13. Harrison #2
Mr. Fisher’s booming laughter filled the living room. Katie snuck a peek at him from where she stood by Mallory, pulling things out of the bin, then smiled.
“And you’re a contractor?” Harrison offered when the man stopped laughing.
“I’m a handyman,” Mr. Fisher said. “I fix just about anything and everything around town.”
“What’s your favorite kind of job?” Harrison asked him.
“I don’t know about my favorite,” Mr. Fisher said. “But I’ll tell you the most common jobs are squeaky doors and leaky faucets.”
“Squeaky doors,” Harrison echoed.
“Oh yeah,” Mr. Fisher said with a big smile. “People imitate them too. If I kept my voicemails, I could let you hear half this town squeaking and squealing like a herd of guinea pigs.”
Katie giggled quietly.
“And leaky faucets too?” Harrison asked. “I guess those are common.”
“Especially in the wintertime, unfortunately,” Mr. Fisher said sadly. “And too often it’s not just one. If folks are away and they run out of oil or the heater stops working for any reason at all, they sometimes come home to frozen pipes.”
“You fix those?” Harrison asked, impressed.
“If it’s just one or two, depending on where, sure,” Mr. Fisher said. “But more often than not in that situation I’m recommending a general contractor. If I’m lucky, they remember to call me in to paint afterward, since I’m cheaper than the GCs with paint.”
“Wow,” Harrison said.
“But it’s not always something so serious,” his host said. “Sometimes it’s just a mistake.”
“Remember the Hoffsteader’s house?” Mallory asked, her eyes twinkling.
“Oh Lord,” her father said, shaking his head. “Those poor folks thought their air conditioner was broken. They were ready to pay the HVAC company to come out, but they wanted me to take a look first.”
“What was the problem?” Harrison asked.
“Nothing but a flipped breaker,” Mr. Fisher said. “The power to the outside unit was off, so the thing was blowing in room temperature air. Took me about forty-five seconds to fix it, and most of that was just going up and down the basement steps.”
“He refused to charge them, so Mrs. Hoffsteader brought us a cake the next day,” Mallory put in with a dreamy smile. “Carrot, with raisins and cream cheese frosting.”
“That was a good cake,” her dad said. “Oh, but remember when those chimney birds got into the Engelmans’ basement?”
Mallory was laughing before he could get started, and when Harrison looked over, he saw that the candles were set out, the Christmas card holders were already hung, and Katie was just setting up the creche.
An hour later, they were still laughing, though now they were telling fun stories of Christmases past as Harrison pulled lawn decorations out of the garage and handed them off.
Mallory looked happier than he’d ever seen her, and Katie seemed right in her element, scampering around the lawn and looking for the best places to put each decoration, pointing to her choices for Mr. Fisher and waiting for him to agree or to make a different suggestion.
It was fully dark, but with the moonlight and the outside lights on, they were able to set things up just fine.
“We won’t finish tonight,” Mr. Fisher said at last. “I’ve got to be up early, and you even earlier, I assume?”
“Definitely early,” Harrison agreed.
“Why don’t we plug in what we’ve got?” Mr. Fisher offered. “And the next time you stop by, I’ll have the whole thing going for you.”
“Okay,” Katie said, her disappointment at having to leave clearly overshadowed by her excitement to see everything plugged in.
Mr. Fisher headed back to the garage, and a moment later, the snowy lawn was illuminated by plastic snowmen, half a dozen elves, and a great big Santa in his sleigh, but without any reindeer to lead it.
“Wow,” Katie breathed.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Mr. Fisher said, coming back out from the garage.
Mallory gazed out at the lawn with tears in her eyes.
Harrison knew that she was thinking of her mom again, and this time he moved to her instinctively, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s beautiful,” he told her gruffly.
She nodded, her lips pressed together, looking happy and sad all at once. He knew the feeling well.
“Next time you’ll do the reindeer, right?” Katie asked Mr. Fisher.
“Of course,” he told her. “And the manger scene. Can’t have Christmas without that.”
Katie nodded wisely.
“I think we earned that second treat,” Mallory said, nodding. “Wait here.”
Harrison dropped his arm from around her shoulders, and she headed back inside, returning in a snap with the bakery box of jingle bell knots.
“I want to know what you think of these, Dad,” she said, looking up at him seriously.
“Is this one of your mother’s recipes?” he asked.
“Inspired by one of hers, yes,” Mallory said with a smile. “But not exactly like hers.”
She opened the box to reveal the soft pretzels adorned with chocolate and crushed candy cane.
“Oh, look at that,” her dad said excitedly, reaching right in to peel one off. “That’s awfully festive.”
They all watched as he took a bite.
His eyes closed and he smiled as he chewed.
“Reminds me of my first date with your mother,” he said, opening his eyes. “We had chocolate cake for dessert and I ate a mint in the car, hoping she’d let me give her a kiss.”
“Did she?” Katie asked.
“She sure did,” Mr. Fisher said fondly. “Good thing I had a peppermint in my pocket.”
Katie giggled, and in the night air, the clear happy sound was like delicate bells chiming.
Later that night, when the chores were done and Katie was fast asleep, Harrison grabbed his phone as he got into bed.
He’d somehow managed not to do this since moving to town and meeting Mallory in person.
But tonight had been special. Tonight, he was aching to talk to her, a deeper conversation like the kind they used to have back when her words sometimes felt like the only thing that kept him going. He typed out a quick text before he could change his mind.
Still awake?
His message showed as read almost immediately.
MalloryBakes
barely :)
He smiled at her honesty.
Thank you for today.
…
Three little dots appeared then disappeared again.
They reappeared and disappeared twice more before a message finally popped up on the screen.
there’s no way for you to know how much tonight meant to me
i haven’t seen him like that, like himself, since Mom passed
Harrison swallowed over his own emotions before replying.
It meant a lot to me too. And even more to Katie.
I’m glad he was feeling himself.
it’s because of you and Katie
having a kid around again, and sweet treats, and someone to listen to the stories who doesn’t know them already
you know?
I definitely know.
There was a pause before the next message popped up.
i know you do
How did it feel for you? Seeing the decorations and everything?
He was thinking of her mother’s handwriting on that bin. There had probably been a million other reminders that he hadn’t recognized.
bittersweet
He nodded to himself. That made perfect sense.
i’m so glad we did it
it cheered Dad up
and next year it will be easier
we’ll have a new good memory to think about now
Harrison’s hand moved automatically to his chest, rubbing the invisible ache growing there.
i’m glad you’re here
The ache turned into a longing. He wanted to hold her so badly that it hurt.
But he wasn’t going to push.
Me too.
Good night, Mallory. Sweet dreams.
good night, Harrison
sweet dreams
He dozed off with his phone in his hand, thinking about all of the messages he couldn’t wait to send her tomorrow.