Chapter Twenty Four
By the week before Christmas, the gingerbread house was in the bakery window.
Summer had made one instead of six, and the porch roof had still fallen off before she could finish it.
Jonah helped her remake it after work, holding the replacement while she piped the joins; Macy took a photograph of them arguing over how long he needed to keep holding it and sent it to Summer without a caption.
Summer looked at the picture while waiting for a customer to collect an order.
Her own face was hidden behind Jonah’s shoulder, but his concentration was unmistakable.
She sent it to him, and he asked whether she’d saved him any of the broken pieces.
She put two in a bag for him before the customer arrived.
She had begun making a habit of calling him at work when she knew he would be free.
Sometimes he sounded tired, sometimes pleased to hear her, once irritated because he’d just been called away from a problem he nearly understood.
She let that call end without asking him what was wrong.
He called back on his walk to the car and told her the answer to the problem, though she didn’t know enough about it to appreciate why he was so pleased.
The case against Kylie was going ahead. They had given further accounts separately and supplied the additional messages and photographs requested of them; the clothes and masks remained with the other evidence.
There were calls to return, things neither could remember, stretches of waiting when Summer checked the phone more often than she admitted.
The contact from Kylie had stopped. When information arrived, they read it together if they were both home, then put the papers in the folder in the back room.
On Christmas Eve, a message arrived from Lorraine while Summer was cleaning the workbench. Beneath her question about dessert was the family photograph from Halloween, the one Summer had finally asked her to send. Summer set the cloth down and opened it.
She remembered the elderly man taking three pictures because somebody always shut their eyes.
In this one Jonah had his hand at her waist and his father was turned slightly toward Lorraine, probably answering something she’d said.
Summer’s own smile was wide and unguarded.
The blue of the dress hurt to look at; she saved the photograph and closed it before she began searching the edges for Kylie.
Jonah came through the back door carrying the bread bag she’d asked him to bring. He put it beside her and looked at the empty workbench.
“Please tell me you’re finished,” Jonah said. “I nearly got swept off down the street with a school group.”
“They’ve all collected,” Summer said. “I locked the door before anybody else could come in.” She held out her phone. “Your mother sent the picture.”
He took it, looking for a long moment without speaking. She took her apron off and hung it beside Macy’s, and when he returned the phone she slipped it into her pocket.
“We were having a good time,” he said. He picked up her coat from the hook and held it for her.
“Yes.” Summer put her arms into the sleeves. She turned before he could step away and kissed him, with one hand caught awkwardly inside a cuff. “We were.”
Outside, the street was busy with people carrying bags too large to fit comfortably between them.
Summer checked the door once and took Jonah’s arm.
They walked home past the shops still open, stopping for oranges because her mother had asked for some; at the house, Jonah carried the bread into the kitchen while Summer left her phone charging upstairs.
The table leaf was wrapped beneath the sofa. They brought it out, moved two chairs, and opened the table wide enough to fit it. Summer had forgotten how much room the whole thing took. Jonah tried walking behind her chair, then moved it again without asking whose idea the table had been.
“Five people,” he said. “We could put somebody at the little one.”
“Who are you volunteering?” Summer asked. She sat down to test the space. “Your mother or mine?”
“Dad.” Jonah drew out the chair beside hers. “He wouldn’t notice until dessert.”
She laughed, then moved her place a few inches so they could both sit without touching elbows.
The oranges went in a bowl in the middle, with enough space left for the dishes their parents were bringing.
Summer had made the dessert and promised not to cook anything else.
When she began considering whether there was enough food, Jonah listed what his mother had said she was carrying over, stopping only when Summer told him she remembered.
They ate an early supper at one end of the enlarged table.
Afterward he showed her the room he’d found for January, above a restaurant near the coast. The price was more than Summer wanted to spend; she looked at the cheaper room overlooking the roofs and asked whether the restaurant below it was noisy. Jonah said he had called to find out.
“You called them?” Summer asked. “I was going to write. I’ve had the page open all week.”
“I wanted to know whether we could eat there both nights,” he said. “And I asked about the room. They said the music stops at ten.” He enlarged one of the photographs. “There’s your bath, for when you’ve been swimming.”
Summer smiled and went back to the dates.
Macy had agreed to cover them, the bakery would be quieter, and there were no deliveries Summer needed to receive herself.
She checked the cancellation terms, then handed the phone to Jonah before she could begin looking for a less expensive reason to stay home.
“Book that one,” Summer said. “The room without the view. We can go outside.” She stayed beside him while he entered their details, answering when he asked her to check the dates.
When the confirmation came, Summer put the dates in the calendar. Jonah carried the dishes to the sink, and she followed him, slipping her arms around his waist while he ran the water.
“Thank you,” she said against his shoulder. He turned his head far enough to kiss her hair.
“For washing up?” he asked. She could hear the smile in his voice. “I haven’t finished.”
“For calling them,” she said, keeping one hand on his waist as he turned. “I’d have spent another week looking. Possibly until the rooms were all gone.”
He dried his hands and caught her closer. Summer kissed him, one hand at the back of his neck. When he lifted her onto the clear edge of the counter, she laughed and drew him between her knees.
“Your mother will ring,” she said. Her phone was upstairs, and his was still beside the calendar. “She’ll remember something.”
“Then she can ring.” He kissed the place beneath her ear, and she forgot what else she’d meant to say. His hands were warm beneath her sweater, moving slowly enough that she felt the change in her own breathing before she heard it.
She kissed him hard enough to make him step forward against the counter. For a while neither of them moved away. Then he asked whether they could go upstairs before his knees gave out, and she let him help her down.
On Christmas morning, her mother arrived early.
Summer was barefoot in the kitchen, drinking tea while Jonah looked for the serving spoons he’d put away somewhere sensible, when the knock came.
She opened the door to two bags, a covered dish, and her mother’s explanation that she hadn’t wanted them worrying about the food.
“We weren’t,” Summer said. She took the heavier bag. “Come in. There’s tea.”
Her mother looked past her into the kitchen. The table was set, the counters were clear, and Jonah was standing beside an open drawer with three spoons in his hand. She asked whether he’d found the good ones, then caught herself and took off her coat.
Lorraine and Jonah’s father arrived together an hour later.
For ten minutes there were too many people in the kitchen, asking where to put things and whether the oven was hot enough.
Summer moved a dish, knocked a spoon onto the floor, and nearly snapped at her mother for picking it up.
Jonah came beside her carrying the empty bread bag.
“Where does this go?” Jonah asked. “I can’t get anything else in the drawer.”
Summer took it from him and began folding it, glad to have something that didn’t require an answer from three other people.
Across the room, Lorraine was asking her mother about the pool.
Summer heard her name, waited for the conversation to become about how well she was doing, and relaxed when her mother began complaining about the changing-room hooks instead.
They sat down late. The potatoes weren’t as hot as Lorraine wanted, Jonah’s father had forgotten the wine he said he’d bring, and her mother had made enough food for twice their number.
Jonah went to fetch the water pitcher. Summer asked him to bring the sparkling water too, and watched him pour it into his own glass before handing it to his father.
Halfway through the meal, someone mentioned the historical society’s winter ball.
Summer’s fork stopped. Lorraine began to change the subject, but Jonah asked what the lecture was about, and his father told him.
They talked for a minute about a speaker who had been there before, then returned to the food. Nobody asked them to attend.
After dessert, her mother tried to clear the plates.
Summer told her to sit down, heard the old sharpness in her own voice, and added that she wanted to finish her tea first. Her mother sat, a little put out.
Jonah reached across for the last slice of cake, and his father asked whether there was any cream left.
Summer passed it and stayed where she was.
When their parents had gone, the kitchen was crowded with used dishes and food that needed putting away.
Jonah opened the refrigerator, found it already full, and called Summer over to decide which container she trusted on its side.
They sorted it together, ate one more spoonful of dessert straight from the dish, and left the washing up until later.
He put music on while she went upstairs for socks. When she came back, the chairs had been pushed beneath the table and he was waiting beside the counter.
Jonah held out his hand. “Those look more comfortable. Come and see if you can dance in them.”
Summer took his hand. There was little room to turn, and she caught the back of a chair before they had finished half the song. Jonah steadied her, smiling when she blamed the table, and she brought him closer with both arms around his neck.
“I love you,” she said. She kissed him, and he rested his forehead against hers when they drew apart.
“I love you,” he said. His hand moved slowly over her back. “Merry Christmas, Summer.”
She rested against him while the music played. Upstairs her phone rang, and she knew it would be one of their mothers remembering something left behind. Jonah glanced toward the ceiling, then at her, and she shook her head. She would call back when the song was finished.