Chapter 18
Savannah
New York doesn’t ease you into Christmas.
It keeps moving, lights blazing and streets crowded, daring you to notice anyway.
I used to think that meant it didn’t care.
Now I think it’s asking you to choose it, to find meaning without being handed a pause.
Maybe the magic here was never in stopping at all, but in the way the city carries on, making room for meaning even as it moves forward.
It’s time to let the magic in.
I take a cab home through streets that feel familiar again, but changed somehow, less cold, less lonely than they used to.
As soon as I’m in the cab, I text Jack. I consider seeing him in person, but I know this conversation doesn’t need more than that.
Ending things with him is quieter than I expect.
There’s no anger and no blame, only honesty.
I tell him he was never a mistake, just a moment I needed while my heart caught up to itself.
He understands, and I’m grateful for the kindness in his response as I let him go.
Some goodbyes don’t hurt because they’re wrong, but because they finally make sense.
As I’m about to stash my phone back into the pocket of my coat, a text comes through from Lena.
Do you want a peppermint latte or are you still pretending you don’t love Christmas?
I do not pretend. I simply enjoy denying joy on principle.
I know you do, which is so weird given you are literally named after joy. So, peppermint latte it is then.
You didn’t even wait for my answer.
I know you.
Also, it’s cold and you’re sad in that quiet way you do.
Rude. Accurate. But rude.
Five minutes. Don’t go anywhere.
Your latte has extra whipped cream because I love you.
I don’t deserve you.
Correct. See you soon
My apartment door sticks when I unlock it.
Inside, everything looks the same at first, and then it doesn’t.
The life I built here, the one I carefully designed, feels suddenly distant from who I am in this moment, after everything I carried back with me from Pineview this Christmas.
It’s beautiful in an intentional, aesthetic way, but what it lacks is grit. Heart.
I study the photographs lining the wall, each one thoughtfully chosen and carefully curated, and realize how little emotion they hold.
I imagine what it would look like to have my mother there instead, or any of the moments I found tucked away in that box of photographs, lives and histories caught mid-beat.
I drop my bag by the door and shrug out of my coat. The quiet settles in around me, louder than Pineview ever was.
Lena knocks twice and then lets herself in like she lives here, balancing two peppermint lattes in one hand and her tote bag slung over her shoulder.
I don’t know how she keeps getting past building security, but at this point I assume she’s been unofficially adopted by them.
Her charm has always been disarming, especially when paired with the certainty that this is her apartment too, just slightly less often.
“Delivery,” she announces. “And surprise, I got your favorite.” She pulls a paper bag from her tote and dangles it in front of my face like she’s presenting a rare artifact.
Dobbs Bakery. Home of the best croissants I’ve ever had in my life, the kind where you can actually taste the care baked into every flaky layer.
I take the cup she offers and wrap my hands around it, holding on like it’s something I can tether myself to. I look up at her over the rim and shake my head. “You’re a menace.”
“I’m a hero,” she corrects, toeing the door shut behind her.
Her eyes flick over me, my coat tossed over the chair, my hair still half-wrong, the way I’m standing like I haven’t fully landed yet.
She settles onto the edge of the counter like she’s bracing herself, laptop already halfway out of her bag.
“Okay, so…” she begins, dripping with impatience. “You’re home. You’re upright. That means you’re about to emotionally destroy me. Start talking.”
I take a sip, the bite of it keeping me here in the present.
“I went to Pineview to sign paperwork,” I begin. “That was it. Release the house. Final signatures. In and out.”
Lena snorts. “Sure. Pineview is famous for its efficiency.”
“I know.” I shake my head. “Aunt Carol had already packed everything. Every room stripped down and boxed, all of it stacked neatly along the walls like the house was trying not to fall apart. She’d set a few boxes off to the side for me. The things she said were only for me to see and to know.”
Lena’s expression softens. “That’s Aunt Carol. She sounds wonderful. I want to meet her someday.”
“She came over that night with soup and sat with me as I sobbed on the floor of my childhood bedroom for one last night. I was so overwhelmed that I just started opening boxes,” I continue. “Just trying to get through it. And one of them wasn’t labeled at all.”
She leans in hanging on my every word.
“It was photos,” I say. “Stacks of them. Bundled by year.”
I swallow. “The Christmas Kindness Drive. The one I grew up thinking was just… what December looked like.”
Lena nods slowly. “Your normal.”
“Yeah.” I breathe out. “But what I found out was that my mom started it. With Erik’s family.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Wait. Erik Erik?”
“His mom was struggling one winter,” I recount the story, pausing for emotion when it boils up.
“Money, food, everything. His mom just packed up the boys with the clothes on their back, heading for safety. I don’t know how but my mom found out and just…
did what she did. Showed up with boxes. No announcement. No credit. Just help.”
Lena’s mouth presses into a thin line. “Of course she did.”
“And it changed his life,” I add. “That’s what he told me. That someone seeing them, really seeing them, shifted everything for him.”
I stare down at my cup. Lena wipes a single tear from her eye.
“He helped, Lena. Every year. Especially after I left.”
Lena exhales slowly. “Sav…”
“When Mom got sick, he stepped in,” I say. “Fully. Organized it. Ran it. Made sure it didn’t disappear just because she couldn’t be there the way she used to.”
“And the photos?” she asks gently.
“He took every single one,” the words finally landing my body as I say them out loud. “Every year since I left. Same angle. Same place. Like he was documenting proof.” My voice tightens. “So one day, if I came home, it wouldn’t feel like I missed everything.”
Lena goes quiet for a long moment. “That is…heartbreakingly beautiful.”
“It didn’t feel beautiful at first,” I admit. “It felt overwhelming, like I was discovering a version of my mom and of him that existed without me. That I didn’t know that kind of depth of kindness could even exist.”
She studies me. “And now?”
“Now it feels like he carried something for me,” my voice whimpers. “Something I didn’t even know I’d dropped.”
Lena nods slowly. “That’ll mess you right up.”
“Yeah.” I manage a small laugh. “It really does, it really has.”
“So, what happens now?”
Before I get a chance to respond my phone buzzes on the table and I glance at the time, groaning.
“I have to log on in ten.”
“Okay,” she says immediately. Then, brighter, “I can stay.”
“You don’t have to…”
“I know.” She pulls her laptop out anyway. “But I was already planning to work from here. We can sit. Be productive. Pretend we’re not emotionally exhausted women approaching thirty.”
I laugh, the sound easing something in my chest. “You came prepared.”
“Always do,” she says, clinking her latte against mine. “You survived estate paperwork, emotional whiplash, and the rude realization that the love of your life is a genuinely good man who lives far away. The least I can do is sit here with you while you pretend commas are your biggest crisis.”
I take another sip, warmth spreading where the ache was. “Deal.”
I settle at my desk and open my laptop, pulling up the document I abandoned mid-sentence before I flew out. It’s a romance novel deep in its third-act conflict, all angst and longing. The heroine is afraid of staying. Afraid of leaving. Afraid of choosing wrong.
I roll my eyes and laugh. “Of course.”
I edit for an hour or two, my fingers moving on instinct, the familiar rhythm grounding in a way I didn’t realize I needed. I cut a paragraph that’s trying too hard, soften a line that doesn’t quite trust the reader, and add space where something important needs room to breathe.
When I finally lean back, my neck aches. Lena is fast asleep on the couch, the sweetest snores.
I take a break and rummage through my bag, beginning to unpack since I haven’t even managed that yet. I carefully pull out the snow globe Erik had returned to me, holding it to my chest for a moment.
“You dangerous man, you,” I murmur to myself, setting it gently on the dining table.
That’s when I notice the notebook, in the bottom of the bag. It’s unfamiliar to me. Soft leather cover. Corners worn. My mother’s handwriting peeks out from between the pages loopy and confident and wholeheartedly hers.
I must have unpacked it without thinking.
I open it slowly.
It isn’t a journal. It’s a collection of lists, half-ideas, notes scribbled in margins. Things she noticed. Things she wanted to remember.
Rules to Live By:
Give without being seen.
Never ask why someone needs help.
One cart can change everything.
One page is titled simply:
If I ever had the time.
I swallow, tears begin to form at the corners of my eyes.
Below it, bullet points trail off unevenly.
– Coordinate deliveries so families don’t feel singled out
– Keep it anonymous, always
– Let help feel like dignity
– Don’t let it become a spectacle
– One cart can change everything
I close my eyes, and the spark hits all at once, like something clicking into place after waiting patiently to be seen.
The Christmas Kindness Drive doesn’t need to be bigger in presence. It needs to be bigger in reach.