Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Lila had never bought a Christmas tree with someone else before.
She'd grown up with the trees her parents picked out together—her father insisting on the tallest one they could fit through the door, her mother rolling her eyes and measuring the ceiling with a practiced glance.
After they were gone, she'd stopped bothering.
A small artificial tree from the attic, pre-lit and convenient, was set up in the corner of her living room, where she barely looked at it.
But Ronan had mentioned, casually, that he'd never had a real tree. Not as a kid, not in the military, not in the years of moving from one temporary assignment to another. And something about the way he said it—like it was just a fact, nothing to feel sorry about—made her want to change it.
So here they were, at the tree lot on the edge of town, surrounded by Frasier firs and Douglas spruces and families with small children running between the rows.
"This one's too tall," Ronan said, examining a tree that was easily eight feet tall.
"The cottage ceilings are nine feet."
"We don't have a ladder."
"Sid has a ladder."
"Sid has opinions about ladders. And tree placement. And the proper ratio of lights to branches." Ronan moved to the next tree in the row. "I'm starting to think Sid has opinions about everything."
"He does. That's part of his charm." Lila stopped in front of a smaller tree, maybe six feet, with full branches and a slight lean to the left. "What about this one?"
Ronan circled it slowly, examining it from all angles as if he were assessing a tactical position. "It's crooked."
"It has character."
"It's going to fall over."
"Not if we put it in the corner. The wall will hold it up."
He looked at her. Then at the tree. Then back at her.
"You've already decided."
"I decided the second I saw it. I was just being polite by pretending to consider other options."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "That's not how decisions are supposed to work."
"That's exactly how decisions work. You know what you want. You pretend to weigh the alternatives. You do what you were always going to do." She patted the crooked tree's trunk. "This is our tree. Accept it."
They set up the tree in the corner of the living room, exactly as Lila had predicted.
Ronan had found a tree stand at the hardware store that claimed to be self-leveling, which turned out to mean it leveled itself by tilting in the opposite direction of the tree's natural lean.
The result was a tree that stood mostly upright, listing slightly toward the window as if it were trying to see outside.
"It's looking at the water," Lila said, stepping back to admire their work.
"It's a tree. It doesn't look at anything."
"It's looking at the water and contemplating its life choices. Like the rest of us." She pulled a box of ornaments from the stack by the door—decorations she'd brought from her parents' house earlier that week. "These were my mom's."
Ronan took the box from her hands and set it on the coffee table. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, were glass balls in red and gold, a ceramic angel with a chipped wing, a set of wooden snowflakes her father had carved one winter when he was between projects.
"You don't have to use these," Lila said. "If you'd rather get new ones—"
"Why would I want new ones?"
"Because they're not yours. Because they come with someone else's memories attached."
He picked up one of the glass balls and turned it in his fingers. The light from the window caught the surface scattering red across the wall.
"I don't have ornaments," he said. "I don't have Christmas memories worth keeping.
The ones I do have are—" He stopped. Set the ornament back in the box.
"My mother left when I was seven. My father worked every Christmas after that.
I spent most of them alone, watching whatever was on TV, eating whatever was in the fridge. "
Lila didn't say anything. Just waited.
"After he died, I joined the Army. Christmas in the military is either deployed and working or on base with people who are also pretending it's just another day.
" He looked at the tree, its crooked branches bare and waiting.
"I've never decorated a tree. I wouldn't know what to do with new ornaments. "
"Then we'll use my mom's. We'll make them ours."
She handed him the ceramic angel with the chipped wing.
"This one goes on top. Mom always put it up last, after everything else was done. She said it was watching over the tree."
He took the angel carefully, like it might break further. "What happened to the wing?"
"I dropped it when I was four. Cried for an hour because I thought I'd ruined Christmas." She smiled at the memory. "Mom glued it back together and told me angels didn't need perfect wings to fly. She put it on the tree every year after that. Said it was her favorite one."
Ronan looked at the angel for a long moment. Then he reached up and placed it on the highest branch the tree would hold, adjusting it until it faced the room.
"There," he said. "Watching over everything."
Christmas Eve brought a cold front and an unexpected visitor.
Lila was in the kitchen, sliding a tray of cookies into the oven—her mother's recipe, the one she hadn't made in years—when a knock came at the door.
Ronan answered it. She heard voices, low and tense, and then footsteps coming into the living room.
Sarah Holloway stood by the Christmas tree, looking out of place in her federal-agent blazer and sensible heels. She was holding a manila folder.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your holiday," she said. "But I thought you'd want to see this before the trial."
Lila wiped her hands on a dish towel and crossed to where Sarah stood. "What is it?"
"Warren Caldwell's attorneys filed a motion this morning.
They're claiming the evidence obtained from your father's files was illegally gathered.
" Sarah's voice was careful, measured. "They're arguing that because you accessed those files without proper authorization from the county, anything derived from them should be inadmissible. "
The kitchen timer ticked in the silence. Somewhere outside, a car drove past, its headlights sweeping across the window.
"Can they do that?"
"They can file the motion. Whether it succeeds is another matter." Sarah opened the folder. "The judge will hear arguments on January third, before the trial begins. If he rules in their favor, we lose a significant portion of our case."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then we proceed as planned. Your testimony becomes even more critical." Sarah held out the folder. "I wanted you to have time to prepare. To understand what you might be walking into."
Lila took the folder. Her hands were steady, but something cold had settled in her chest.
"Thank you for telling me in person."
"I could have called. But some things shouldn't come through a phone." Sarah glanced at the tree, the ornaments, the chipped angel on top. "I'll let you get back to your evening. We'll talk more after the holidays."
"One more thing. Caldwell's cooperation has been selective.
He gives us Fielding and Webb without hesitation.
But every time our questions approach the network's upper structure, his attorney calls for a recess.
" She picked up her briefcase. "Someone above him is still protected.
I thought you should know that going into trial. "
She left the way she'd come, quiet and efficient. The door clicked shut behind her.
Ronan was watching Lila. Waiting.
"It's fine," she said.
"You don't have to say that."
"What do you want me to say?” She set the folder on the coffee table, next to the box of ornaments they hadn't finished unpacking. "If I start falling apart every time something goes wrong, I'll never stop."
"That's not falling apart. That's having a reaction."
"I'll have a reaction after the trial. After he's convicted. After it's actually over." She turned to face him. "Right now, I'm going to take my mother's cookies out of the oven and finish decorating this tree and pretend, for one night, that everything is normal."
He didn't argue. Just nodded and picked up one of the wooden snowflakes from the box.
"Where do these go?"
"Scattered. No pattern. My dad made them, so they get to go wherever they want."
They decorated in silence for a while. The oven timer went off, and Lila pulled out the cookies—golden brown, the edges slightly crisp, the way her mother had always made them. The smell filled the cottage, warm and familiar and aching.
"My mom used to leave these out for Santa," she said. "Even after I was old enough to know better. She'd put them on a plate with a glass of milk, and in the morning, there'd be crumbs and an empty glass and a thank-you note in my dad's handwriting."
"That's nice."
"It was. It was so normal." She stared at the cookies cooling on the rack. "I keep waiting for normal to feel normal again. But it doesn't. It just feels like pretending."
Ronan set down the ornament he was holding. Crossed to where she stood. Put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him.
"You're not pretending," he said. "You're practicing. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Pretending is lying to yourself. Practicing is learning a new skill." His thumbs traced circles on her shoulders. "You're learning how to have a life again. It's supposed to feel awkward. It's supposed to feel like you're doing it wrong."
"How do you know when you're doing it right?"
"You don't. You just keep practicing until it stops feeling impossible."
She leaned into him, her forehead against his chest.
"What if the judge rules against us?"
"Then we figure out the next move."
"What if there isn't one?"
"There's always a next move. Even when it doesn't look like it." He pulled her closer. "You've come too far to lose now. The evidence is solid. Your testimony is solid. One motion from a desperate defense attorney isn't going to undo five years of work."
She wanted to believe him. She wanted to let go of the cold knot in her chest and trust that everything would work out the way it was supposed to.
But she'd learned a long time ago that things didn't always work out. That justice wasn't guaranteed. That people who did terrible things sometimes got away with them.
"Let's finish the tree," she said.
Christmas morning came soft and gray.
Lila woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of someone moving in the kitchen. She found Ronan standing at the counter, two mugs steaming beside the coffee maker, staring out the window at the inlet.
"You're up early."
"Habit." He handed her a mug without turning around. "I used to wake up at 0500 no matter where I was. Now I wake up at 0500 and have nowhere to be."
"You could go back to sleep."
"I could. I don't." He finally turned to look at her. His eyes moved to the coffee table, where the manila folder still sat. "Did you sleep?"
"Some."
"Liar."
"I slept enough." She took a sip of coffee. It was the good kind: strong and dark. "I don't want to talk about the trial today. I don't want to think about Warren or the motion or any of it. Just for today."
"Okay."
"I mean it. If I start spiraling, tell me to stop."
"I'll distract you with presents."
She almost smiled. "You got me presents?"
"Present. Singular." He reached into the cabinet above the refrigerator—a spot she couldn't reach without a chair—and pulled out a small, wrapped package. "It's not much. I don't know how to do this."
She took the package. The wrapping was uneven, the tape applied with more enthusiasm than skill. Inside was a small wooden box, hand-carved, with her initials on the lid.
"I found a guy in town who does custom work," Ronan said. "For your dad's things. The surveying notes, the documents. I thought you might want somewhere to keep them. Somewhere that isn't a filing cabinet or a federal evidence locker."
She opened the box. It was lined with dark blue velvet and had compartments of different sizes. The wood smelled like cedar.
"Ronan."
"If you don't like it—"
"Stop." She looked up at him. Her eyes were stinging. "It's perfect. It's—" She couldn't finish.
"It's a box."
"It's a place to keep him." She set the box on the counter and pressed her hand flat against the lid. "After the trial, when they release his files, I'll have somewhere to put them. Somewhere that matters."
She went to the hall closet and retrieved a flat package wrapped in paper covered with cartoon reindeer.
"Your turn."
He unwrapped it carefully. Inside was a framed photograph—the cottage, taken from the dock, the string lights glowing on the porch, the live oak spreading its branches overhead.
"Sid took it," she said. "A few weeks ago, when you weren't home. I wanted you to have something to keep. Something that shows what this place looks like when you're not here to see it."
He didn't say anything for a long moment. Just stared at the photograph, his jaw tight.
"I've never had a picture of home," he said finally. "I didn't know what it would feel like to look at one."
"What does it feel like?"
He set the frame on the counter, next to the wooden box. "Like something I don't want to lose."
She moved to stand beside him. Their shoulders touched. Outside, the light was slowly brightening over the water, turning the gray to silver to gold.
"The motion might not matter," she said quietly. "The judge might throw it out. The trial might go exactly the way it's supposed to."
"It might."
"But even if it doesn't—" She stopped. Took a breath. "Even if everything falls apart, I'll still have this. This cottage. This tree. You."
"You'll have me regardless."
She leaned her head against his shoulder. "That's the only thing I'm sure of anymore."
The crooked tree watched from its corner, hung with borrowed ornaments and carved snowflakes. The chipped angel kept her vigil at the top, wings imperfect, still standing guard.
In the kitchen, the coffee grew cold. Neither of them moved to warm it.