With a puzzled glance back at her, Jules went to the front door.
“Donna.”
“Hi.” Donna stepped inside holding a baking pan and then abruptly stopped at Jules’s expression. “K
elli didn’t tell you I was coming.”
“Um…no, but I just got home. Come on in.”
Jules stepped back and took Donna’s jacket. “They’re in the kitchen.”
Jules hung Donna’s jacket up and followed her into the kitchen in time to see Toni turn to greet Donna, brushing her knife off the cutting board. It landed on its point in the vinyl flooring, the handle quivering.
“Oh, my gosh! I am so sorry, you guys.”
“It’s okay,” Jules said, pulling the knife out of the floor. “Look, not even a mark.” She turned to Kelli with a look. Kelli gave a small smile and an apologetic shrug.
“I brought brownies,” Donna said into the ensuing emptiness.
“I love your brownies,” Kelli said, pouring some kind of sauce over the tenderloins.
Jules did a double take at the flush coloring Donna’s cheeks as she and Toni stared at each other. She handed Donna a glass of wine. “Come on,” she said. “We can set the table.”
A few minutes later, they were all seated.
“So, Toni,” Jules said, “where in the hospital do you work?” No place with sharp instruments, I hope.
“Peds.” Toni glanced up while she spooned some rice onto her plate. “I work with kids.”
“Isn’t it hard, working with sick kids?” Donna asked.
Toni shrugged, but before she could reply, Kelli said, “She’s wonderful with the kids. She sings songs and plays games with them to calm them down before needles and scary stuff.”
Toni blushed. “I always wanted playmates. Now, I have tons of them.”
“You’re an only child?” Jules asked as she passed a basket of rolls.
“Yeah. My dad works for the State Department, so he and my mom have been posted all over the world. I’ve lived in eight different countries. We never really had a home for very long. Just when I was making friends, he’d get posted to a new location and off we’d go.”
Donna snorted. “My mom couldn’t get my dad to go anywhere. She always wanted to travel, but he always had livestock to tend to or a new dog he was training. My poor mom never got to go anywhere. I’ve spent every Christmas of my life in the same house with three brothers and now their families.”
Toni looked up, her expression wistful. “That sounds wonderful. We were hardly ever in the same place for two Christmases together. And we never had family around. Only the other diplomats. And they always had us kids sequestered off by ourselves while they socialized. Always work.”