29. Wielder of Whimsy
TWENTY-NINE
WIELDER OF WHIMSY
? Never Really Mine - The Lumineers
CLIO
Noah: Did you take your meds today?
Me: You don’t have to remind me every day, you know. I’m a big girl.
Noah: …did you?
Me: I’m taking them now.
Fall fades into winter, and soon we’re heading into the Christmas break. Noah no longer resists our outings and fake dates, and that makes the situation more precarious—at least from my vantage point.
He wears a mask of indifference I can’t penetrate while my inner turmoil tries its level best to humble me. I’m trapped in a dizzying free fall, and I know it will be disastrous if I don’t find some way to stop myself from hitting the ground.
As I count the rows of stitches on the hat I’m knitting, Noah sets a cup of coffee on the table in front of me.
“How many more do you have to make?” he asks.
Lately, I don’t go anywhere without my knitting supplies. I’m on a deadline. The last day of school is in five days, and I’m knitting winter hats and mittens to match a coloring sheet from each of the kids in my class, bringing their visions to life.
It’s my way of taking care of my students without offering it up as charity. Our school is home to a lot of low-income families, and they can be reluctant to accept help—understandably so given the stigma that society foists upon those less fortunate.
I cut my eyes to the ceiling of the coffee shop as if I can see inside my own head to count the ones I’ve already completed, running down each design until I’ve math-ed out my answer.
“Four,” I say prematurely. I correct myself. “Five.”
I swap the yarn from light pink to purple to match Emmy Lou’s artwork that’s sitting on the table in front of me. Her design is one of the more challenging ones, complete with rhinestones I’ll have to hand-stitch onto the hat later.
“You going to the ranch for Christmas?” he asks, bringing the paper cup to his lips.
I shake my head. “No. Christmas is… complicated for me, especially now that Aunt Penny’s gone. I love my sister, but her family can be overwhelming. She’s going to come by the day after, and we’ll do our gift exchange then. What about you?”
“I don’t do Christmas,” he says curtly.
I scoff. “Surely you have to do something for Auggie.” I cast my gaze out the cafe windows, smiling at Auggie as he chases Lexi with a snowball.
We had our first snow of the season last night, and it shut down half of Kentucky, giving me an unexpected day off.
“What about Christmas morning? Presents? A tree?”
“I’ll get him presents, but there’s no way in hell I’m putting up a tree.”
“Oh my god, Noah! He’s four. He deserves a little Christmas magic.”
I abruptly set down my knitting project and grab my phone.
“What are you doing, princess?”
“I just became Clio the elf, wielder of whimsy, giver of Christmas magic.”
He tugs at the back of his neck, but he doesn’t argue, and I count that as a win.
I shove the half-finished hat into my messenger bag and sling it over my shoulder. “The tree farm is open ‘til nine. Let’s go.”
Lexi piggybacks Auggie between the rows of evergreens as Noah and I trail close behind.
“What are we looking for?” Noah asks.
“A tree,” Auggie says, drawing out the word with his arms stretched wide like an airplane.
“I got that part, bud. What kind of tree?”
“The Christmas kind,” he says as if the answer is obvious.
To be fair… he’s not wrong.
“I like to pick a somewhat sad-looking tree that nobody else would pick and give it a new life in a new home. The wonkier the better.”
Noah snorts. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
I playfully shove him with my mitten-clad hands, sending him stumbling sideways.
“Hey. What was that for?”
I shrug. “I didn’t like your tone.”
Lexi stops beside a row of Fraser fir trees. “What about this one?”
The front looks almost perfect, but it’s tilted slightly left, and the back has a big bald spot.
In my opinion, it’s the one, but I don’t have the final say. Our tree has been up for weeks at this point. I’m a slut for Christmas, even if this time of year is a bit emotionally draining. “What do you think, Auggie?”
“Hmm…” he taps his chin and tilts his head to the side. “Too big.”
We carry on down the row, stopping in front of a smaller, sparser tree, some kind of pine this time.
“What about this one?” Lexi asks.
“Mmm, no. Too small.”
Noah groans, making it clear his patience is wearing thin.
We continue walking with Lexi and Auggie leading the way. I shiver and blow on my hands.
“Cold?” Noah asks.
“A little. I’ll be fine once we get back to the truck.”
He takes my hand and draws me closer, wrapping his arm around me. “Better?”
His warmth surrounds me, and I nod as the ache in my chest intensifies. We said three months, which means our contract ends the day after Christmas and we’ll go back to being landlord and tenant, neighbors, two lonely people who were too afraid to try.
“Ok, Goldilocks,” Lexi says, stopping in front of a disheveled-looking Spruce. “Last one. What do you think?”
It’s short and fat with gaps between the branches and a crooked tip where a topper would go—an excellent choice in my book.
Auggie finally agrees. It’s just right.
When we make it back to the apartment, the street lights are on, and all is quiet on First Avenue. Noah carries the tree up two flights of stairs with little effort, setting it up in the corner of the living room in front of the picture windows.
“Shoot.” I fluff a branch. “I didn’t even think about getting decorations.”
A massive oversight on my part as the self-proclaimed giver of Christmas magic.
Auggie pouts. “Does that mean we can’t decorate today?”
“We could make popcorn garlands and maybe some paper ornaments,” I suggest, thinking out loud for a viable solution that would prevent Auggie’s disappointment. “I might have some leftover decorations we didn’t use on my tree. We’d have to forgo the lights altogether, though.”
“We don’t have to do all of that.” Noah runs his hand through his hair. “I have some old decorations in the crawlspace downstairs.”
NOAH
I sift through box after box of our old shit. Everything from varsity trophies to Emma’s collection of raggedy stuffed animals. It’s like a graveyard of Westons.
This was a bad idea, but Auggie’s pouty face gets me every time, and it was the best solution I had that didn’t involve a thousand craft projects that would keep Clio in my orbit for far too long. The more time we spend together, the more it’ll hurt her when it ends.
My past is just as messy as this crawlspace of cobwebs, dust, and memories I stuffed away ages ago. She has her own ghosts to overcome; the last thing she needs is my messy life interfering with hers after she worked so hard to rebuild.
I find a couple of old boxes labelled Christmas decor and carry them up to the apartment, passing Lexi in the hallway with her phone to her ear. “See ya, kid.”
She waves and continues on with her conversation.
I kick the apartment door shut behind me and deposit the boxes on the coffee table, dusting off my hands. “I can’t promise the lights work.”
Clio lifts the lid off the first bin and pulls out a giant ball of string lights. I do my best to untangle them just enough to test their function. They light up instantly, a luminous sphere of nostalgic red, green, yellow, and blue.
While I work out the rest of the knots, Clio starts pulling out ornaments I haven’t seen in at least a decade. Nausea roils in my gut as she sets them on the table in a neat line chronicling some of the best and worst years of my life.
I expected to find relics from my past, but I wasn’t prepared for how much it would affect me to see tiny handprints pressed into clay with Mom’s handwriting on the edges in black Sharpie.
She should be here. She should get to watch her grandson grow up and see Emma thriving in her career.
But who would I be then? Who would Jonah have become if things had been different? Would Auggie be here? Would I?
And Clio…
Fuck.
I shove those thoughts away. I can’t get caught up in what-might’ve-beens, dreaming of a life that’s not mine—that’ll never be mine.
“Why don’t you spend Christmas with Lexi and me?” Clio says offhand. She doesn’t look up from her task, oblivious to the sudden unease that’s crawling beneath my skin.
It would be a terrible idea for us to spend the holidays together like some big happy family. That’s not what we are.
“Pleeease,” Auggie says. “Can we?”
There I go, losing another battle against a four-year-old.
I sigh. “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
Our expiration date is looming anyway. One last day together before the contract ends—that’s all it has to be. It won’t mean anything, just a final goodbye before we go back to the way things were.
Before I knew what she tasted like.
Before I knew her heart.
Before I—
One more day.