Chapter 20
Caleb
“We could make the gingerbread into the town’s sign and have it say Greetings from Wayward Hollow.”
Lauren brought some sketches for our gingerbread creations, and we are huddled over the counter of my cafe after closing, trying to decide which to pick. And that means she’s trying to decide. I’m pretending to be interested while letting her do her thing and subtly admiring her instead.
Fuck. Her vanilla scent is a sweet tickle in my nostrils, reminding me of cookies and warmth. Does everything about her have to be so irresistible?
“Don’t you think that might be too long? How big are you planning on making these things?” I pinch the bridge of my nose, eyes darting over all the printed-out pictures she has spread across the table. “‘Merry Christmas from Wayward Hollow?’ Those things would have to be bigger than my plates.”
“Hmm, you’re right.” She taps a finger against her lips, and I can’t help but stare at it.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. With her light blonde hair in a loose ponytail, cheeks still red from the cold outside, she looks like… like I want her to be mine.
“I’d love it if we could personalize them. Then again, I’m pretty sure the icing would freeze, or it wouldn’t dry on time. Or my fingers would turn into ice blocks and fall off by the time I pipe the third ‘Merry Christmas.’” She rambles and I nod along, fighting a grin.
“Those are valid concerns,” I say amusingly, earning myself a nudge to the ribs.
“Let’s stick to two shapes,” I say and reach for her sketches, fishing out what I think will work best, “how about stars and hearts? Then we can do two different sentences on each. For example, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, you know, keep it generic.”
“But are people going to buy generic? That’s the question.” She crosses her arms across her chest and purses her lips in a pout. “I need to beat Nic.”
“Listen, we could bake the best gingerbread in the world and decorate it in the most detailed, stunning pattern you’ve ever seen, and I still doubt we’d win against Jensen. This is about keeping face, Lauren.” Her lips purse in a pout.
“Fine. Since you’re against doing dicks-”
“It’s a family-friendly event, Lauren.”
“Shush, I’ll find a way to make losing your fault.” She grins at me.
“We could do some semi-specific ones. Best Friend. Best Brother.” I bring the conversation back to the matter at hand and make a vague gesture towards the pictures. “Something like that.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she says and furiously scribbles the idea down. Then suddenly her shoulders tense, then her head whips to me. Where does that sparkle in her eyes suddenly come from?
“I have an idea.” Her whole face slowly lights up. “Can we do dog-friendly gingerbread?”
“Yeah, no,” I quickly say and shake my head. “This is already going to be enough work and stressful as it is. I’m not adding another recipe.”
“Aww man.” She presses her lips together, pouting. “Okay. It might be for the better. I can already see myself selling dog treats to humans by accident. I’ll put it on the mood board for next year.”
“You do that,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. But secretly, my heart is pounding in my ears, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.
Next year.
That means she’s going to be here next year. And taking part in the Wayward Hollow Christmas Market again. That she’s not leaving.
Suddenly the bell above the entrance door chimes, and my stomach drops, déjà vu gripping my lungs.
I don’t even need to lift my gaze to see who it is. Everybody who lives in Wayward Hollow knows to leave me alone once the sign is turned to closed, even if I’m still here. The only people who occasionally ignore that are not from this town.
Lauren immediately understands what’s going on, tensing and reaching for my hand. All of a sudden, all my strength has seeped out of me. I can’t even lift my head to check which of the two came in.
I’m exhausted.
For twenty-six years, I’ve had time to make peace with the fact that my mother didn’t want me. I’ve worked hard to build myself up. Yet one appearance and the entire wall I’ve spent years building crumbles into itself with a ‘Hi, Honey’ and I’m right back where I was fourteen years ago.
Lauren squeezes my hand, and I force myself to take a deep breath. Breathe, Caleb.
“What do you want?” I ask and finally lift my gaze to meet the same blue eyes of my mother.
“I came to apologize,” she mutters.
Her eyes are red from crying, cheeks flushed from the cold, and she has her arms flung around herself, like they’re the only thing keeping her together.
“Your reaction was blindsiding. Yet eye-opening.” She sniffles and roughly wipes her cheeks. “Ambushing you the way we did wasn’t fair. And an apology is what I should have been leading with all along.”
“Damn right,” I mutter and squeeze Lauren’s hand tighter than a lifeline.
“I want to apologize to you,” she explains, putting her hands in the pockets of her dark blue winter coat.
“And explain. If you’d like that. If you’d prefer me to leave, I will.
” Her eyes are on me, but it’s obvious how much effort it is taking her.
Tears keep welling up in her eyes, and she clears her throat, uncomfortably shifting her weight.
“Maybe I should…” Lauren whispers and points to the kitchen, getting up from her seat. “Give you two a minute?”
“No,” I say quickly, squeezing her hand. A little too tightly, apparently, because she grimaces. Immediately I loosen my hold. “Stay here, please.” My voice is barely louder than a whisper.
“Okay,” she says and sits back down, her thumb drawing calming circles over the back of my hand. “I’ll be right here.”
I take a deep breath.
“I know I failed you,” Emilia says, her voice breaking.
Calling her ‘mom,’ even if only in my head, feels unbelievably wrong.
“Please believe me. Reopening old wounds wasn’t my intention at all.
And forgiveness was never the expectation I came here with.
” She draws a deep breath. “I realize that some things, including what I did—” Her voice breaks, and she needs a second to blink back tears, her lip quivering.
“—cannot be forgiven. But I thought you deserved the chance for answers.”
I glance at Lauren. Her whole body is vibrating, cheeks red, and when I catch her eyes, I almost recoil because she’s fucking pissed.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this angry.
Not even when Nic’s ex demanded a settlement after cheating on her with her sister.
Her jaw is set, her free arm crossed in front of her chest, fingers digging into the fabric of her sweater, and her breaths are pointed, sharp, as if she’s fighting with herself to remain calm.
“Why?” is all I can press out.
Emilia nods, then slowly walks closer to the counter.
“The day I gave birth to you was the happiest day of my life,” she prefaces with a nostalgic smile. “But the time after that… It was hard. I’m sure you did the math at one point.”
Her eyes dart to Lauren, and she quickly explains, “I was seventeen when I had Caleb. James had turned eighteen a only few weeks before he was born.” Emilia’s smile turns tight.
“Our parents abandoned us because I was going through with the pregnancy without getting married. Somehow, we managed. By luck, we got a flat, and we thought we had it all figured out. We had all those grand plans that only na?ve seventeen-year-olds could come up with.” She turns back to me.
“After you were born, we were fish out of water. Your dad spent most of his time at work, pulling 80- to 100-hour weeks to keep a roof over our head, only coming home to sleep. And I was just drowning.” She closes her eyes and takes a shaky breath.
“I barely slept more than three hours at once, because I was afraid you’d stop breathing and there was nobody who could stay with you while I took a nap or shower.
I was a stranger in my own body, watching life happen through a fog, snapped at you and James for the tiniest things, every movement took so much strength. ” She clears her throat.
“It was only you and me, and a mountain of people who were waiting for me to fail. Most of all, me. Now I know what I was going through is called postpartum depression, but back then all I knew was that every time you cried, I felt like the worst mother in the world. Like you might be better off without me.”
She swallows hard, her fingers white as they dig into the edge of the counter, a faraway look in her eyes, telling me how dark the place her brain led her to actually was.
“Those thoughts went away over time as you grew up. And by that, I mean I thought about them less, not that they were gone. They never left. After a while, things were finally changing for the better. Your dad got promoted and finally worked fewer hours, everything was about to turn better. Then, when you were five, I was pregnant again.”
She draws a shaky breath, biting the inside of her cheek, but her tears overflow, running down her cheeks.
“I lost your brother.” She sobs and quickly wipes them away.
“And everything came crashing down on me at once. The voices in my head were louder than ever, telling me I’m the worst mother in the world.
That I killed a child, how could I be trusted with you?
They told me you would be better off without me.
My parents’ voices that called me a failure, that I’d be the worst mother and example for you and suddenly, I believed them.
” She wipes her tears away, but new ones follow. “So I ran.”
Her sobs turn uncontrollable, and my blood turns cold.
It is one thing to imagine all the ways you failed your mother that caused her to abandon you. Hearing it was never your fault to begin with?
I thought I believed it. I really did. Yet, even hearing it from her that the reason wasn’t me at all?
“But why all this time?” I ask, swallowing past the knot of emotions in my throat.
She takes a shaky breath, wringing her hands.
“I was only supposed to be gone for a little while, only enough time that you wouldn’t have to see me struggling with the loss.
Or that’s how I justified leaving. I stayed with a friend, and to her it became apparent that what I was going through was not something I could deal with myself.
She got me into four weeks of impatient care.
Then a residential program that went another three months.
Both helped me deal with losing…” She wipes a tear away with trembling fingers “…
losing your brother. Heather told me I should go back, and please believe me, I wanted to, but I was paralyzed with fear.
“I knew I was hurting you by staying away. And that I would hurt you by coming back, too.” She clears her throat. “But the more I waited, the more I convinced myself that you were fine without me. That you didn’t want to see me anyway. That you’d healed.”
“Well, there are some wounds that never heal,” I say, holding her gaze. “I’m sorry you went through that, for what it’s worth.”
And I am. Truly. If anyone else knows that mental health is not a joke, it’s me. Ironically, thanks to her.
“I called on your tenth birthday,” she whispers.
What?
I stare at her, wide-eyed. “You did?”
She nods. “Before I could even ask for you, your father called me a disgrace and told me to stay away. I thought he was protecting you. Who was I to force my way back into your life?” She shrugs, sadness radiating from her movement. “He confirmed everything I was afraid of, all of my doubts.”
A cold wave washes over me, my clammy hand squishing Lauren’s. I never knew she had tried to call.
“He didn’t do much protecting. Lots of anything with me, really.”
Cold betrayal grips my heart. How could he have kept that a secret from me?
Was he trying to protect me after all? Or was he just angry with her?
“I only questioned it when you turned eighteen and he told me you were gone. Before that, I had no reason to doubt that he did what was best for you. He fought so hard for me, for us.” Dejection makes her crumble into herself, eyes dropping to the ground.
Silence hangs heavy in the room as she searches the ground for her next words.
“I searched for you over the years, but I couldn’t find you. Until Dawn saw your picture in the papers a month back.”
My eyebrows knit together, confused. The papers?
“Oh.” Lauren breathes and when I turn my head to glance at her, she looks downright shocked.
“The autumn fair. You must have been in one of the pictures they took of Nic,” she whispers and I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Right. Nic’s ex called all paparazzi he could to Wayward Hollow for the autumn fair, supposedly to embarrass Nic or something like that.
His plan didn’t work out too well, but the endeavor apparently still made its way into several magazines.
“We are going to be here until the end of next week,” she whispers, snaking her arms around her own waist, probably trying to keep herself together and still not meeting my eyes.
“If you have any more questions, or any more you want to talk about, if you need anything from me, I am at the hotel.” She takes a step back from the counter.
“Don’t worry, I’m keeping Dawn away from you.
I think she got carried away with the idea of having an older brother. I’ll talk to her.”
She turns around, one step towards the door. Two.
“Are you happy?” I can’t help but ask as she lifts her hand to push it open.
She halts, her hand in the air as she thinks about her answer. Slowly, she turns back around. Her eyes jump from Lauren to me as she tries to find the right words.
“Yes,” she finally admits in a whisper. “Yes, I am. I kept going to therapy. Worked my way through school. Found a job and met a wonderful man.” Her face softens, a bittersweet crease appearing between her eyebrows as she glances up at me for a fraction of a second.
“And I had your half-sister. Life has been good to me. Even though I don’t deserve it.
” She takes a deep breath. “And I would love to learn more about yours. If you ever think you’re ready for that. ”
“Okay,” I say. Emotions burn in my throat, making it hard to swallow as she turns back around. This time, she opens the door, and I watch her walk away until she disappears from sight.
Lauren and I stay glued to the spot, silence heavy in the air as I try to make sense of what just happened.
“I don’t know what to say,” Lauren whispers, and I shake my head.
“Nothing,” I say and squeeze her hand. “You don’t need to say anything.” I force myself to take a deep breath. “Now, where were we?”