Chapter 15
fifteen
RACHEL
“Mommy!” Aiden said as he shook her arm. “Wake up—Santa came!”
“What time is it?” she asked as she pried her puffy eyes open and grabbed her phone. 6:13. It could’ve been so much worse. “Okay, buddy, I’m getting up. Are Jack and Noelle awake?”
“Yep! I went in and sat on their air mattress before I came in here. It bounced them so much that Noelle nearly fell off her side.”
They probably loved that. She rolled out of bed and put on her slippers and bathrobe and headed into the living room. Jack and Noelle were looking as bleary-eyed as she felt, but they wore smiles on their faces.
Last night, after she’d left the Allreds’ house, gotten Aiden to bed, made sure Jack and Noelle had everything they needed, and put Christmas presents out, she headed into her room to work on her Monthly Plan. Normally, she would have next year’s Yearly Plan done by now, but she couldn’t face it yet. The Monthly Plan, though—that, she could do.
She’d gotten the rest of December and all of January planned out. All the appointments in, reminders to do everything, and scheduling when she was going to spend time working on the goals she had for the month. As she’d worked, she’d heard the buzz of Jack and Noelle talking through the wall that she shared with the living room. It was nice. But it also made her long for someone to talk the night away with.
But she had a plan, and she stayed focused on it. Even when the buzz of talking quieted and the hour got later and later. It had felt like it was worth it, though, because she got everything in her planner all nice and neat and exactly how she liked it. Scheduled. Predictable. Deliberate.
The plan had gotten to be such a mess since Nick had stepped into her life. She’d fixed most of December’s a few days ago, but it still needed help. So did the entirety of January. Scheduling everything always made her feel better, and since the craziness in her life was one of the reasons why she felt like she should end things with Nick, she figured that boost of energy and happiness that it normally gave her would be doubled.
But it wasn’t. All it did was make her feel like everything was wrong without Nick in her life. And it made her get not nearly enough sleep. The two things did not combine well.
She gave her brother and his new wife a sleepy “Good morning,” then took Bailey out back to do her morning duties. As she stood, shivering in the cold, she tried to keep herself from thinking about Nick and what happened last night. She had already cried herself to sleep about it and the slightest bit of thinking about it threatened to bring it on again. The puffy eyes weren’t helping with the no-sleep look she was sporting.
But she did manage to hold things together as they all opened Christmas presents. Jack may have been a Grinch who hated Christmas up until last year, but she hadn’t spent a single Christmas morning without him since the year he was born, and she was glad he was there with them. It made her house feel less lonely, too.
Every time, though, that Jack brushed Noelle’s cheek with his knuckle, or she snuggled right into him, or he whispered something in her ear that made her laugh, or she smiled at him like he was her whole world, Rachel felt Nick’s absence even more intensely.
As she could have guessed, it wasn’t the toys that Aiden opened that he loved the most—it was the ream of white printer paper and the new set of markers that had lit up his face the most. The best part was watching him wrap his arms around them, giving them an uncomfortable-looking hug, his expression blissful.
The worst part was seeing two presents left under the tree when they were done unwrapping all of them. One for Nick and one for Holly.
“Who’s ready for cinnamon rolls?” she said as she stood from the couch, ready to get some distance between her and the things threatening to make her lose her grip on her emotions.
Aiden, Jack, Noelle, and the dog all joined her by the kitchen counter, Bailey looking just as excited for food as everyone else. Rachel dished up a cinnamon roll for each of them, and as everyone sat down at her little kitchen table, she started getting the dog’s food. “When do you need to leave for the airport?”
Jack looked at his watch. “Wow—it got late! We better go get the last of our things packed in the next five minutes, because we need to have the luggage in the car and pulling away in fifteen.”
Rachel managed to keep a smile on her face and be happy to see them off on their honeymoon. They were on their way to a warm beach where they were going to be able to just relax and enjoy every minute together, and she was thrilled for them.
As soon as they were off, though, she and Aiden headed back to the kitchen for the cinnamon rolls. Aiden slid into his seat and asked, “Why aren’t Nick and Holly here yet? I thought they were going to have cinnamon rolls with us.”
She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t thought to tell Aiden about the change in plans. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but they’re not coming. Nick and I decided to not see each other anymore.”
“What?” Aiden slid off his seat to stand. “But my Christmas wish that I gave to the dove was for a dad! I thought it was going to be Nick. This is the opposite of the wish coming true!”
And then he was crying and she was crying and trying to comfort him and they both were a mess. Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried so much in a twelve-hour period before and it hurt her heart even more that it was hurting Aiden’s heart, too.
She was the mom, though, so she couldn’t keep being a mess. She needed to pull herself together. “It’s still Christmas, and we still have a lot of fun that needs to be had. What do you say we open that Lego set that Uncle Jack and Aunt Noelle got you and see what we can make?”
It was a good distraction for Aiden, but not so effective for her. She couldn’t seem to get herself to stop thinking of Nick. She had spent the entirety of adulthood without a man in her life—she knew exactly how to do that. So why did the prospect of spending her life without Nick feel so profoundly sad? She’d never felt such an intense yearning to have someone in her life before.
It wasn’t until she no longer had it that she realized it was something she’d been longing for all along—she just hadn’t known she needed it. Or wanted it. Or would miss it so much when it was gone. She had been on her own for a long time. She’d been alone in raising Aiden. But she’d never felt lonely—she and Aiden had always been enough, just the two of them. So why did she feel so lonely now?
She told herself that it was because no matter how much Jack had hated Christmas most of his life, they’d always spent the entire day of Christmas together. And right now, she had no family with her outside of Aiden. Her sister-in-law, who had become one of her best friends, was with Jack, on her way to a trip of a lifetime. And her other two best friends weren’t even in the state. Courtney was in Oregon and Lucy was in Nebraska, spending Christmas with their families. Her own little family felt so small.
But she knew that the loneliness she was feeling wasn’t just because Jack or Noelle or her friends weren’t there. It was because over the past few weeks, her family had felt twice as big with Nick, Holly, and Rosy with them.
But mostly, it was because of Nick. She missed him more than she ever fathomed that she could.