Chapter 2
The wonderful thing about this house was that it was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.
The not-so-wonderful thing about this house was that it felt like a museum sometimes, a testament to the beautiful life my grandparents had lived.
I stood at the bottom of the curved staircase, watching the chandelier crystals catch the lamplight.
Mrs. Amanda used to say the entryway was the “first impression.” She kept this foyer clean and decorated and everything beyond immaculate.
The area was all highly-polished floors, dark wood banisters, crystal-clear windows.
And then, there was the blank space by the staircase where a fifteen-foot Christmas tree used to stand.
I folded my arms, fingers sliding under my sleeves. When I first came back to Emancipation last year, that emptiness had made me feel satisfied, like I’d saved one thing from the avalanche of Christmas this town lived for. Now it just looked… empty.
A soft chuff had me looking down where Max, my insightful little Chiweenie, rested. He was observing me out of one lazy eye, looking, as usual, like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Mind your business,” I muttered.
“Ms. Kyleigh?”
I turned. Mr. Benton, my grandparents’ butler, stood at the edge of the hallway, hands folded, gray brows raised.
He’d been in this house longer than I’d been alive.
My grandparents weren’t ostentatious… well, beyond this house, but they had gone out and gotten themselves a real life, Black British butler.
When I was a teenager, he’d terrified me.
Now, I knew that behind the dry comments was a sweet man.
“Yes?”
“Serena is asking if you’re going to reconsider this matter of the tree,” he said in his proper English. “A small one, perhaps. She’s insisting it would ‘bring cheer to the space.’”
My mouth twitched as I fought back a reluctant laugh. Serena knew I wasn’t going for the over-the-top Christmas nonsense. “Tell Serena I said the ‘cheer’ is confined to the second floor this year. Again. The little tree is enough.”
He hesitated. “It is a very large house. One small tree in one small room does not even begin to—”
“Mr. Benton.”
He huffed and straightened his vest. “Very good, ma’am. I shall inform the Christmas rebel that the fortress that is Ms. Kyleigh still stands.”
A laugh slipped out of me and disappeared into the high ceiling.
I’d been back a year, and when my grandmother decided to move out, the house became mine.
Mrs. Amanda was off enjoying her life in one of those new, expensive assisted living places.
I’d come home to be close to her during treatment for breast cancer.
She’d eventually rung the bell but insisted I stay to be close to her.
Make the house mine, she’d instructed me.
I just didn’t know how to do that exactly.
I walked through these over-sized rooms still half-expecting Mrs. Amanda to appear, cussing and offering pound cake at the same time.
But I was the one with the keys—well, the door codes—the one signing checks and authorizing purchases and emailing lawyers about buying up property.
Emancipation’s residents didn’t know what to think about me.
Was I going to play the generous heiress?
Or was I going to use my newly-acquired land to turn the town into something they didn’t recognize?
I wasn’t perfect; the petty me figured it didn’t hurt to keep them guessing.
I crossed to the front doors. Through the glass, I could see that the town was lit up down the hill.
Red, green, and white lights decorated buildings, trees, and town property.
Last week, the mayor’s office had sent another email about “reconsidering your generous tradition of allowing access to the Grindley pines.” I’d replied with the same language my attorney drafted the first time: Regret to inform.
.. Liability concerns… Private land… No access…
My plan was to close my windows, block out carols and decorations, and repeat this little dance with the mayor’s office as often as needed. Christmas was overhyped, too commercial, with little real meaning anymore. Just because Mrs. Amanda let them decorate the Grindley pines didn’t mean I had to.
My phone buzzed. I received three texts from Taniyah in quick succession.
Taniyah:
u in town?
made jambalaya. bringing you some later. don’t argue.
girl stop ghosting me. i will stand outside that big house and sing christmas songs off key til u open the door
Guilt created an uncomfortably warm feeling inside me.
When people heard I’d moved back, she was the first to reach out—calls, messages, brunch invites, pictures of her kids.
She never mentioned him. Stubborn as ever, she just kept trying, even though she hadn’t seen me in ten years.
And I kept saying I was busy. Maybe next week.
I’d been telling her “maybe next week” for a year.
She should give up. I knew she wouldn’t, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted her to.
Me:
Can’t tonight. Working.
I hit send before I could stop myself. The lie just sat there on the screen and in my spirit, heavy and sad. But on to other things—I did have work. I’d written two chapters already. Pre-orders were wild. The royalties made the title “independent author” feel so good.
A happy, bright giggle floated from upstairs, breaking my reverie. I couldn’t help smiling. Max had a similar reaction, bouncing to his paws, tail wagging.
“Mama, look!”
Aziza’s voice tugged me out of my head. I looked up. She leaned over the second-floor railing, chin on folded arms, coils in two red-ribboned puffs, chocolate-brown skin glowing against the white banister. She wore the fuzzy reindeer pajama top Serena had bought her, though it was barely five p.m.
“Yes, ma’am?” I asked, already feeling soft.
A broken heart wasn’t the only thing I’d left Emancipation with.
Two weeks into the spring semester of my senior year, I’d found out I was pregnant.
My parents suggested a quick, discreet abortion.
Unbelievably, I didn’t want that. They weren’t cruel.
They were research scientists at heart, so they loved practical, logical solutions.
They worried about what would happen to me as a single mom, even as a wealthy one.
The people at the exclusive private school my parents had re-enrolled me in were appalled by the time I could no longer hide my pregnancy, for example.
But I was used to being shunned and only a few weeks away from graduation, so they let me finish.
I’d made the right decision for me, even if her father had moved on and had no place in his life for me by the time she was born.
My baby was my whole heart, my reason for everything. She held something up, face shining.
“I made a star! For the tree!”
“Bring it down so I can see,” I said.
Her footsteps raced across the landing. A moment later she appeared at the top of the stairs and started hopping down too fast.
“Slow down,” I warned. “Put your hand on the rail.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, fingers brushing the banister, excitement still vibrating through her.
Max met her at the foot of the stairs, vibrating with excitement.
She stopped to give him some good scratches and pats.
When she reached me, she held the star up.
It was made of two pink paper cutouts with cotton stuffed between them.
The edges were trimmed in glitter. Lord!
I was gon’ kill Serena for giving this child glitter.
“You did this by yourself?” I asked.
“Ms. Serena helped me cut. I decided about the cotton, though. So, it could be… what’s that word?”
“Dimensional?”
“Yes! That. We gon’ put it on my tree, right? Please, Mama?” she coaxed, her brown eyes liquid and beautiful, just like his.
“We are. Front and center!”
She leaned into my side, and I wrapped an arm around her. For a moment, I just held her against me. At nine, she’d soon be stingy with these snuggles. I wanted to store them up for the times she was an attitudinal teenager who couldn’t stand me.
Her gaze slid to the empty corner by the staircase. She sighed, and I knew where the next conversation was going.
“Mama?”
“Hmm?”
“How come we don’t got a big tree down here? Like at Granny and PopPop’s house in Houston? And on TV in the movies me and Mr. Benton be watching.”
How do you tell your child that ten years ago, Christmas time became the time of your biggest humiliation and your most painful heartache? I didn’t know how, so I avoided it.
“Because Mama likes things quiet and trees are messy. Granny Amanda used to have pine needles everywhere. You know Mama don’t play about a clean house. I’d have to hire somebody just to vacuum around it,” I explained.
She frowned. “You already got Mr. Benton. He like vacuuming.”
“Mr. Benton is like me. He likes the house clean. He and Ms. Mabel do a great job. Let’s not make more work for them.”
“You don’t like Christmas?” she asked, her eyes probing my face in a way that was way too old for a nine-year-old.
“I like you, and you like Christmas. So, we make your room special. That’s enough,” I said, kissing her sweet face,
I could tell that didn’t satisfy her. She thought for a minute, chewing her bottom lip. “When I get big, I’m gon’ have a big tree in my house. In the middle. And I’m gon’ invite you over, and you can’t say no, ’cause I’m your child. You just gon’ have to deal with my tree,” she announced.
I smirked at her, tugging on one of her tight spirals. “We’ll see.”
She wiggled free. “I’m gon’ find Ms. Serena.”
“Do that,” I said. “She probably has a lesson for you.”
“Ugh! When is Christmas break?” She shot me an annoyed look before running upstairs.
I watched her go, feeling kind of bad. I wanted her to have a good childhood, to be able to look back and feel happy. I wanted to help her build traditions.