Chapter 28
[Saint]
The moment I left, I wanted to turn around.
Steer my green machine back into that small harbor town and anchor there.
Instead, I carried on to Bangor where I left the Aston Martin in the private garage, safe and secure for a hoped-for future road trip and powered through the persistent pain in my chest until I arrived home.
North.
The house was glowing in the winter setting surrounding it. Piles of snow were heaped on either side of the front door and the drive. Evergreens dripping with the white stuff, like heavy frosting on holiday cookies.
I exit the Jeep I typically leave at the local airport for use in the extreme weather, and enter the house. The heat is blasting. The house is decorated from floor to ceiling with garland and lights. Ornaments and knick-knacks.
“Saint? Saint, is that you?” Ma rounds into the hallway, her full face a warm greeting like the subdued brightness of the house. She’s short but round, and I love everything about my mother.
“My baby,” she coos like I’m five, not fifty, as she pulls me in for a hug I willingly return.
“We’ve been so worried about you,” she says, pressing me back and taking me in like I’m not an entire head taller than her.
“Ma. I’m fine,” I lie.
The sharpness in my tone directed at her isn’t necessary, and instantly her brows crease.
“Astan, what’s wrong?” Sometimes I think a mother’s read on her child, even an adult one, is almost eerie.
“Nothing, Ma,” I lie again, gently pulling free of her grasp and stepping out of her hug because the inquisition is suddenly too much. Like I’m fragile and I’ll break if she keeps poking at me.
“Where’s Da?”
She waves her hand and pffts. “You know him. Always working.”
If the comment was intended to remind me that I’ve taken months off, it misses its mark. I don’t regret one moment of my road trip, especially getting lost in a small East Coast town for the past three weeks.
By dinner that night, under the inquisitive eye of my father, I snap.
“While you were dilly-dallying—”
“I was in a car accident, Da,” I remind him, jabbing my fork at the caribou steak prepared by Ma, like a welcome home celebration.
“And we were so sorry to hear that,” Ma interjects, giving Da a pointed look.
“In that unnecessary vehicle,” Da adds another poke at me. His voice is deep, gentle toward all, but me. And I stare at the man, worried that one day I will look like him. Portly and proud. Ruddy-cheeked and snow-white haired.
“A car I’ve earned.”
“You’re too old for toys,” Da continues like he didn’t catch the underbelly of my statement.
Earned. Because I work hard for this company. For this family. I can afford nice things and deserve to spoil myself once in a while.
Like I want to spoil Lumi.
The thought has me dropping my fork, the metal clattering against fine holiday-themed china.
Ma sits up straighter.
“You took an extra three weeks, Astan,” Da continues. “Skating in here with less than three days to go.”
Shoving my hands into my short hair and leaning back in my seat, I glare at my father.
“I met a girl, okay. A woman, actually. A beautiful, amazing, kind woman who gave me a place to stay after the accident. And I . . . I fell in love with her. Her and this crazy little town with traditions that rival our own about the holidays. Ice carving and carol singing and woolen sock races.”
“You ran around in your socks,” Ma asks, shock on her rosy cheeks.
“That’s all you’re taking away from what I’ve said?” I question, shocked myself, as I meet my mother’s soft blue eyes.
“Don’t talk to your mother in that tone.”
“I’m not—” I cut myself off like I’m fifteen and being scolded as I often was then. “I fell in love.” I beseech my mother to hear me. She’s the ears of logic and the voice of reason with Da.
“And I want to bring her here.” I’m tired of keeping secrets and being so fucking alone.
Fifty years and my parents still aren’t listening to me. They don’t hear me. Don’t understand me. Why can’t they be happy for me? See that I deserve what they have. Devotion to one another. Commitment as partners. Love.
What good is the idea of Christmas and magic without love?
If I can’t celebrate having a love in my life.
Da gasps. “What?”
“What?” Ma says a little softer, her tone more compassionate.
Nick has never brought Holliday here. Instead, Ma met her in Chicago, where Ma keeps a second home for the less hectic months. Da uses the same excuse he always uses to never visit Nick and his wife. He’s too busy.
But I don’t want to be too busy to live. Too busy to love.
“You’d love her, Ma. She’s witty and kind.
And she knows how to knit.” Not that that is a major selling point of Lumi’s abilities, but it reminds me she made me woolen socks.
And homemade gifts are always made with love, right?
Because she loves me, even though I broke her heart.
I could practically hear it shattering in her chest before I left her standing in the post office.
The cracking of it matched my own.
“Once this holiday is over, I need an extended vacation,” I tell Da.
“You just took a vacation and added three additional weeks to it.”
“Da, are you even listening to me? I met a woman. Lumi. Her name means snow.”
“I know what Lumi means,” Da counters.
“Then you know that Lumi also means love. To me,” I poke at my chest and press away from the table. “I bring her home. Or . . . or this is my last Christmas.”
The collective gasps from my parents are echoed by the staff, listening from this corner or that.
But I don’t care. On hasty feet, I storm the hall and then skip up every other stair to my apartment on the third floor of the house. I slam the door like a child and pace back and forth in my living room, desperate to call Lumi. Desperate to text her.
I want to tell her everything. Need to tell her everything.
Not yet.
But soon.
“Nick.” I breathe my brother’s name into the phone.
“Ma called me.” The statement is explanation enough. Ma has the same soft spot for Nick as he does for her. If she feels she cannot reason with me, she calls Nick.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice kind and concerned. I don’t fault my brother for skipping out on the family business. Even with the name Nick, he’ll never need to fill the boots unless something happens to Da or me. Jack Frost forbid.
Still, some days I’m jealous of the freedom he has. Running into burning buildings isn’t an easy job, but a small part of me envies the heat compared to the constant, frigid cold of where I live.
The coldness of my empty bed, as well.
“I was late,” I admit, reminding him that I had an accident.
“Da told you that car was worthless in snow, didn’t he?” Nick chuckles.
“He doesn’t understand,” I admit. Then, softer, I add, “I met someone, Nick.” I sigh, like a love-sick elf.
“Really?” I can almost see his dark brows hitch. “What’s she like?”
“Beautiful and kind. Snarky but sweet. Sexy as fuck.” Just the thought of Lumi makes me hard, but it also makes my heart hammer, the beat irregular without her near me.
“Sounds special.”
That someone special in your life, she’d hinted.
“Yeah. Very special.”
A heavy pause fills the phone.
“Gonna step back?” Nick asks.
“I told Da this would be my last Christmas if I can’t bring Lumi here.”
“Her name is Lumi? Like snow?”
“That’s all you’re getting from this,” I tease, reminiscent of my response to my mother’s reaction earlier to socks in the snow.
“She sounds perfect for you.” He pauses for a second. “But you know you can’t quit.”
“I know.” I exhale heavily. This is my destiny.
Too many people are relying on me. And Da is just too old to continue the tradition.
“Look, I’m not one to give advice, but have you considered just telling her the truth and bringing her to North to prove who you are?”
He already knows Lumi would most likely have doubts. About our location. About our purpose.
“Have you told Holliday?” I ask.
“I don’t keep anything from her. It’s called trust. And love.” The affection for his wife resonates in his voice.
I trust Lumi. I love her. Yet I haven’t told her. How could I say I love you, but goodbye?
“Just be you, Saint,” Nick encourages. “If she loves you, she’ll accept you.”
“It isn’t her.” I sigh again in frustration. “It’s Da.”
Nick exhales. “Ah. The perpetual lump of coal in our stockings.”
It’s funny to hear our father referred to as such a thing, and I laugh, knowing only my siblings would truly understand the joke.
“I’d say ignore him, but I know you can’t.”
I’m too entrenched in the family business.
“But it’s still your life, Saint. If you want her, you can make it work. No matter what.”
No matter what.
“What if she can’t accept this life?” I chew my lower lip, finally falling into a leather club chair in my living room and tipping back my head.
“Then she isn’t the woman for you. But everything else you described says she is. So why wouldn’t she believe you? Believe in you?”
I don’t know. Am I putting doubts where they might not be warranted?
“Be the love in your life,” Nick reminds me. Don’t just exist with hopes for it.
Make every moment magical.
I can’t do that without Lumi.
Which means I know what I need to do.
Make a wish, then make it come true.