Chapter 30 Jesse
Jesse
NOW
The next morning, I find myself shifting boxes around in the backyard shed. There’s an extra pep in my step—something I literally never thought I’d say.
I guess that’s what happens when you finally get something you’ve been dreaming of for so long.
It takes everything in me to focus on the dusty cardboard boxes, trying to remember which one Penny said to grab. She was brief this morning, but I noticed the sunshine returning to her face.
Scanning the stacks, I see one labeled Christmas 98.
Penny might have a point about getting rid of some of this stuff.
“Forget the boxes right now, let’s start with the tree.” Fia waltzes into the shed, startling me.
“Sure, sure.” I turn and run a hand through my hair, grabbing the bag with the tree in it.
“I can’t believe Christmas is in three days and we’re just now putting up the tree.” Fia sighs, hands on hips.
“You know you could’ve asked me to do this earlier?” I hulk it over my shoulder and walk past her into the yard.
She follows me, opening the back door so I can wedge the faux tree through. Tank gets one look at the seven-foot tree bag and scatters, letting out a low growl as he disappears into the dining room.
Fia shakes her head. “I know I could’ve asked you to do this earlier, but I was preoccupied with other things. Christmas snuck up on me this year.”
Penny points to the empty spot next to the fireplace. “Right there.”
It’s the same place the tree went every year I lived here.
I raise my brows at her. “Bossy.”
She swats my arm, but a small smile plays on those lush lips.
The lips I can’t stop thinking about.
The girls get busy fluffing out the fake spindly branches, and Tank tiptoes into the room, eyeing the tree.
“I don’t think he likes it.” Fia tilts her head toward my dog.
“I’m not sure he’s ever seen one, to be honest.”
Penny freezes, head snapping my way. “You never had a Christmas tree all the years you lived in California?”
California comes out of her mouth like a foreign word, as if she’s only now beginning to accept that’s where I’ve been all this time.
“No, don’t believe so. My studio apartment was tiny, there wasn’t space for decorations.”
“Yeah, but it’s Christmas,” Fia adds while intensely focused on getting the branches to stick out at the perfect angle. “It’s not the same as hanging pictures on the wall.”
This fake tree is on its last legs, like everything else in this house, but I don’t mention it.
Penny’s gaze lingers on me, her face fallen.
“What did you do each year…for the holidays and such?” she asks, unable to hide the emotion in her voice.
A mix of sadness and curiosity. Just like when we were teenagers, and she asked me about my father.
She cares deeply, but she keeps it locked deep down.
I shrug and lift a box of ornaments off the floor, placing it on the coffee table so I can begin to unwrap them. The tissue paper is worn and thin, almost disintegrating at the touch.
“Sometimes I’d go out to eat, have a beach bonfire with friends, or go to the movies.” I hand Penny a red bulb, and she takes it from me, her smile gone. “It wasn’t a big deal,” I reassure her, suddenly feeling like I need to cheer her up.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here with us this year,” she replies, and Fia glances at her sister, but neither of them says anything else on the matter. Maybe they don’t know what to say.
I didn’t think much of my uneventful holidays the past few years, to be honest. I’m used to not having family around; being a loner is encoded in me.
I haven’t spoken to my father since the day I left sixteen years ago.
He saw me packing a duffel bag and told me no one would want me and that I wouldn’t be welcomed back once I stepped out the front door.
He could be six feet under right now, and I wouldn’t know, or care.
Family isn’t the blood that binds, but the hearts that open when you need it most. And right now, I’m here with two of the people who, at one point, loved me like their own.
Even if one of them won’t fully admit that yet.
“See, I knew forcing you two to hangout would rekindle your friendship!” Fia smiles, reaching for a glass ornament from the box in front of me as I pause mid-unwrap.
Penny’s face flushes, and she nervously laughs. “What are you talking about?”
Fia peers around the tree at her sister. “You two were best friends. There’s history there. That’s all—I’m just glad you’re not trying to cut his jugular out anymore.” Fia rolls her eyes at me, as if to say can you believe how dumb my sister is?
“We really were close, weren’t we, Penny?” I chime in and grab a strand of beads to wrap around the tree. I’m sure I’ll do it wrong and Penny will come behind me, adjusting every bead, but right now, she’s too stunned, watching me like a sniper. “Funny how inseparable we were back then, hmm?”
“Mhm,” she replies and repeatedly readjusts the same ornament.
I circle the tree with the metallic bead string and stop directly behind her, my chest pressed to her back, and tuck the end of the strand into the branches above her head.
Penny goes still.
“To think I used to know everything about you.” I lay it on thick, my lips hovering right beside her ear.
Penny steps back, beneath my arm, nearly knocking the tree over to get away.
“Careful!” Fia cries out, but Penny hops over boxes on the floor and widens her eyes in warning.
“I knew all the buttons to press to make you tick…inside and out.” I slowly drag my eyes up her body and watch her stiffen.
Then she claps once, loudly, making Tank jump up, alert.
“Who wants something to drink? To eat? I’m going to the kitchen. To cook. To drink.” She beelines to the fridge, and I chuckle.
Fia passes a weird look at us both. “What’s her deal?” she asks, throwing tinsel on the tree. It’s really beginning to look like a hot mess, but I just go along with it.
“She’s just worked up about Christmas, that’s all.”
After twenty minutes, the tree is done—a sporadic display of old ornaments, tinsel, beads, and half-working lights. So I head out the back door, followed by Fia and Tank, to grab a few wreaths. Onto the next task.
Nan always hung a boxwood wreath over the fireplace and one on each window on the front of the house—Fia reminded us. We might be the last home on the block to decorate for the holidays, but if I have any control over it, I’m going to make sure it feels like old times for the Hanson girls.
It’s chilly and damp inside the large shed, and Fia pulls her green sweater over her fingertips, drawing her arms close to her body.
I hand her a trash bag with a wreath inside it. “Hey, while I have you a moment, I need to tell you something,” I start, and she freezes, looking up at me.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I might’ve made a promise I’m not sure I can deliver.”
Fia furrows her brow, cocking her head back. “Oh?”
I wasn’t planning on confiding in her, but the clock is ticking and I can’t do it without her. I need her help. She may be the quiet and softer sister, but she holds a quiet strength I don’t think she sees.
“Last Monday at visitation, I told Danny that Penny was in town,” I start, and she inhales sharply, waiting for the punchline. “And he asked me for a favor… He wants me to bring her to visitation. He said he needs to talk to her.”
Fia drops her hands to her hips, her belly swaying back and forth as she gnaws on her bottom lip. “Damn, that’s a big promise.”
“Yeah, I know.” I exhale my words, feeling the weight of reality. “It might’ve been the dumbest shit I’ve done in a while, but I can’t break another promise.”
“Another?”
I shouldn’t have said that.
All I’ve done is break promises to Penny. To myself. And this one was a stupid one to make.
I’m sure Penny has her reasons for not visiting Danny, ones I’m not even aware of. But I know about all the letters he’s sent her, and I’ve seen his face when I bring up his twin sister. Any animosity from his side is gone. He simply wants to talk to her.
“I know it’s a slim chance…” I hate asking for help. Loathe it. But I’m desperate not to let him down, even if his hopes are low.
I need a win.
“It’s Sunday, Jesse… You really think you can convince Penny to go in less than twenty-four hours?”
Well fuck, when she puts it like that.
“She wouldn’t even listen when I suggested a phone call on Christmas…” Fia sighs. “My sister hasn’t spoken to our brother for like…well, since the summer after graduation, I think. It’s not something she’ll talk about with me. And you know it’s not easy to change her mind.”
“I know.” I steel myself. “I think everyone is just ready to start healing.”
Fia peers down as Tank meanders in, nuzzling his white-and-gray snout into her thigh.
“Is that why you’re back? To try and fix things or something?” She peers up at me, searching.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Okay.” Fia nods, nostrils flaring. “I’ll help you.”
She doesn’t sound confident, but I grab her small shoulder and give it a squeeze. Relief floods me.
“I can’t even tell you what this means. Thank you.”
She scrunches her nose at me. “I’m not saying she’ll go, but I’ll help your case.” She grabs another bagged wreath and pauses before walking out of the shed, glancing back at me. “For the record, I think you’re a really good guy, Jesse.”
I smile at her before she disappears into the yard.
If only everyone thought so.