We Need a Little Christmas (21 page)

Chapter 22

Liv positioned the next two feet of green wire along the edge of the eaves and fired the staple gun again. The paint on the big colored lightbulbs was flaking off, but her mom's house was going to be lit up for Christmas if it killed her.

And it just might.

She almost had it down to a science. By leaning far enough to each side, she could get in three staples' worth of Christmas lights before she had to clamber down and shift the ladder over again. The middle staple was the easy one. Now, stretching to the right, she clenched her teeth, said a silent prayer, and stapled down another two-foot section of wire.

Below, she heard the front door open.

“Would you get down from there?” Rachel called as Liv gripped the ladder, fighting for a more stable position. “You're making Mom a nervous wreck.”

“
You're
supposed to be off your feet,” Liv retorted.

“Then come inside and sit with us.” Rachel wrapped her arms around her coat. “We've seen enough of urgent care lately.”

“I know what I'm doing. I saw Dad do this a million times.” Some of their father's old, rusted staples still poked out of the wood, a testament to his use of the crude method. Had anyone else hung Christmas lights on this house since Dad passed away?

She wouldn't know. She hadn't been home for Christmas.

“Liv.” Rachel's voice took on a rare,
cut-through-the-crap
tone. “Christmas is only two nights away. We don't need lights.”

Liv knew that. But
she
needed something to do. And she was more comfortable teetering up here, seven feet out of her sister's reach, than she was climbing down and dodging questions.

“I'm almost done with the front of the house,” she said. “Just let me finish this strand.”

And maybe the one after that, if this string didn't wrap far enough around the front of the house.

She stayed on her perch, like a treed cat, until Rachel finally shrugged and went inside.

By the time Liv went in, the afternoon light was fading. But inside, she found not a lecture, not an interrogation, but the enticing scent of her mom's grilled cheese sandwiches.

“How come you're not sitting down like you're supposed to?” Liv gave her mother a hug in front of the stove.

“I'm getting a system.” Releasing Liv and leaning on her crutch, Mom turned a sandwich with her free hand.

“And by the time you get it down, you won't need the crutches anymore.” Liv went to the cabinets to gather plates.

“That's about the size of it.”

They all sat at her mother's dining table. The old Shaker table would look nice in here, but Liv knew Mom had spent several hundred bucks on the new tile-topped table. Liv decided not to reopen that discussion.

“Thanks for hanging the lights,” Mom said. She didn't complain about being a nervous wreck, but Liv knew what her sister had said was true.

“Did you put them on a timer?” Rachel asked.

“No, I didn't stop to figure that out yet. I could—”

“We'll just plug them in after dinner,” Rachel said quickly.

They continued eating in silence. It was as normal and as strained a moment as Liv could recall from her visit so far. So many things hung, unsaid, in the air. Nammy's absence. The fact that Rachel would be leaving the day after Christmas, and Liv, the day after that. The question of what the heck was going on with Liv and Scotty. Mom and Rachel
had
to know something was up, and the very fact that they weren't asking only seemed to underscore it.

After dinner, they stood outside in the growing cold to admire the fruit of Liv's labor. Several of the colored bulbs were burned out, but no one mentioned that.

“We need one more good snow,” Mom said instead. Only a few patches still remained in the shady areas of the front yard, and under the eaves themselves.

“I'll tell you what
I
need,” Rachel said. “I'd really like to get out for a little while. I've been sitting for two days, except for Nammy's house this morning. We could get a cup of coffee at the Pine 'n' Dine.”

“You girls go ahead,” Mom said. “But Rachel, you'd better take it easy.”

“You're not supposed to have coffee,” Liv said.

“Decaf, then.” Rachel's eyes brightened. “Or better yet. They've got spiced cider at The Snowed Inn.”

Bowing to the inevitable, Liv agreed. After all, they owed her a hot chocolate.

* * *

“It's my mom's recipe.” Mandy slid a pedestal mug in front of Liv, topped with whipped cream and festive red sprinkles. “I've just played with it a little over the years.”

“Thanks.” Liv scooped off a little of the whipped cream with her finger before she thought, then quickly popped it into her mouth. So much for table manners.

She hadn't expected to be back at The Snowed Inn, but she was glad they'd come. Two nights before Christmas, the place felt like an absolute pinnacle of holiday cheer with its soft white lights, warm pine scent, and glowing fireplaces. Christmas music played in the background at the perfect volume—enough to be audible, but not too loud for conversation. Liv was glad, too, to see that most of the tables in the little lobby were filled. In fact, it was crowded enough that she and Rachel sat in high-backed stools at the counter of the coffee bar near the ordering window.

Mandy set Rachel's hot cider in front of her. “No chocolate for you?”

“Cocoa has caffeine in it.” Rachel nodded pointedly at Liv. “
Somebody
had to remind me of that.”

Mandy grinned. “That's cruel and unusual. But I'm sure the baby will thank you. Someday.” She rested one arm on each of their shoulders. “I'm glad you two came. Let me know if you need anything.”

With that, Mandy vanished in the direction of the kitchen.

Liv spooned up a little more whipped cream, then took her first sip of cocoa. Its richness took her by surprise. “Wow. I guess I forgot what it could taste like when it doesn't come out of a packet.”

Resting her elbows on the counter, Rachel sipped her cider with obvious relish before she turned to Liv. “So.”

So. This was where Liv got to pay for all the tact Rachel had stored up over the past couple of weeks.

She tried to cut her sister off at the pass. “So. How about those Dodgers?”

Rachel gave her a nod as if to say,
Nice try.
“You want to talk about it?”

It occurred to Liv, belatedly, that hot chocolate might not be the best thing for her tense stomach.

“Not really.”

“Where do you get that?” Rachel asked. “You've always been so private. Whenever I had boy trouble, I always came whining to you and Mom.”

“Probably Dad's side of the family. He had that strong, silent thing going. Kind of like Brian.” She raised her eyebrows at her sister.

“Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

Liv took another sip, and her stomach relaxed a little. Not the effect she'd expected from something so sweet, as knotted up as she was these days.

“
Boy
trouble,” she mused. “Not exactly the word I'd use for Scott.”

“What's up with you two? Seriously.”

Liv sipped her drink and took a deep breath. Was she really going to go there?

Might as well. Rachel wasn't giving up easily. And after all, Scotty was just the tip of the iceberg. Granted, six-foot-five made for a pretty big chunk of ice.

“It's pretty much what it looks like,” Liv admitted. “I started something I shouldn't have started. I can't stay in Tall Pine, so . . .” She took a sip and shook her head.

There was no point in going into the rest of it—the breakup with Kevin, the resulting mess with the business. Mom and Rachel had never even heard of Kevin. Just as well, the way that relationship ended up. She
was
a private type, she supposed. She didn't like having people see her fail. Not even her own family.

And wouldn't Dr. Freud have had a field day with
that.

* * *

Mandy peered around the corner, but Jake's hand on her shoulder gently pulled her back.

“You can't fix everything,” he said.

“She's so sad,” she said. “If we could just get Scotty down here—”

“We don't know that's what it's about.”

“Don't you think?” She'd heard a fair amount about Liv's business troubles the other day. But to Mandy, the expression on Liv's face said
heart trouble.

“Maybe,” Jake said. “But maybe that's all the more reason to stay out of it. There's a difference between helping people feel a little better and getting involved in their personal lives.”

Mandy sighed, the image of Liv's faintly furrowed brow playing in her mind's eye.

Her mother always used to say there wasn't anything a cup of hot cocoa couldn't make a little bit better. And over the course of the Christmas season, she and Jake had done too much observing to deny that her cocoa had a mellowing effect on people. A squabbling older couple, a mother and daughter at odds with each other after a rough meeting with a wedding planner . . . without flat-out eavesdropping, it was still easy to see the difference after a cup of hot chocolate. They also noticed the cocoa didn't seem to have quite the same effect if it was served by Jake, or any of the other staffers.

Getting Scotty down here to serve him a big cup of cocoa . . . maybe that did cross the line into meddling.

“I guess you're right,” she said reluctantly.

“Things work out the way they're meant to work out,” Jake said. “Try to force them, and it always backfires. Besides, what if Liv and Scott got together and she ended up beating him with a rolling pin? You'd have no one to blame but yourself.”

* * *

Scott pushed the church door open for his parents, then held it for half a dozen other arrivals for the Christmas Eve service. They found seats near the middle of the church. At least this time his mom and dad were here, so he wouldn't have to join his uncle Winston and Dave Radner in the lonely bachelors' row.

“Presents tonight or tomorrow morning?” His father picked up on the mini-debate that had started in the car. His mom was a traditionalist; his dad was the kind who'd peek at presents if you didn't watch him.

“Tomorrow,” Scott said. The fact was, he didn't want to spend Christmas morning with time on his hands.

“You just want the waffles,” his mom said.

Any other year, that would have been true. This year, he hadn't even thought of it—a sure sign his mind was elsewhere. His mother's homemade Christmas-morning waffles were an institution, starting sometime after Scott's early childhood.

He smiled at her. “Frozen is okay, if it's easier.”

Norma did a double take and held her hand to his forehead, as if to check for fever.

Flute music started as a few more attendees trickled in, and for the first time, Scott felt the spirit of the evening seep into him. Hearing Linda Washington's annual overture of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” made the trip worthwhile.

Still, his eyes wandered over the half-filled seats. He found himself wishing he'd sat closer to the back. His height, and concern for anyone who might sit directly behind him, would have been a good enough excuse for that. But it didn't look as though Liv and her family were coming, unless they'd sat down behind him. The last he heard, Rachel's husband hadn't been expected to arrive until today; most likely they'd decided to stay home.

He probably wouldn't see Liv again before she left, and probably that was for the best. He didn't need any more rounds of masochism. But he wished he hadn't left things the way he had with her. What was wrong with wishing her the best?

Aside from the fact that “the best” obviously didn't include him.

The overhead lights dimmed, and a somber-looking ten-year-old stepped forward, awkward and silent, to light the two sets of candelabra at the front of the church. Christmas, with all its small-town imperfections, had come to Tall Pine.

* * *

The next morning, when Scott opened the front door of his apartment, he found a reindeer-decorated canister waiting on the doormat. He scooped it up and carried it inside.

An envelope was taped to the side. Scott opened it to find a Norman Rockwell Christmas card with a note inside. It was short and sweet:

Scott opened the canister. It was filled with peanut brittle.

Not the prepackaged peanut brittle he'd mentioned that day in the attic, the kind local kids sold door-to-door. Scott picked up a piece and took a bite. This peanut brittle was light and fresh, probably from that little candy shop on Evergreen Lane.

He wondered when she'd bought it.
Let's see. Probably somewhere between the kiss in the attic and the kiss at the batting cages
, he guessed. She'd obviously delivered it sometime after he got home last night. She hadn't knocked on the door, leaving him to wonder just what it meant.

He supposed it could be a peace offering. But it felt more like a goodbye.

Chapter 23

“Drive safe.” Liv gave Rachel one more hard hug in their mother's driveway, not far from the spot where they'd collided just a few weeks ago.

Goodbyes were always the pits. This one was hitting Liv hard. Rachel was still the same Rachel, but they'd gotten to know each other better this time around, no longer separated by grades in school.

No, just little things like marriage. And motherhood.

Rachel stuffed herself behind the wheel of her little blue car, and Brian immediately followed suit in his own hatchback. Liv wondered if they'd be in one of those family vans the next time she saw them.

Next time. How long would that be?

Liv leaned into Brian's car and gave him a quick one-armed hug. “I'll take good care of her,” he said.

“I know you will.”

San Diego was only a three-hour drive, and the chance of Rachel giving birth on the way there seemed pretty minute, but she didn't blame Brian for looking a little nervous. As they drove off, his vehicle kept a snug distance behind Rachel's. Liv closed her eyes, proud she hadn't cried, and sent up a quick, wordless prayer. When she opened her eyes again, the little mountain road was empty. She wished she could be there when Rachel opened her suitcase and found the blue-flowered tennies Liv had slipped inside. Rachel had always been a shoe size smaller than Liv. But thanks to the pregnancy, they ought to fit her now.

Inside the house, Liv rejoined Mom, who had busied herself at the kitchen sink. Propped matter-of-factly on her crutch, she stood washing breakfast dishes. Liv fought off the urge to lecture her about being on her feet. She knew why her mother was washing dishes. Mom hated goodbyes worse than anyone, which was why she hadn't followed Rachel and Brian out to the driveway. Liv suspected that was a big part of the reason her mother couldn't stand airports.

“It feels quiet, doesn't it?” Liv said.

Mom nodded, not looking away from the sink.

Ordinarily, Rachel was up here every month or so. That was a lot of comings and goings, and a lot of goodbyes. Maybe those smaller goodbyes weren't as hard. But this visit had been different—a longer, more emotional one. And the next time Mom saw Rachel, her youngest daughter would probably be a new mother.

And Liv knew the specter of her own departure, tomorrow morning, hung over her mother. Liv wondered if it would have been easier if she and Rachel had both left at the same time. Before the scare with the contractions, the plan had called for Rachel to drop Liv off at the airport as she and Brian headed back. But the possibility of early labor had everyone uneasy, so they'd left a day early.

“You know,” Liv ventured, “you do have a dishwasher.”

Mom didn't turn around. “I didn't want to risk it with these dishes. I'm not sure how old they are.”

Of course. They'd used Nammy's old Currier and Ives dish set for a final, Christmas-style family meal. The plates and cups might be worth money, or they might not. But they'd been Nammy's, and now, that made them irreplaceable.

Liv joined Mom by the sink. “I'll help.”

She pulled a dish towel from the drawer next to the kitchen sink and started fishing plates from the brutally hot rinse water in the right-hand side of the kitchen sink. These dishes ought to be sterile, all right.

After a few minutes of working silently side by side, Mom spoke. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I mean, for everything. I don't think I've thanked you and Rachel enough. It's a weird feeling to have your own kids start taking care of you.”

“You did it for Nammy for years.”

“Nammy never needed much help.” With soapy hands, Mom drew another mug out of the sink and examined the horse-drawn sleigh as if it were the Mona Lisa. “She was always busy. Always planning.”

“I guess all the tile and paint she bought proves that.”

Mom swiped her dish rag through the mug and handed it to Liv. “Sometimes I wonder just what she had in mind there.”

Liv nodded, wondering again—as Scott must have wondered—how much time Nammy had figured she had left. She'd been in good health until the end, but still. When had she really expected to make those home improvements?

“Well, at least all those things went to good use.” Liv dipped the mug in the scalding water and dried it conscientiously.

Mom said, “Did you and Scotty have a good time working on the house together?”

“Scott,” Liv corrected without thinking. Then wished she hadn't.

“He's special, isn't he?”

So, Mom wasn't as preoccupied as she seemed.

Liv should have known. Of course her mother knew Scott was weighing on her mind. If she'd ever thought otherwise, Liv had been kidding herself. This woman had changed her diapers, put up with slamming bedroom doors, and nursed Liv through her first broken heart.

“Nammy sure thought he was,” Liv said. After a silence, she admitted, “She was right.”

Liv fished the last plate out of the hot water. Suddenly she wished there were a
lot
more dishes. She dried it slowly and looked for a change of subject. Casting her eyes around the room, she stopped at Mom's new, tile-topped dining table. “Isn't it funny how women gravitate to the kitchen table? For men, it's usually the living room. Where the TV is.”

Once again, Mom steered the conversation onto the wrong track. “I can still ask Scott to save Nammy's old farmhouse table,” she said. “I know you can't take it home right away, but I could keep it until you need it.”

Liv shook her head. She couldn't ask Scott for anything. Not now. “Where would you even put it?”

“I could find room in the garage. Too bad I don't have an attic—”

The word
attic
sent Liv over the edge. Her hands went to her face to cover huge, hot tears. She still held the dish towel clenched in one fist, but nothing could hide the fact that she was breaking down, bawling, in front of her mother's kitchen sink.

“Oh, honey.”

Liv heard the crutch clatter to the floor and felt Mom's arms around her, with the familiar feel of her mother's old red poinsettia sweater and her indefinable scent that reminded Liv vaguely of apples.

“Honey,” Mom said, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—”

“I know.” Liv shook her head against her mom's shoulder, grabbed her around the waist and held on, partly to steady herself, partly to make sure her mother didn't tip over.

“Don't fall,” she said into Mom's sweater. “You need to sit down.”

Somehow, without falling down or picking up the crutch, the two of them made it to the kitchen table. Mom scooted her kitchen chair next to Liv's and sat beside her, her arms around her.

“Easy,” Mom said, stroking Liv's shoulder as her sobs slowed. “I haven't seen you cry like this since—”

She stopped, but they both knew the rest. Since Dad died. Liv, Rachel, and Mom had all taken turns during those days, one of them crumbling while the other two held her up. And then Liv had stopped. Because it wasn't doing any good. Because she shouldn't be leaning on her mother when Mom had to be hurting far worse.

Crying didn't do any good. So she stopped again now, sagging against her mother's shoulder, so limp that she felt Mom lean over to peer into her face as if to make sure she hadn't passed out.

“I'm sorry,” Liv said. “I'm okay.”

“No, you're not.”

“I will be.” Liv straightened and blotted her eyes with the dish towel. She'd violated one of her prime commandments of adult daughter-hood:
Don't worry Mom.

“Do you want to talk about it?” her mother asked gently.

Liv shook her head. “I need to pack for tomorrow.” But she didn't get up. Instead, she wiped her eyes again, fighting the urge to hide her blotchy face.

“You've got a lot of your father in you, you know.”

Liv lowered the dish towel and regarded Mom questioningly.

“When he was upset about something he always looked for something to do. I thought it was a man thing, but maybe it's in the genes on his side of the family. Like the way you got us all to paint the living room the summer after he died.”

No need to point out the way Mom had busied herself with the dishes this morning.

Liv sniffed. “Hey, it looks good, doesn't it?”

“It does. It always reminds me of what you girls did for me.”

“It wasn't much.” And it had been the least Liv could do. Rachel had been there so many more times for Mom ever since, for big things and small things. Liv didn't know how she could ever make up for everything she'd missed. Yet her mom had never asked her to.

And here she was, with just a few hours left to her visit, talking about going off to pack.

Liv gave her mom one more squeeze and eased back in her chair, red eyes and all. “Let's get some of those dishes dirty again. I'll pour us some eggnog.”

* * *

And then it was the night after Christmas.

Tonight Liv had the double bed all to herself. But she wasn't in bed. Instead, she sat alone on her mother's living room floor, at the foot of the silver tree, while the color wheel turned.

Red, blue, orange, green.

Sometimes when Liv sat under the tree, she just gazed at the wash of the colors. Sometimes she made a game of spotting favorite ornaments. Tonight she found herself spotting the bare patches. She and Rachel had chosen their share of the ornaments to take home, plucking them from the branches like fruit, so the tree was unevenly decorated.

Orange, green, red, blue.

Other than the light from the color wheel, the room was dark. It was Liv's favorite way to watch the colors play over the tree. But she'd let the fire in the fireplace dwindle when Mom went to bed, so it was cold down here on the floor. She hugged her knees close to her and rested her chin on them. It was only incidental that the position felt so much like curling up into a ball.

She was going back to Dallas tomorrow. She'd already packed. Her business and a load of decisions waited for her.

When she came back to Tall Pine a few weeks ago, she was pretty sure she'd referred to Dallas as “home.” After this visit, after tasting everything she'd left behind, she wondered if Dallas would ever feel like home again.

A voice in her brain said,
Stay.

Another voice answered back, just as quickly:
Impossible.

The argument had been going on in the back of her mind all day. There was no doubt she had a big piece of Tall Pine in her heart, with its evergreen scent, its kind people, and its maddening cell phone reception. Her mom was here. Mom, who had to be missing Nammy more than she ever showed. What would it be like living near her family, and why had she never considered it before?

She'd be close enough to see Rachel's baby when it was born, to watch a niece or nephew grow up.

And there was Scott.

In spite of everything else, would she have even thought of staying if it hadn't been for him? She thought of the chilly frost in Scott's blue eyes the last time she saw him. At this point, would he even be glad if she stayed?

Her heart said
yes.
But her heart had been wrong before. Recently. If she and Scott tried and failed . . .

She had a problem to fix, a business to save. She'd be running away from that. And she'd be admitting, to everyone in town, that this supposed empire she'd built had been a house of straw.

She'd made her decision. She had her commitments. She had her plane ticket. An eight-hundred-dollar plane ticket.

And she'd already packed.

* * *

Driving up the street, Scott slowed the truck in front of Liv's mother's house. He'd tried to tell himself he just felt like going out for a drive to look at Christmas lights.
Liar.

He slowed the truck, but he didn't stop.

The eaves were strung with Christmas lights—when in the heck had that happened?—and the porch light was on, small-town style. But the windows were almost completely dark. Except for the front living room window, which glowed dimly through the sheer curtains: red, blue, orange, and green.

That would be the color wheel, painting lights over that silly, kitschy silver tree. The only thing Scott had seen that was capable of making Liv crumble to mush.

Odds were she was in the living room with that tree right now. Just a few yards away. All he needed to do was walk up to the front door and knock. Surely the peanut brittle had been an olive branch. But if Liv opened the door, Scott had no idea what he'd say. Probably the wrong thing. His recent record wasn't too impressive. With every effort, it seemed, he gave her another chance to tell him no.

You could only drive so slowly without stopping, so the rear of the truck was already passing the bushes that bordered the neighbor's yard. Up ahead, the road continued on a slight incline, winding its way toward more homes, the real estate prices going up with the elevation. Like most of the residential roads in Tall Pine, it eventually dead-ended.

Scott continued a few houses farther up the road, far enough that the lights and sounds of his truck would be out of range of the Tomblyn house, before he turned around. He pulled into a driveway to execute a three-point turn, noticing for the first time a nice display of white lights and animatronic grazing reindeer.

Driving back downward, he saw that most of the homes were decorated, and he hadn't even noticed. He really had tunnel vision these days.

He slowed in front of Liv's house again and considered calling from his cell phone. That, he decided, officially entered creepy-stalker territory.