The Christmas Blanket: A Second-Chance Holiday Romance

by Kandi Steiner

  I hated how silent we were as I packed up what little I’d taken out of my bag, mostly toiletries and the clothes we’d littered the floor with last night. I hated even more the way Moose whimpered at my feet when I was pulling on my coat, as if he knew that I was leaving.

  As if he knew that this time, I wasn’t coming back.

  “I love you, Moosey boy,” I said, kneeling down to put my forehead against his. He licked at my face when I gave him a kiss, and I fought back the tears when I stood again. “You be good.”

  River had his hands in his pockets, but he withdrew them once I’d said my goodbyes to Moose, grabbing my suitcase. We walked outside in silence, and he helped me get my bag into the rental, and then we stood there by the driver door.

  “Thank you,” I finally managed. “For taking me in. I…” I smiled, trying to lighten things. “I hope I wasn’t too much of a pest.”

  River winced at my words, shaking his head and looking down the road as he swallowed. “I’m going to follow you,” he said. “Just to make sure you make it alright.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know.”

  I tried again for a joke. “You know, if you had a phone, I could just text you and let you know I’d made it.”

  He tried to smile, but it fell flat. “Alright, well. Take care, Eliza,” he said, and then he turned his back on me before I had the chance to say anything in return.

  I stood there and watched him go, watched him hop into his truck and fire the engine to life, letting it idle as he waited for me to get in and lead the way. My chest was on fire, tears pricking my eyes. I’d already said goodbye to that man once.

  I never imagined I’d have to do it again.

  I never imagined it’d hurt worse the second time around.

  Before a single tear could fall, I slipped into my car, the engine groaning a little as I fired it up. As I checked my mirrors, my eyes caught River’s in the rearview.

  Just forty-eight hours ago, I knew exactly who I was.

  I knew what my plan was, where my life was leading, what I’d see and do and explore next. I knew where I’d been, and most importantly, I knew where I was going.

  But then a blizzard had blown in unexpectedly, flipping everything upside down.

  And now, I felt more lost than ever before.

  All month long, I’d dreamed of the pumpkin pie that now sat on a beautiful, gold-trimmed china saucer in my lap.

  When I was in New Zealand, I told the Kiwis I worked with about this pie. I described the cinnamon, the nutmeg, the creamy, delectable pumpkin and perfect buttery crust, salivating as I did so. My stomach grumbled at the thought of it on the very long flight back to the States. As I drove here from the airport, and all the time I was at River’s, this pie was all I could think about.

  Home is where Mama’s pumpkin pie is, I thought.

  And yet now that I had it within reach, just a fork sweep away from it being in my mouth, I couldn’t eat it.

  I pushed it around on my plate, eyes following the orangey brown smear of the filling. It smelled amazing, and I’d topped it with a heaping serving of Cool Whip. But still, I couldn’t take even one bite.

  I’d never felt this nauseous in my life.

  I wished it was because I was still hungover, that the Advil and hangover cure River had given me hadn’t worked. But the truth was that physically, I was fine.

  But emotionally? Mentally?

  I was a hot, steaming pile of garbage.

  The surprise I’d looked forward to went off without a hitch, Mom and Dad both crying when they found me on the other side of the front door I’d knocked on. River had already pulled away after following me home by the time they ushered me inside, and from there, it was Mom fussing over whether there would be enough food or not, Grandma pinching my hips and saying I needed at least two servings before I withered away, Dad hugging me and doting on me, and my sister teasing me about how I had wrinkles now.

  There was Christmas music and all the food I’d been lusting after. There was a warm fire and all the people I loved.

  And yet, I was miserable.

  “Mom’s gonna be offended if you don’t eat at least half of that,” my sister, Beth, said from where she sat on the other end of the couch. Mom and Dad were in the kitchen with Grandma and Robert, Beth’s husband, and Beth and I had retreated into the living room, sitting on the sofa in front of the Christmas tree.

  “Trust me, I’d love to eat it all,” I said, stacking a bite up on my fork. “If only my stomach would allow it.”

  Beth frowned, setting her own finished plate aside before she turned toward me. She had to move slowly, and she shifted a bit before getting her legs comfortably under her, thanks to her protruding belly.

  Her protruding belly that was housing a baby. My future nephew.

  And she hadn’t even told me.

  Just like Mama hadn’t told me about her hip replacement surgery last fall, and Daddy hadn’t told me that he sold both our horses two years ago.

  I was in a house with my family, and yet I realized I’d been so caught up in living my own life, in chasing my own adventure, that I completely missed out on what was happening here.

  I felt like a stranger.

  I might as well have been.

  “Well, you going to talk to me about it, or just sit there playing with your food?”

  I sighed, dragging my fork across the plate to remove the pie I’d stacked on it just to stack another one right after. “I don’t know what there is to say. I told you what happened.”

  “You did. But you haven’t told me how you feel about being stuck in a cabin for two days with your ex-husband.” She glanced into the kitchen before lowering her voice. “Or sleeping with him.”

  My sister looked nothing like me. Where my hair was dark as sin and slick straight, hers was dirty blonde and made of big barrel-wave curls. I tanned where she burned, her eyes were blue, where mine were inky wells of black.

  But we had the same nose, and the same smile, and the same blood running through our veins.

  And right now, I hated that she could see right through me.

  I frowned, still staring at my pie. “Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything anymore?”

  Beth didn’t answer, and when I looked up at her, she was watching me with the same look you might give an old woman slowly forgetting her memory. It was pity and sympathy and love all wrapped into one.

  I hated it.

  “Mom didn’t tell me about her surgery,” I continued. “Dad didn’t tell me about the horses. You didn’t tell me you’re freaking pregnant.” I pointed to her belly, letting my hand fall against my thigh with a slap as I shook my head. “And not a single one of you told me about River’s parents.”

  Beth looked down at where her fingers curled together in her lap.

  “Well?” I urged.

  “What do you want from us, Eliza?” she finally asked, shaking her head as her blue eyes found mine. “You never wanted me to talk about River. Any time I would in that first year that you were gone, you’d get angry and ask me to stop. You told me it hurt to talk about him. You told me you didn’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I realize that,” I conceded. “But come on, this is different.”

  “Well, how I was supposed to know what was okay to mention and what wasn’t? What you’d want to know versus what you wouldn’t?”

  Beth let out a frustrated breath, glancing at the tree before she found me again.

  “You left this town like you never wanted any piece of it ever again, Eliza. I was trying to abide by your wishes. I was trying to give you what you wanted.”

  What I wanted.

  I laughed under my breath at that.

  It seemed everyone was trying to figure out what I wanted, including myself.

  I abandoned my pie on the coffee table, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m just… I feel like a fish out of water. I’m back home in the town I grew up in, and everything
is the same, yet nothing is. River’s parents are gone, Beth. They’re gone. I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell them how much they both meant to me. I never got to…” I held back the sob building in my throat, shaking my head. “I wasn’t here for River. I wasn’t here to help him, to listen to him, to hold his hand at the funeral. He went through all of that alone.”

  Beth’s brows bent together, and she scooted close enough on the couch to where she could place her small, pale hand over mine.

  “And he knew,” I whispered, shaking my head as my eyes welled up. “He knew his dad was sick, that he wouldn’t be here long. But he didn’t tell me.”

  “Of course, he didn’t,” Beth said, as if it were obvious. “He loved you. He wanted you to be happy, and you had literally told him that you weren’t happy here. Why would he try to keep you in that situation?”

  “But it wasn’t that simple,” I said, frustrated. “We had been stuck in a rut for a full year. He was miserable, trying to work all those odds and ends jobs, breaking his back, never having a vacation or even a full weekend off. I was working at the supermarket. We were working, day in and day out, all day and night long sometimes just to pay our freaking bills.” I shook my head. “That’s not living, Beth. Neither one of us was living.”

  “I know,” she said, rubbing her belly. I knew she was thinking about Robert, about how hard he worked to make ends meet, and how hard she worked to keep their little home up. “But then again, that may not be living to you, but to some of us, just getting by is enough. You know? I mean, sure, Robert and I don’t have a bunch of nice things. We don’t get to go take all these fancy vacations. But at the end of a long day, we come home to each other. We love watching our TV shows together, and we love sitting out at the lake watching the sunset, or taking a long drive through the old winding roads.” She shrugged, a soft smile on her lips. “Sometimes you gotta look past all the hard things you go through and look at all the little things you have to be thankful for. Like someone to hug you, someone to laugh with.” She patted her belly. “Someone to make new life with.”

  I swallowed down the emotion still strangling me. “I guess some of us just want more.”

  “Maybe,” she said, but her smile told me she thought otherwise. “But maybe some of us just get lost and think we know what we want when really, we have no idea.”

  I frowned.

  “Why do you think you’re so sick to your stomach right now, Eliza?” she asked. “Why do you think you can’t eat, can’t fathom trying to sleep? Something has changed. Something inside you woke up that you didn’t even realize was there, soundly sleeping, all this time.”

  Beth moved even closer, taking both of my hands in hers and looking into my eyes earnestly.

  “Let me ask you this, sis. When you left, you said you were off to find adventure,” she said, accentuating the word like it was an epic tale itself. “You’ve been gone for four years now. You’ve seen dozens of different countries, hundreds of cities and towns and farms and lakes and rivers. You’ve spoken new languages, walked down new streets, met new people and maybe even found a new version of yourself, too. But tell me this… have you found what you’re looking for yet?”

  My heart thumped hard at the question, another searing zip of pain splitting my chest.

  “Because if you haven’t,” she continued, a little shrug on her shoulders and knowing smile on her lips. “Maybe it’s because you’ve been looking in the wrong places. Maybe it’s because it’s been right here, in the town that built you, all along.”

  I watched my baby sister like she was an angel, or a psychopath, or maybe a cross between the two. I blinked over and over, my frown deepening the longer silence passed between us.

  And the more those words she’d spoken sank in, the more the emotion I’d tried to fight back all evening long surfaced.

  “Oh God,” I whispered, pulling my hands from hers to cover my mouth. I shook my head. “You’re right. You’re right, Beth. I… I felt so stuck, so suffocated, that it felt like the only way out was to leave. But all this time, I’ve been searching for this… this feeling. I thought I would know it when it came. I thought one day I’d find a place or a person and everything would just click together and suddenly, right then, I’d know I was where I was supposed to be.”

  Beth nodded, smoothing her thumb over my knee.

  “And I did,” I said, emotion warping my face before I found a smile, found my sister’s gaze. “I did find that feeling. But it wasn’t in Europe, or Asia, or on a mountaintop or on a beautiful, white sand beach.” I shook my head. “It was in that boring, tiny cabin with no power, no technology, no fancy food or fancy views or fancy entertainment. It was in front of that fireplace, under that stupid old blanket,” I said on a laugh that Beth joined me in. “With that stupid man and that stupid dog.” I sniffed. “I had everything I needed in that moment. And I felt it in my soul.”

  It was a revelation. As the words tumbled out of my mouth, I felt them soaring through every inch of my body like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. I pressed my hand to my heart, feeling where it beat inside my rib cage, where it was breaking with another realization.

  “But I ran away from it,” I whispered. “I found what I’d been looking for all this time, right where I left it, and it was like finally finding it scared me more than searching for it had.” I shook my head, looking at Beth. “I left him. Again.” A sniff. “I am so, so stupid.”

  “You’re not,” she insisted, squeezing my leg. “You were just lost, Eliza. And sometimes that can be easier than being found.”

  My stomach toppled over itself, urging me to do something, but I had no idea what.

  “What do I do now?” I asked my sister hopelessly.

  To which she responded with only a smile, and a kiss to my forehead as she stood and grabbed my plate off the table. “You eat this pie,” she said, shrugging. “And then, you go home.”

  “Home…” I echoed, taking the plate from her.

  She nodded, thumbing my chin. “Home.”

  Then, she left me, joining her husband and our parents and grandmother in the kitchen. I watched them from where I sat — their smiles and laughter, my dad’s arm around Mom’s shoulders and Robert’s hand interlaced tightly with Beth’s.

  And I felt it again, the same thing I’d felt coursing through me in the cabin with River.

  Home.

  It’d taken me too long to realize it. It’d caused pain to so many people I loved just for me to pull my head out of my ass and realize that what mattered most to me in my life wasn’t what museums I’d been to or what continents I’d set foot on.

  It was these people, right here in this tiny little map dot town that had a thousand others just like it sprawling across the United States, across the world.

  I didn’t need another plane, or boat, or train. I didn’t need another beach, or city, or mountaintop.

  What I needed was River.

  I just hoped he needed me, too.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  My hands were shaking inside my gloves as I waited on River’s doorstep, Moose barking like crazy on the other side. There was a warm glow coming from the windows, smoke from the chimney, and looking now at the cabin from the outside in only made me long for what I’d had inside it even more.

  There was a low, grumbly command for Moose to be quiet, and then the door swung open, and River stood there on the other side of it.

  It wasn’t surprise or joy that passed over his face at the sight of me. Instead, it was a sort of indifference that made my heart sink. His jaw ticked, eyes taking me in before he swallowed. Moose was jumping around behind him, wagging his tail and trying not to bolt between his legs and the door to get to me.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  He didn’t say a word, just watched me with those furrowed brows, his jaw set.

  “Mind if I come in?” I asked, holding up the box in my hand. It was wrapped in a metallic green paper Mom had left over and
topped with a simple red bow. “It’s kinda cold out here.”

  River stood there a moment longer before he moved aside, allowing enough space for me to step through. As soon as I did, Moose was jumping on me, and I held the present out of the way just in time to save it from being mauled by his paws.

  I chuckled, patting his paws where they landed on my chest before I kissed his wet nose. “Hey, boy. Missed you, too.”

  Moose was still whining softly when River finally got him down off me, and then we stood there in the entryway, me still wrapped in my coat and hat and gloves and scarf because the way River was watching me, I wasn’t sure if I was invited to take them off and stay a while.

  Well, here goes nothing…

  “Merry Christmas,” I said sheepishly, holding the box in my hand toward him.

  River looked at it, looked at me, back at the box like it was a trap, and then back at me. “What are you doing here, Eliza?”

  “Please,” I begged, pushing the box closer to him. “Just open it.”

  He sighed, unfolding his arms where they were crossed over his chest and taking the box from my hands. He tore the paper open unceremoniously, ripping the ribbon off and letting it all fall to the ground. Then, he popped the lid on the small, rectangular box.

  When it was open, he stilled.

  For a long time, he just stared at that notebook, the one I’d carried with me all these years. It was thick and hardback, with a beautiful, matte black-and-white photograph of a rushing river winding between thick forests of trees, snow-topped mountains waiting, stretching up into the overcast sky in the background.

  River swallowed, touching the cover before his eyes flicked to mine.

  “Open it,” I whispered.

  He pulled it out of the box slowly, carefully, letting the box drop to the floor where the wrapping paper waited for it. Then, he balanced the book carefully in his hands and opened it to the first entry.

  I watched his eyes scan the page, left to right over each sentence until he turned the page to the next one. He frowned more and more as he read, and my heart thumped loud and heavy in my ears.