CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Amelia
I sat in my room, heart too sore for tears. Looking at my pale, scared face in the mirror, I took a deep breath.
I had just come back in from outside, cold and tired and miserable. The kids were tense. I had hoped to calm them down, but now things had gone wrong.
“Come on, Amelia,” I said under my breath. “You have to go and fix things.”
Poor Josh. We had been playing catch out in the yard—him, Cayley, and me. It was a freak accident that he had thrown the ball over my head. Instead of me being able to intercept it, the thing went through the window of the Peterson’s home.
I knew the Petersons a little from my last visit: they were nice people and would probably understand. Josh was a thoughtful child and would never have done it on purpose. Now he was terrified. His chief fear was that his daddy would find out what he had done.
His daddy is stressed at the moment because of Carson.
That was why I had promised to go myself and talk to Mr. and Mrs. Peterson. Josh was terrified. It was hard to imagine my brother Brett causing such fear in anyone. It wasn’t that the kids were scared of him. They just didn’t want to upset him more than he already was.
With that instinct for anger that kids tend to have, they were both aware of the tensions boiling in both their parents. So was I. Ever since Carson had passed out my brother and his wife had been tense. They were both extremely calm and capable dealing with the matter, but afterward the tension had set in. They tiptoed about the house quietly, as if to expect that Carson was going to break forth from his room and wreck things if he woke up. I sighed. Strangely, I felt impatient about it.
He’s drunk. He’s not some kind of monster.
I couldn’t be angry. In fact, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except I was so sad. I felt Carson had let himself down and that he had, somehow, let me down too. It wasn’t so much that I felt shame about how he had behaved, but because it highlighted to me how absolutely unsuited we were. I was starting to believe the fact that he was unsuited to me.
I sighed. Come on, Amelia. You’re wasting time. You should go and sort things out.
I ran a comb through my hair, fixed my makeup, and headed downstairs to face Mr. Peterson. As I trudged down the path, the sky already dark above me, I realized I wanted to cry. The previous day’s elation and today’s misery combined in a way that was overwhelming me. I couldn’t bear it anymore.
“Carson?” I moaned. Partly, I wanted to slap him, partly, I wished I could run up and embrace him, kiss him, make love as we had the day before and tell him how much he meant to me. He was infuriatingly wonderful and wonderfully infuriating.
I reached the neighbor’s door and, sniffing, knocked on it. “Mr. Peterson?”
Mrs. Peterson, a kindly old lady, answered. “Hello?” she said, frowning uncertainly.
“Uh…” I paused, licking my lips nervously. “I came from next door. I just wanted to apologize for the window. I’m so, so sorry.” I chuckled, self-consciously. “If there’s anything I can do to make it better, please tell me.”
Mrs. Peterson frowned. “But, dear, you’ve already fixed things.”
“What?” I frowned.
“Yeah,” Mr. Peterson said, appearing from another room, smiling down at me with a bemused expression. “Your friend came and paid for the window already.”
“It was so kind of him,” Mrs. Peterson said warmly.
“Um…sorry?” I said, smiling. “Who did?”
Mr. and Mrs. Peterson looked at each other, worried frowns on their faces.
“Your friend, dear,” Mrs. Peterson said. “The tall man with the black hair. Very handsome, if I might say so.”
“Military man,” Mr. Peterson said, nodding firmly. “You can spot them anywhere.”
I stared at them. Something in my heart melted. “Carson?” I whispered under my breath.
“Yes. That’s right, dear,” Mrs. Peterson said warmly. “Now you come in from the cold and get warm. Would you like some cocoa?”
“Thank you,” I said, blinking back sudden tears. “But no. It’s okay. I should go back.”
“Happy Christmas, dear,” Mrs. Peterson said gently.
“Yes! Happy Christmas!” Her husband called.
“Th—thank you,” I stuttered. “Same to you too.”
I turned on the doorstep and headed, blindly, into the gathering night. My heart was pounding, my head confused.
Carson Grant paid for the window? What? How?
He was blind drunk, sleeping it off upstairs in the bedroom. How could he possibly have known about, thought of, and paid for, the missing window?
“There’s something very weird going on here.”
Either Mr. and Mrs. Peterson were having a mass-hallucination or Carson was deliberately overdoing how drunk he was.
But why? It made no sense.
Why would Carson make a fool of himself, upset his hosts, and ruin things for the kids? He wasn’t a cruel man. Why would he have done something like this?
I don’t understand.
I reached the back door and collapsed over the threshold, shivering, my face aching with cold. I blew onto my fingers, glad of my thick leather gloves, and stamped to let my feet get their feeling.
I looked up and found myself staring into two small hazel eyes. Josh was crouched on the staircase, fearful, face wet.
“It’s okay,” I said, giving him a thumbs-up sign.
His face relaxed suddenly, his whole posture changing with relief. “Really? Oh, auntie!”
I smiled and held him close to my chest, kissing his hair.
“Yes,” I said into the soft, fluffy locks. “It’s okay. I think there’s some Christmas magic at work here.”
Quite what the Christmas magic was, I had no idea. I still hadn’t figured out what Carson was up to. But at least, on that landing, with Josh’s arms clinging round my shoulders, all was well in the world.
I lifted him up and carried him to where he and Cayley were sleeping in the study. Set him on his bed.
“Now. Are we going to play hide-and-seek before dinner, or what?”
He smiled up at me, eyes bright again.
“Yes!”
“Let’s go and find Cayley,” I said.
“She’s up there already,” Josh explained. “She always goes there when she’s worried about something. She says it’s her special worry-solving place.”
“Oh. Good,” I said. “Maybe it works. We don’t need to worry for the window anymore, after all.”
“No!” Josh said brightly. “Thanks, auntie.”
I smiled and stroked his head. “Okay, I said. “Come on, guys! Hide quickly, because on the count of ten, the big, bad wolf comes to get you! One…”
I closed my eyes, listening to the fidgeting and squealing as the two kids ran about the attic space. I breathed in dust and sweetness and felt my throat close with tears.
Why was Carson doing this? And what was he doing it for?
I knew he was fond of the kids, but somehow it seemed there was a second motive. It felt almost as if he had done it to help me. To reach out to me. I sighed.
Come on, Amelia. You know how unlikely that is. The poor guy is so messed up he can’t really care about himself, never mind you.
That, as far as I could see, was the truth. However upsetting, I had to be glad I had seen his current struggle before I chose to get involved more. His pain and challenges were way over my head, and he wouldn’t have any room for me in his life—not for the next decade or so, anyhow.
But if he was so lost, so unable to reach out, why did he reach out to Josh? And was it a way of making peace with me? I couldn’t guess. All I could hope was that, for Christmas day, it would all sort out.
I noticed the silence surrounding me and realized I was supposed to be playing hide-and-seek.
“Okay, you two! Ready or not, here comes the wolf!”
As I stomped about the attic, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen Josh by now, my heart ached. All I wanted for Christmas was to stop feeling so confused and to feel at peace in my heart again.