Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
ALIX
Alix woke to the smell of coffee and the whispers of a house that knew winter by heart.
Pipes ticked. Floorboards sighed. Somewhere downstairs a spoon chimed against a mug.
For a long breath she lay still and watched pale light sift through the curtains, and let the first conscious thought rise the way it wanted to.
Grace.
She pictured her in the guest room down the hall, hair mussed, one cheek creased by a pillowcase, feet bundled in the blanket because those poor boots had chewed her up last night.
The memory of carrying her in through the snow made Alix grin into her pillow.
She felt ridiculous and buoyant and sixteen, all at once.
She pulled on an old Larimer County Fairgrounds sweatshirt that had seen better days and walked down the hall in socks.
The air smelled like cinnamon and something nutty.
In the kitchen, Helen stood at the counter in a red plaid robe with an apron tied over it, hair half pinned up, pecans spread like a little brown lake on a baking sheet.
“Morning, kiddo,” Helen said, not turning yet. “Coffee’s fresh.”
“Thanks,” Alix said, and meant it. She poured a mug and leaned against the counter with both hands wrapped around the heat. The warmth worked down into her fingers, into a place she had forgotten to warm for a very long time. “Poor Grace’s feet,” she added, wincing at the memory of angry skin.
Helen glanced over, mouth curved. “They looked rough. I was thinking I might have some tiny shoes that would work for her today.”
Alix snorted into her mug. “From one of your doll collections?”
“From before your feet grew into boats,” Helen said, mock-prim. She pointed her wooden spoon toward the mudroom. “Speaking of, I found your old skates and put them near the utility sink. And another pair. Tiny ones that might fit Grace. Yours, from when you were little.”
“My skates?” Alix’s brain made a happy little click. “Oh my God. That is perfect.” The idea unfurled so fast she had to laugh. “When she wakes up, I am taking her to the pond.”
Helen raised a brow. “You sure her feet can handle that?”
“I will push her around on a folding chair if I have to,” Alix said, getting a bright image of Grace laughing, scarf trailing, the world a ring of white around them. “She will love it.”
“That poor girl,” Helen murmured, but she was smiling. She sprinkled cinnamon over the pecans and slid the tray into the oven. The warm, sugary smell deepened, cozy as a blanket.
“You’re not really going to make us muck out the stables, are you?” Alix said, hoping she looked pitiful enough.
Her mom rolled her eyes. “Dad’s already in there. He said something about how you always sleep too late, so he’d better just do it himself,” she said with a small, knowing smile.
Alix gave a small nod. “I owe him one.”
For a moment they moved around each other in that quiet domestic rhythm Alix had forgotten, a body memory of holidays and ovens and the sound of snow dampening the whole world outside.
She rinsed the measuring cup without being asked.
Helen set another mug on the counter. The ordinary sweetness of it made Alix’s chest go loose.
Helen set her spoon down and laid a hand on Alix’s forearm. The touch was warm and steady. “I’m glad you decided to come home this year.”
Alix swallowed. The easy way the sentence landed, the lack of edge, the simple truth inside it made her throat tighten. “Me too.”
Helen held her eyes for a beat longer, then looked down at her hands. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said, voice lower. “Last summer I had a scare. Breast cancer.” She took a breath. “They caught it early. I had a lumpectomy. Clean margins. I am fine.”
The kitchen sounds went thin. The furnace exhaled. Somewhere outside a horse snorted, the sound carrying through crisp air. Inside her own body, Alix felt the ground fall out.
“Mom,” she said, the word more air than voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry,” Helen said simply.
She met Alix’s eyes again. There was a new softness there, a light that made her look younger and older at once.
“But when I was waiting for the biopsy, I kept thinking about how stubborn I’ve been.
All the ways I held on to things that did not matter.
All the ways I made you feel like you had to fight the whole world just to be yourself.
” She gave a tiny, rueful smile. “It made me see things differently.”
Alix put her mug down because she did not trust her hands.
She crossed the small space and hugged her mother, awkward for the first half second and then fiercely, both of them holding on like they had been meaning to do it for years and had not known how.
Helen smelled like clean cotton and cinnamon.
She felt small and unbendable in the way that only mothers could.
Alix breathed out, shaky and relieved and frazzled. “Thank you for telling me. And you’re okay now?”
“I should have sooner,” Helen said. “But, it felt wrong to tell you over the phone. I’m okay now.
I’m being monitored closely.” Then, as if she needed to set them back down on something sturdy, she nodded toward the mudroom.
“You should get her out to the pond while the ice is still good. Before Matt and his friends go out there and carve it up with hockey.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Alix said. She could feel the smile turning up from somewhere deep.
“Wow, does my own flesh and blood readily admit her mother could be right?” Helen joked.
Alix rolled her eyes. “Okay, okay. Don’t get used to it.”
They stood like that for a breath longer, until Alix turned toward the hallway and listened.
The house was quiet in that particular way that meant one person was still asleep.
She pictured Grace again, all tucked in, the cat probably a warm comma at her hip.
The anticipation shot through Alix like a spark, ridiculous and pure.
She gathered the skates from the mudroom, brushed off a bit of dust, checked the laces.
The leather was scuffed but sound. On a low hook she found a navy scarf she used to fight her mother about because she thought it made her look like a child.
She shook it out and smiled. It would look better on Grace anyway.
Helen slid the pecans out of the oven. They crackled on the hot sheet. “Take a handful to bribe her out of bed,” she said.
“I do not need bribes,” Alix said, then scooped a few into a small bowl just in case.
On her way down the hall, she passed the family photos that ran like a timeline along the wall.
There was the one where she was nine and squinting into sunlight, hand on a bay mare’s neck.
There was the prom dress that did not feel like hers even when she was wearing it.
There was the staged Christmas picture where everyone looked stiff and clean, like actors playing themselves.
She found she did not hate any of them the way she used to.
They were just past tense, and she was not. Not anymore.
In the guest room doorway, she paused. Grace was already awake and looking at her phone with a furrowed brow, propped up against pillows, hair tangled, Helen’s woven blanket cocooned around her shoulders.
Alix had never seen her mom offer that blanket to anyone — she’d always made a big deal about it being an heirloom.
Seeing it now around Grace brought Alix a deep sense of calm and familiarity.
Paul sat like a guard at the foot of the bed, eyes half-closed, already in love. She couldn’t blame him.
“Hi,” Grace said, surprise warming into a smile as soon as she saw Alix. She set her phone down. “Sorry, lawyers don’t understand holidays. You’re up early.”
“I am on mountain time,” Alix said, which made no sense but sounded confident. She held up the skates. “Also, I have a plan.”
Grace’s eyes dropped to the skates and widened. “Are those yours?”
“Vintage,” Alix said gravely. “Limited edition. You, me, the pond. I will go easy on you and only do a triple axel if the spirit moves me.”
“I cannot feel my heels and you want me to do what amounts to dancing on knives,” Grace said, but she was laughing already. “You are out of your mind.”
“I will push you in a chair if you’d like,” Alix said, and felt briefly, painfully transparent because all she wanted was to make this trip good for her. She held out the bowl to display her offering. “My mom’s pecans said I could bribe you.”
“Oh, well, if the pecans insisted,” Grace said, accepting one and closing her eyes for a second as she chewed. “These aren’t weed pecans, right?”
“Unfortunately not. My mom made them this morning and alas, she did not coat them in marijuana.”
Grace chewed, lifting a brow as if considering Alix. “How is your mom so sweet, and you turned out like this?”
“Must have been some kind of genetic mutation,” Alix said.
Grace’s gaze moved from the skates back to Alix’s face, and something tender passed over it. “Hey, you okay?”
Alix felt the answer open in her chest like a window. “Um, yeah. We talked for a moment this morning,” she said. “She told me something about a cancer scare she had in the summer. She’s okay now. But it changed her. I think it changed me a little just hearing it.” She swallowed. “I am glad I came.”
Grace’s hand came out from the blanket and found Alix’s wrist for a second. It was a light touch, careful and steady. “I am glad you did too.”
“And I’m glad you’re here, too.”
“Me too.”
There was a pause that felt like a held note.
Alix let herself look at Grace openly, at her pillow-lined cheek and the full curve of her mouth.
She wanted to lean down and press her lips to that place where the blanket met Grace’s collarbone, wanted it so much she had to laugh at herself to break the spell.