All her life, Deb had celebrated Christmas the same way. The week before Christmas Day, every day: baking. When she was young, she’d helped her mother, standing on a kitchen chair when she was too small to reach the counter, then helping more when she was old enough to stand at her side. Cookies, pies, cakes, candies, every day. They’d box them up in pretty packages—plain boxes wrapped with brown paper and twine, but garnished with pine sprigs or paper snowflakes Deb had made—and pile them into her mom’s old Ford LTD station wagon for delivery to all their neighbors and friends and the folks they did business with.
After her mother died, Deb had kept up that tradition, baking all the same treats, the things that people talked about for months afterward: Chocolate Snowballs. Apple Thumbprints. Windowpane cookies. Gingerbread angels. Pecan tartlets. Pumpkin bread. Zucchini bread. She’d added her own fancy preserves and fancied up the wrapping a bit, but she kept her mother’s tradition.
Two days before Christmas, always two days before Christmas, her father would haul in a big pine tree. When they kids were young, he’d take Max and Martin out and they’d hunt down a tree on their own property. In the past few years, when he was older, he’d hunted it down at the Grant town tree lot, and then the Wheaton Baptist lot. He’d favored silvertips: tall and scrawny, with lots of room for tinsel to dangle. He’d put a Mahalia Jackson Christmas album on his old console stereo, set up the tree and string the lights, then sit on the sofa and watch his kids decorate.
The tree had stood in the exact same place every year: in the corner between the fireplace and the front window.
Christmas Eve was for church. That night, when there were children young enough to believe in Santa, her parents waited for them to finish their hot chocolate and settle down to sleep. In the deep of the night, they’d stuffed the bottom of the tree with gifts. When Deb and her brothers were too old for Santa, they’d put their presents for each other and their parents under the tree before bed, but their parents had always waited until the house was dark and quiet to add theirs to the pile.
There’d never been a mountain of gifts; her family had always been secure, but never more than that. But there had been several practical gifts for each of them, and always at least one thing they’d pined for.
Christmas Day was like most people’s: presents and a big meal, a day spent with family, no matter how small. Max had always been with them, except for his years in the Army. The past couple of years, Leah had joined them, too.
Those traditions had held all of Deb’s life. They’d survived her mother and brother’s deaths. They’d survived Max’s time in the service and his life with the Bulls. Every Christmas of her life, even when it had been only her and her father home on Christmas Eve, he’d waited until she’d gone to bed to add his gifts under the tree.
But they hadn’t, they couldn’t, survive her father’s death or the loss of their home. There was nothing left even to honor her father by carrying on. All of their traditions, all of the things that had been and made those traditions—the robin’s-egg blue china, her mother’s cookware and bakeware, their ornaments and strands of lights, the Mahalia Jackson albums—everything was gone.
“Deb? Hey.” Standing at her back, Simon reached around her and turned off the faucet. He brushed her hair back and cupped her face, turning her head toward his. “Where’d you go?”
She’d washed up the dishes from the afternoon’s baking. They’d been invited to Delaney and Mo’s house for Christmas, and Mo had asked her to bring some of her ‘lovely, festive cookies.’ Working in Simon’s narrow, poorly supplied kitchen had been a challenge, but she’d gotten a few batches made.
The last thing she remembered, she’d been rinsing the suds from the sink. She must have gotten trapped in her thoughts as she’d watched the bubbles swirl down the drain.
“Hey,” he said again. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and turned around. Sometimes, Simon gave her a look so probing she felt like a psychology exhibit: ‘The American Woman after Grief and Trauma.’ She pulled his head down and kissed him, if only to get out of range of those intense eyes. “I’m okay. Just thinking…just thinking about how Christmas used to be.” If she tried to deflect, he’d find other ways to dig in; it was easier just to tell him.
It also helped to tell him what was on her mind. His instincts about what to say and do were laser sharp—he didn’t try to fix anything unless she asked him to, he always asked if there was anything he could do, and he took her at her word. He never spouted the empty bullshit platitudes that people usually said. He just let her be, and let her know he was there. He could be trusted not to make things worse. So she was straight with him.
“Anything I can do?” he asked, brushing his beard over her cheek.
She rested in his embrace and felt the bittersweet memories ease back. “You’re doing it.”
~oOo~
On Christmas morning, Deb woke to the aroma of coffee and bacon, and for a brief moment, she thought she was in her bed at home, waking to her father making Saturday breakfast. She rolled to her back and stretched luxuriously.
Then she remembered.
It had been weeks since she’d woken with that moment of forgetfulness. She fucking hated it. Hated the way reality came down on her chest like an anvil.
Her first Christmas without her father.
But it was also her first Christmas with Simon. And it was the end of this harrowing year.
In another week, a new year would start. Deb had set New Year’s Day as the limit of her period of limbo.
She thought of her life in phases, from one major, life-breaking event to the next. September 1963, her birth, to September 1983, her mother and brother’s deaths, was Phase One. September 1983 to June 1998, her father’s death and the fire, was Phase Two. June to December 1998 had been…nothing. She’d allowed herself this sabbatical from life, but it was time for it to be over. January 1999 would begin Phase Three. It was time to stand up.
These last weeks, this holiday season, however, had tried her to the limit. The bright, crystalline lights of Christmas cheer everywhere threw her loss into harsh relief and made the shadows behind it seem black and endless.
But Simon was in the kitchen, making her breakfast. He was a fair cook, bachelor-style, but since she’d lived with him, she’d taken over the household work if for no other reason than to give herself something to do. Something comforting and familiar. The last person to make her breakfast had been her father.
No. She scrubbed her hands over her face and erased the melancholy from her thoughts. Today was Christmas, her first Christmas with Simon, and this was a day to make new memories. Maybe new traditions, too. She tossed back the covers and got out of bed.
After she pulled on sweatpants and one of Simon’s t-shirts, she dug into the closet and rooted around for a bag she’d tucked behind an old hiking pack he had. From the bag, she lifted out the gift she’d wrapped the day before, while he’d been at work.
It wasn’t a large package, but it was heavy, and, she thought, precious, so she carried it to the kitchen in both hands.
Simon stood at the counter, pouring coffee into two mugs. He smiled when she came in. “Morning, baby. Merry Christmas. I was going to come in and wake you sexy.”
A sexy wake-up might have prevented that nasty disorientation. Oh well. “Merry Christmas. Thanks for making breakfast.”
He noticed the package. “What d’you got there?”
“This old thing?” She smiled and walked past him to the little table in the corner. He’d set it, with matched plates and silverware, and there was a tiny Christmas tree, a live baby tree, in a six-inch pot wrapped in shiny red paper. Silky little balls, of red and silver glitter, the size of gumballs, hung from delicate branches. That hadn’t been there last night.
They’d put up no tree; he had no Christmas decorations, and she’d had no stomach for the endeavor. But that tiny tree, poised in a sunbeam and glittering at her, was about the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Oh my God. Where’d you get this?”
He came up and stood behind her. “At the market yesterday. It’s not much, but I was thinking…it’s alive. Maybe we could plant it at the farm?”
Oh shit. A fit of weeping landed on her so quickly, she doubled over. She set his gift down before she lost it completely. Leaning on the table, her hands planted on either side of the package she’d wrapped with such care, Deb sobbed.
He didn’t panic. He’d told her once that he hated women’s tears, but he handled hers well, knowing just what to do. She’d never been all that quick to tears, until the past few months, when she never knew when they’d nail her.
Maybe he’d simply gotten used to her bawling at the slightest provocation.
His hand caressed her back—long, loving strokes from her neck to her waist and back up—and he simply stood with her until the tears had run their course.
“Sorry,” she sniffed, getting herself together.
“Good tears or bad tears?”
“Both. I woke up thinking about my dad, so I guess I needed to get that out. But this tree—you rock my world. It couldn’t be more perfect. Planting it at the farm? It’s like our first tradition. The first step forward.”
He kissed her shoulder, then reached around and set a box beside the package she’d wrapped. A small, red velvet cube. “Here’s the second.”
“Jesus Christ, Simon.”
“You don’t want it?”
They were already living together, building a home together. Making a life. It made complete sense that this would be the next step. But she’d been focused so hard on the past, treading water in this limbo place, that she hadn’t even thought of this part.
She picked up the box. Her hand trembling, she hinged it open. A diamond solitaire in a white gold setting. Simple and classic and perfect. “Jesus Christ.”
He folded his arms around her and murmured in her ear. “I love you, Debra. What’s happened between us, I wasn’t looking for it. I was trying hard to avoid it. You were, too. Shit’s been really bad since we got together, but in the heart of all that chaos, we were steady. I hope there’s no more chaos, ever. But even if there is, I want to be standing in the heart of it with you. So I’m asking you to wear my ring and keep my flame. Marry me.”
She plucked the beautiful ring from its satin bed. Simon took it from her and slid it on her finger.
“That’s a yes, then?”
“God, yes. I love you.”
He turned her around and kissed her, and Deb felt the weight of her loss reduce by a few more ounces.
When he had her breathless, he pulled back with a grin. “That package there—that for me?”
She nodded and handed it to him. “Merry Christmas. It’s not a ring.”
Simon laughed. The box was a cube about five inches around and heavy. “That would be a helluva ring.” He tore the wrapping off.
The box was a pale salmon color, with an opalescent finish to the paper, and the antique store’s butterfly logo was imprinted on the top, in silvery gilt. Simon cocked an eyebrow at Deb, but she only smiled. Her eyes were still damp and a bit puffy from her crying jag, but she felt good now. She’d known it was the right gift the second she’d laid eyes on it.
He lifted the lid from the fey box and set it aside. Pearly tissue paper covered the contents, and he pushed it back. Then he stared down into the box.
“It’s a—”
“I know what it is.” Setting the box on the table, he lifted out the heavy hunk of purple glass with both hands, carefully, like he thought it might blow apart if he jostled it. He held it up to the window. The sunlight shone lavender on his face as he peered through the thick glass.
“There’s a little card on the bottom of the box. It’s not a reproduction. It came from the HMS Overcome. It sank off the coast of Nova Scotia. The guy at the shop wanted to tell me all about it, but I stopped him. I thought you’d like to do the research yourself.”
“Yeah, I would. Do you know what a deck prism is?” he asked, still examining the glass in the sunlight. He turned it so the flat side faced the window, and lavender beams refracted to fill the kitchen.
“The dealer explained. That’s how I knew I wanted you to have it. It sat in the deck floor and brought sunlight below. I like the idea of that—something that brings light to dark places.” Her throat clenched, and the next words came out more quietly. “Since what happened, that’s what you’ve been to me.”
He turned from his prism and stared at her, his eyes a riot of emotion. Simon was a levelheaded man. He felt deeply and didn’t shy from his emotions, but they didn’t rule him. She never seen his expression so uncontrolled.
“It’s fucking perfect, hon.” His voice seemed as strangled as hers had been. He set the prism gently on the table. “It couldn’t be more perfect.”
When he kissed her this time, she knew at once that it would be more than just a kiss. She wanted it to be more, too. But as he grabbed her legs and lifted her up, she remembered that he’d cooked for her. “You made breakfast! It’s getting cold!”
“There’s more bacon. I’ll start over later. I need you in bed.”
She laughed and held on. This Christmas was off to a perfect start after all.
~oOo~
At Delaney and Mo’s that evening, after a somber toast to Dane and to Deb’s father, after a huge meal, after a wild roar of good cheer when Simon made her show off her new ring and another roar when Rad announced that Willa was pregnant again, after a giddy round of gifts for the children, and a rowdy and mostly obscene Secret Santa exchange while the little ones napped, the house still teemed with the Bulls’ family and friends. There seemed no end to the frivolity—a celebration of the end of a hard year and the strength of their family.
Deb was tired and frazzled, feeling happy with a side of sad, missing her father but glad to be with Simon and these people he loved. She’d been touched to really see, maybe for the first time, how well they’d known her father and how much a part of their family he and she had always been.
But she needed a moment of quiet. Simon was in the basement, playing pool with his brothers. She sneaked out of the crowded kitchen and went to the front of the room, where the tall, fat Christmas tree twinkled in the dusk.
Leah sat alone on a leather sofa, holding Duncan, Maverick and Jenny’s six-month-old son. The baby slept soundly on her shoulder. Zach, Rad and Willa’s toddler, was asleep as well, leaning against her, his little mouth open. She smiled when Deb came into the room.
“You look in your element,” Deb whispered as she sat in a nearby armchair.
“I love kids,” Leah whispered. “I’m a little jealous of Jenny and Willa. I can’t wait to have my own. Gun’ll be such a good dad.”
Deb nodded. Her brother was wild, and sometimes she really worried about him. He felt every emotion at full power, with no filter. He could be unpredictable, and she’d seen his capacity for violence. But she believed wholeheartedly that he would be a good father someday. He would want it too badly to be anything other than wonderful.
For the very same reason, Deb thought, Max had learned how to be a good partner. Leah calmed him, centered him, and he’d grown in her bright, warm love.
“How about you?” Leah asked, rubbing little Duncan’s back. “You think you and Simon will have kids?”
“I don’t know.” Her biological clock was clanging, technically, but the past year had brought too much turmoil for her to reconsider a years-long certainty that she would never be a mother. “We’ve talked about it, but we’re not ready to make that call.” She was thirty-five, and Simon was almost thirty-nine, so they’d probably need to make the call sooner than later, but she needed to step carefully into this new life. The wounds and sorrows from the old one still ached. “One thing at a time, I guess.”
Leah blushed suddenly; even in the dim room, Deb could see it. “I had an idea that might be dumb. I didn’t talk to Gun about it.”
“What?”
“What if we got married together? A double ceremony thing. Is that dumb?”
“Well, Simon and I are thinking about this summer. I thought you wanted to wait until you finish college.” She was about halfway through her degree. She wanted to be a teacher, like Mo had been.
“I did, but now I don’t. I’ll wait to have a baby, but I want to get married. With you and Simon doing it, too, I thought it’d be fun. Maybe. Like, I don’t know…a family thing. Or is it dumb?”
“Okay, I don’t know how I feel about this.” Max came into the room and sat down beside Leah. He’d jostled Zach, who woke and started to fuss, but Max picked him up and settled him on his lap, and the boy drifted right back off. “Si, I think they’re in here conspiring.”
Deb felt Simon’s hands on her shoulders, giving a little squeeze; he stood behind her chair. “Yep. Who knows what they’re getting up to.”
She smiled up at her man, who grinned down at her. Then she returned her attention to Leah. “I don’t think it’s dumb at all. I think it’s perfect.”