Chapter 26
C hristmas Eve was supposed to be cheerful, but Drake woke up claustrophobic in his own house.
As he moved about his morning, he felt Ellie’s former lovers cast their critical eyes on him.
The dry cleaner heartthrob scolded him for not hanging up his delicates sooner.
The line cook insulted his amateur scrambled eggs.
Lucas, the last boyfriend, called him out for using the wrong glassware.
“Happy almost-Christmas,” Ellie said, holding her coffee mug close. Her soft skin brushed Drake’s face when her chin found his shoulder. “What should we get up to this morning?” she asked. Her playful mood surprised him; she had ignored Drake since the great Umbrellas debacle until now.
“I have to do a few walkthroughs and snap some photos of the new cabinets,” Drake told her.
“I just got a last-minute call this morning.” He hoped his reflection in the kitchen window didn’t give away his lie.
Last night his boss, George, had asked if anyone would volunteer.
The chance to get some fresh air—and space from Ellie—had been too hard to pass up.
Drake needed to shake off the complicated story he’d woven in his head.
The story went something like this: Ellie wouldn’t be able to commit to him.
She would leave him behind in the sea of ghosts that now haunted their old house.
The story wasn’t true or fair, but that didn’t make it go away.
“Oh,” Ellie huffed. She stepped back. “You’re working. Today?”
Drake turned to her and leaned against the kitchen counter. He needed to be kind. He didn’t want Ellie to shut down again. “I’ll be home tonight,” he said and pulled the belt on her plush robe toward him. “We’ll figure out something fun. A big dinner. Pajama party.”
“Okay,” Ellie finally agreed. “Fun,” she repeated like a threat. Her feet moved in hard steps out of the room, leaving him to drink his coffee alone.
When Drake reached the entrance of Wakeford Heights, he immediately regretted volunteering to work.
The community was everything he hated in one place, from the smell of manufactured vanilla in the prospective buyer’s office to the home exteriors that were hard to tell apart.
Drake once asked the developer why it was called Wakeford Heights.
He was told that Wakeford sounded energetic but not alarming.
Maybe his assessment was unfair. Some people loved communities like this.
But for Drake, Wakeford Heights was a daily reminder of his own failure.
By now, he was supposed to have his own business building homes that were passed through generations. Instead, he was pushing paper on homes where most people would live, he guessed, for about two years before they moved on.
The only silver lining about Wakeford Heights was that it made him appreciate his home with Ellie.
He couldn’t help comparing the Finch, a three-bedroom unit that was first on his list to check out, to their Queen Anne.
Sure, their place was somewhere between fixed and falling to shit.
But unlike the fake marble countertops and cheap fixtures found here, it was built to last. For as much as Drake teased Ellie about her need to buy everything used, it meant something to live in a house with a history.
He almost pitied the thirtysomething couple he saw banging on the door to the buyer’s office as he passed it.
They were so eager to check out a modest, two-bedroom Cardinal on a holiday.
The woman in the couple wore a baby in a carrier and was supported by her husband’s arm.
Drake caught the guy’s profile as he leaned forward to peek inside the door.
Then, his features filled in. Drake nearly slipped on the sidewalk.
There, in a winter scarf and hat, was one of the cameos from Ellie’s last memory.
It was the park guy.
“Hey,” Drake shouted at them. He had no plan of what to say next.
You’re the one who had sex with my soon-to-be-wife in a public park. A public park of all places, who does that? Maybe you’re a voyeur. Maybe you’re here for all the dumb windows. The wife would cover the baby’s ears. Just think about all those geese you messed up for life.
The park guy turned toward Drake. When the sun caught his face, his features became clearer. On closer inspection, he wasn’t the park guy at all. He wasn’t even Ellie’s type.
Now the cinema was making him hallucinate.
“Sorry,” Drake said. “I thought you were someone …” He scratched his head and tried to figure out a save. “You look like someone.”
“I get that a lot,” the guy said.
“He does get that a lot,” his wife agreed with a knowing chuckle. The baby cooed.
“Anyway, I wanted to let you know that the office is closed,” Drake offered.
“Yeah, too bad,” the guy said, rubbing his hands together. “We were driving out to my parents’ and saw this spot. Gorgeous homes.”
Drake’s mistake was pathetic. It was a sign that he needed to let the past go.
To leave those other guys behind and drive back to their beautiful, not-bird-themed, home.
So Drake did that after a quick check on a Starling unit, picking up Chinese food along the way.
When he walked in, though, the house was empty.
It was after his shower, change into sweats, and unanswered text message that he heard the doorbell.
Ellie was always forgetting her house key. Drake swung the door open, expecting to find her there. Instead, Sandra stood on the snow-dusted porch. She held a wrapped gift box and small bakery tray against her cashmere sweater dress.
“Drake,” Sandra said. She was formal with his name.
Drake tried to cut through the chill. “Sandra,” he greeted her. “Hey. Hi.”
“Ellie told me no gifts.” She looked at the box as if yearning for whatever was inside of it.
“But I’ve wanted her to have this. I’ve been meaning to drop it off for a while, and …
” Her words, which were usually an effortless display of rehearsed charm, stalled.
“Oh, and cookies. There are cookies here for both of you.”
“That’s really nice.” Drake reached in to relieve Sandra of the gift and the tray, setting them both on the shelf by the door.
With his hands free, he went in for a hug.
There was slight resistance from Sandra’s end; he worried the gesture was too familiar.
Drake pulled away and waved her inside the house.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Ellie should be home soon.”
He wasn’t sure why he told her that. There were no signs of Ellie at the house, no half-filled mugs or stray blankets. It was wishful thinking, he decided.
Nancy bounded toward their visitor as she stepped inside the entryway. Sandra pulled her hand away as sloppy, wet kisses landed on it. Nancy set a paw on her shoe, as if asking her to stay, and Sandra sidestepped the advance without looking down.
Then, Sandra made a face Drake recognized.
It was the same face Ellie made as she analyzed a new place and pulled it apart in her mind.
He could feel Sandra’s critical gaze as she tallied the unrepaired holes, old moldings, and Ellie’s antique collections on their living room shelves, which her mom would probably describe as creative or eclectic.
Drake couldn’t blame Sandra for being curious.
It was her first time in their new house.
His own parents had been there the week they moved in and brought a six-pack of beer for a toast. Ellie later had joked that the beer toast was tacky, which rubbed Drake the wrong way.
Now he wondered if she was hurt because it was another milestone not shared with her own parents.
“Do you want to stay?” Drake asked. He motioned to the food containers somewhere behind him. “For dinner. It’s just takeout, but …”
Sandra seemed to consider the invitation.
Drake should’ve known better. It was an innocent offer, but would Ellie see it that way?
“No, no, but thank you,” she decided. “I can’t eat things like that anymore.
” Drake wasn’t sure what the like that meant, but he nodded in agreement.
Drake was looking at Sandra with fresh eyes after watching the memory with Ben.
He sensed her chilly exterior covered up what hurt her.
Would Sandra spend the holidays alone? Had Ellie even given her mom gifts from them? He wasn’t sure. Ellie also hadn’t gone to Sandra’s for a holiday dinner this year, as she usually did. Sandra and Ellie had grown even farther apart since the mess of the engagement party.
“We would love to have you over soon,” Drake suggested. “Umm, for dinner. A home-cooked dinner? I mean, neither of us cook, but we can figure something out.”
“I will look forward to that.” Sandra straightened herself out. She pointed to the box on the shelf. “Tell Ellie … When she opens it … That she shouldn’t have been alone.” She paused and rubbed her throat like it hurt. “And let her know that I went back that day.”
Before Drake could ask what she meant, Sandra slipped out the door.
Ellie had narrowly missed her mom by about ten minutes. She came home with her arms full of various cookies and cider. “You’re here!” she said. “Good, good. I hated that you were away on a holiday. I was losing it. So, I got cookies.” She waved the plastic bag in the air.
“Love it,” Drake told her with a kiss on the cheek. “Although, the cookie fairy has already visited us.” He picked up the tray of beautifully iced snowflakes that Sandra had brought them.
“Oh!” Ellie said. “You got cookies, too!”
“They’re from …” Drake paused. When he’d tried to bring up her mom since their engagement party, the mood had soured, hadn’t it? He didn’t want to ruin their night by explaining her visit. It could wait. “Me,” he said. “The cookies are from me. I got Chinese food, too.”
“Well, the more cookies, the better.”
They set the spread on the coffee table, piled two plates high, and read their fortunes out loud on the couch.
“ ‘A secret will soon be revealed,’” Ellie said. The message seemed ominous to Drake. Maybe it was because Sandra’s wrapped box still sat near the front door. Ellie hadn’t noticed it yet. He made a mental note to put it in the closet the next time she was upstairs. “Anything you want to tell me?”
Drake snatched the fortune cookie away from her. “I would like to tell you that I call dibs on this.”
“Good,” she said. “You can have that one. I’m going to eat all of these life-changing cookies you picked up.” She ate her fourth cookie in a row. “Where did you get these, anyway?”
Ellie was in good spirits on Christmas morning and later that night for Actual Christmas Dinner with Drake’s parents.
She lit up the conversation and complimented their food.
She even asked Beth for hair advice, although that was the last thing Ellie needed.
These attempts meant something to Drake.
But when they got home later, some of the cheer drained away.
Between their weekly cinema visits and all the wedding planning, there hadn’t been time to decorate the house.
Two sad presents waited for them on the bare living room floor.
Drake suggested they open the boxes. They could do that, at least, couldn’t they?
“A sweater,” Ellie said, holding her unwrapped gift up in front of her.
Drake had spent hours at a vintage store trying to find something she’d like.
He wasn’t sure where to start—what was classified as cool and what fell into the ugly camp.
He’d landed on a new sweater from the mall that looked like an old sweater.
“Thanks,” she told him, tucking it back inside its box.
Ellie hated the sweater.
A better partner would’ve known what to get her. Lucas wouldn’t have been caught dead with a mall sweater gift. He’d rented her a roller rink. And still, she’d walked away from him.
Ellie passed Drake his present. This year, she’d bought him something new, too.
It was a men’s bath set. Ellie, the queen of nostalgia, had bought Drake a brand-new men’s bath set straight from department store shelves in a scent called Deep Pine.
The choice was so unlike her that Drake couldn’t help but be hurt.
She normally put effort into picking gifts, despite her resistance to holiday fanfare.
On their first Christmas together at Ellie’s apartment, their gifts had been much more intentional.
Ellie had given him a relic of a toolkit that was supposedly plucked from a Hollywood movie set.
Drake had bought Ellie a new record player.
Her old one was dying and had started to make the singers sound like distortions of themselves.
But Ellie was resistant to throwing away the current player—Dorothy III.
This was how Drake had learned that Ellie’s belongings had names and came in a series, like a child’s goldfish.
He had found this so endearing at the time.
Two years later, he was annoyed to be listening to Etta James on Dorothy III when Dorothy IV was right there in the closet. Maybe it was the soulless gift that was getting to him. What was she trying to say with it?
“Thanks for this,” Drake said, clumsily taking the bottles out of the plastic container and smelling them. “Smells amazing.”
“And thank you,” Ellie told him, patting the box. “The sweater looks …cozy.”
Drake still wasn’t sure what to do with Sandra’s gift in the closet.
If she were to send Ellie a text about it, he’d have no excuse.
The last thing he could handle was another misunderstanding.
“There’s one more thing,” Drake said. Ellie started to get excited.
“It’s not from me,” he told her to temper expectations, then retrieved the perfectly wrapped box and placed it in front of her. Ellie stared at it.
“What is this?”
“It’s …I don’t know what it is,” Drake admitted. “It’s from your mom.” He said the word mom lightly, as if she might miss it. “My mom,” Ellie repeated. “My mom was here?”
Drake nodded. “She stopped by yesterday. Just for a minute.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to,” Drake said. “But you walked in so happy. I didn’t want to ruin those cookies for you.”
He shouldn’t have brought up the cookies.
“Anyway, she said something when she dropped it off. She said that you shouldn’t have been alone that day. And that—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Ellie blurted. “You were right not to tell me.” She stared at the gift for a moment, then put it back in the closet where he had pulled it from and shut the door. “I’m tired,” she told him, even though she was an eternal night owl. “I’ll open it another time.”
They washed up and tucked into bed. The glow of Ellie’s phone illuminated the dark room, despite her suggestion of sleep. There were so many things left unsaid, so many invisible boxes of memories that had been unwrapped but not yet put away.