Chapter 20 #2
I tilt my head to the side. “I think that only applies to birthday wishes, not Christmas asks.”
He ho-ho-ho’s. “You’ve got me there, Stella. But I don’t know if anyone can find him the gift he wants. I don’t quite know what he means.”
“I might if you tell me. That’s the magic of Christmas, right?” I sit a little taller, pleading.
Nick tugs on his beard, thinking before turning to me. “He said something about wanting to find songs that make him and his fans happy.”
“Oh.” I blink. “That’s trickier than I expected.”
Rhys has the songs already; he just has to believe it. Everything I’ve done to get him to see that hasn’t worked. So, what should I do differently?
“Might need a little help from the Big Guy with that one.” Nick rolls his eyes Heavenward and points.
I nod. “Thanks, Nick. I’ll take that into consideration.” Some kind of miracle or divine intervention may be exactly what I need.
“My turn?” Charly asks loudly, hopping from foot to foot while clutching both Rhys and Hope’s hands.
I stand and realize I may not get a letter from Dad this year, since I haven’t asked for it.
I’m tempted to ask Nick who he gets the letters from, but I push the thought away.
This is one fantasy I’m not willing to relinquish.
I love the idea of Dad writing me once a year from heaven.
I love the idea that believing in a little magic and a lot of kindness and love make it happen.
“Okay, Charly, I’m done. Come on.” I wave her up, then jump out of the way, narrowly avoiding being run over by her.
Charly jumps into Nick’s outstretched arms, and he sets her on his knee, already telling her what a good girl she is. I walk to Rhys, who’s smiling wide watching Charly with “Santa,” as caught up in the fantasy as she is. I link my arm through his and rest my head on his shoulder.
“You’re adorable, you know that?”
“‘Course I do,” he answers in his grouchiest voice.
We say goodbye to Hope and Charly then head back to Mom’s house.
She’s got a long list of to-dos for us, starting with putting up the twelve-foot live Christmas tree a local farm delivers right as we arrive.
Rhys eyes it warily and mutters something under his breath, but Mom’s got hot chocolate and homemade cannoli to fuel our work.
After standing the tree up, Mom gives us half a million conflicting instructions about which way to move it to get it straight.
Lights come next, which Rhys has never done.
He learns quickly the job requires more than stringing the lights around the tree willy-nilly.
Mom insists they’re wound around the branches so the tree is as, in her words, “bright as baby Jesus’s star. ”
After the lights are done—a two-hour endeavor—we load the tree with all the ornaments not already on the fake tree Mom’s had up since October. By the time we get the garland on the mantle and all the decorations done, it’s dark out and Rhys and I are both exhausted.
We collapse onto the couch. Mom brings us two fresh mugs of cocoa, then switches off the overhead lights, turns on the twinkling tree lights, and starts a Christmas album on the record player. The whole room glows in soft yellow light, and Elvis croons in the background.
“Look how beautiful! Thank you for helping,” she says, lowering herself into a comfy recliner across from us. Rhys raises his mug to her. “Thank you. You’ve both won me over. Christmas is worth going all out for.”
“All out?” Mom says from her recliner. “We still have more to do.”
Rhys nearly spits out his hot cocoa. “There’s more?”
Mom nods. “I don’t put Santas up until after the parade—don’t want to confuse the children—so you can do the outside tomorrow. Sebastian is taking me to Florence to pick up some more blow-ups. While I’m there, you two can put the Santa on the roof and the others in the yard.”
Rhys looks at me, wide-eyed and nervous, but I just shrug. I’m more concerned about the weather than about the work. “It’s supposed to snow tomorrow, Mamma. Are you sure you want to go to Florence?”
The city is only forty-five minutes away, but it’s on the other side of a winding, two-lane road through a canyon that can be treacherous on icy roads.
“A little snow can’t stop me. I want to get everything done before you leave on Sunday. Seb’s been too busy with his own house to be much help,” she says decisively, and I know there’s no talking her out of the trip.
My only consolation is that Seb will be with her, and we have friends she can stay with in Florence if the weather is too bad to drive through at night.
“Now, Rhys, you go rest while Stella and I make dinner. No arguments.” She shoos him out of the room with little resistance from him. He shoots me a smug smile as he takes the steps two at a time. Not a minute later, I hear the shower turn on.
I follow Mom to the kitchen. I could use a shower and a rest myself, but Mom and I haven’t had any time alone, so I’m happy to help her.
“I like him,” she says, handing me an apron. “He’s good for you.”
I sigh. I should have seen this conversation coming. Now I’m caught in it, and I’m not getting out until Mom’s satisfied she knows everything about Rhys and me.
“I like him too. A lot. Maybe too much.” I don’t bother tiptoeing around what I know she’ll get out of me eventually.
“What do you mean, too much?” Mom scoffs and puts a pot of water on to boil. “You can’t love too much.”
My stomach twists. “I didn’t say love, Mamma. I said like.”
She laughs and crosses the kitchen to pinch my face between her fingers. “And I see love written all over your face.”
I shake my head loose from her grip. “Don’t tell me that, Mamma. I’m not ready to be in love.”
Elvis woo-woo-woos over my assertion, and Mom laughs again. “It’s not about being ready to fall in love. It’s about being ready to love any time you get the chance.”
“I’m too young.” I shake my head but stop when I realize I’m shaking it in time to “Blue Christmas.”
“Too young to fall in love?” She tsks and goes back to the stove to dump a can of crushed tomatoes into a pan. “That’s ridiculous. Age has nothing to do with it. I was only twenty when I met your dad.”
“And look how that turned out,” I blurt.
Mom stops stirring her tomatoes long enough to look over her shoulder at me. There’s hurt in her eyes, but I don’t stop the words I’ve held back for years.
“Five years was all you had with him. That’s it. Then you were stuck in this little town. You never got to travel like you wanted. You didn’t get to have the job you wanted. Overnight, your whole life went from being full of possibilities to being limited to what Paradise had to offer.”
Slowly she turns to face me, and I brace myself for her anger. Instead, she hurries over to sweep me into her arms and press my head into her shoulder.
“Nothing turned out the way your Dad and I planned, but I’ve never regretted loving him or leaving one small town to end up in an even smaller one halfway across the world. I’m right where I want to be,” she says, stroking my hair.
“But falling in love meant you didn’t get to make that choice. You didn’t want a small life, and you ended up with one because you fell so hard and fast for Dad.” I bury my head in her neck and squeeze back tears. Mom doesn’t like crying over Dad.
“You think my life is small because I live in a little town?” She pushes me up to look in my eyes.
“Where you live isn’t what makes life small or big, Stella.
Your life in LA will be small if you don’t make room for love.
You live small when you don’t grab onto the biggest things.
You think it’s not the right time to fall in love?
You don’t get to choose when it’s the right time.
You only get to be ready to jump in when it comes your way. ”
I stare back at her. The sharp, sweet scent of tomatoes and basil fills the kitchen with a story so warm and familiar, I should feel safe. I’m home with Mamma, who knows exactly how to solve my problems and wipe my tears away.
But her words have brought to life my biggest fears, forcing me to face them with no armor. “I don’t know how to get ready,” I cry. “I don’t know how to prepare myself to love someone so much that I live in constant fear I’m going to lose him.”
Mom leads me to the table, where we sit opposite each other. She stretches her arms across the table, beckoning me to put my hands in hers, waiting until I do before she speaks again.
“Fear has no place in love. Just acceptance. You will lose him. Or maybe he’ll lose you first. You’ll hurt.
You’ll misunderstand each other. You’ll have hard times, whether you’re together for five years or fifty.
Once you accept that all of that will happen, you don’t have to be afraid of it, as long as you remember to hold on to every minute you have the chance to love another person the way I loved your dad and he loved me. ”
I squeeze her hands in mine. “I want everything to be okay. I don’t want to hurt like you did. As happy as you tried to make my childhood—especially at Christmas—I’ve always sensed a sadness that Dad’s not here.”
Mom tips her head and smiles. “That little bit of sad is how I know what happy is.”
I let out a hard laugh. “I don’t need to feel sad to know when I feel happy.”
“If you want to feel all the good things,” Mom answers firmly, “you can’t hold back from feeling the hard things. Rhys understands that. It’s what he sang about last night. Love is what you hold on to, even when you’re afraid.”
I think back to Rhys’s song and the words that spoke to me in a way none of his other songs have.
I guess I thought what I felt had as much to do with the song being for me rather than what it was about.
I’ve repeated the lines If every gift faded, I’d still believe, Because you’re the wonder that I get to keep a dozen times since last night.
For the first time, I hear what Mom is saying. The song isn’t about not losing someone; it’s about love lasting long after everything—and everyone—is gone.
I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I stand and give Mom a big hug. “Thank you, Mamma. I’ll try.”