The Christmas House

by Victoria James

  “Thanks,” Olivia said, putting down her spoon.

  “Come and hold her,” Grandma Ruby said.

  Panic hit Charlotte. “Oh, Grandma, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  “Nonsense. Come here,” she said, and shoved the baby at Charlotte. Charlotte instinctively wrapped her arms around the baby, and immediately a flood of warmth swam through her. Baby Dawn smelled as good as she looked, and her chubby little body felt squishy and huggable and oh-so-adorable. She positioned one hand on the baby’s back and she leaned her head back slightly to look at Charlotte. She waved her hand wildly as drool pooled at the corner of her mouth and she smacked Charlotte in the face.

  Charlotte laughed out loud and grabbed her little hand. “You are so cute,” she whispered.

  Dawn stared at her seriously, as though contemplating her sincerity, and then gave her that toothless grin again.

  “See, you’re a natural,” Grandma Ruby said, standing and clearing Olivia’s plate.

  “Liv, seriously, go take a long nap. We’ve got everything under control,” Charlotte said.

  Her sister looked like she was going to argue but then nodded. “I’m so tired,” she whispered, standing slowly.

  “Is Will going to be coming soon?” Grandma Ruby asked while loading the dishwasher.

  Olivia’s face went red, and she walked to the door. “I’m not sure. I’m going upstairs. Thanks … thanks for being so welcoming,” she said before leaving the room.

  Charlotte waited until she heard Olivia walking upstairs before she turned to Grandma Ruby.

  She was shaking her head. “Things aren’t good. She’s hiding,” Grandma Ruby said, already moving on from the dishwasher to the coffee pot. “Now I’m going to make us some nice strong, afternoon coffee. That baby may look adorable, but she’s going to put us through the ringer once she realizes her mom is taking a nice long break.”

  Charlotte pulled the baby closer and kissed the top of her head, just as Dawn started crying.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. Put that little pacifier that’s clipped on her collar in her mouth,” Grandma Ruby called out from the other side of the kitchen.

  “I should cancel my plans to go over to Wyatt’s. You have so much baking to do, and you can’t do that and look after a baby,” Charlotte said, awkwardly doing as she was told.

  Dawn stared at her intently, and Charlotte wondered if the baby was judging whether or not her aunt was qualified for this. A second later, her niece made a sucking motion and looked content again. Charlotte let out a sigh of relief. She hated canceling, but her sister needed some rest, and it was too much to leave the baby with Grandma Ruby with all the Christmas prep.

  Grandma Ruby spun around, her eyes sharp, making Charlotte doubt whether a baby was too much for her to handle on her own. “Don’t cancel. Olivia will probably be awake by then if I know her. Besides, Mary is coming over any minute, and she loves babies. Oh! I have a batch of homemade shortbread cookies for Wyatt too,” she said.

  She had no idea where her grandmother got her energy from. The amount of sweets she produced during the Christmas season was legendary. No wonder guests were so happy here, they were in a perpetual sugar coma. Charlotte frowned and glanced at the time. “Well, I do have an hour before I have to go over there. If Mary says she’ll stay and help you until Olivia wakes up, then fine.”

  Grandma Ruby chuckled as she turned the coffee maker on. “Oh, child, Mary would offer to spend a week here if it meant you going over to her nephew’s house. And actually, you have forty-five minutes, because you should take fifteen of those minutes to get changed and freshen up. No offense.”

  Charlotte almost laughed, but her mind was on Olivia. “Okay. But, um, watch out for Liv while I’m gone.”

  Grandma Ruby crossed the kitchen and surprised her by pulling her into a hug, with Dawn sandwiched between them. Charlotte held onto her, welcoming the comfort.

  “I remember that year after I became a mother, it was overwhelming. Nothing tried me more. But this house, the woman who took me in, she saved me. She showed me so much compassion, and that’s what we will do for Olivia. Grace has led her home to us.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  FEBRUARY 14, 1969

  SILVER SPRINGS, ONTARIO

  Ruby clutched the handle on the well-worn luggage that the sisters at St. Michael’s had given her and stared up at the enormous house in front of her. The vicious February wind brought tears to her eyes and whipped around her, stirring up snow over her ankles and feet.

  She tried to a draw a deep breath and walk toward the house, but it was as though her lungs couldn’t expand to accommodate the size of her nerves. But this was her new life and she was grateful for it. Being a housekeeper to one rich, elderly woman in a small town where no one knew her was truly a blessing. Sister Juliette said she had been dear friends with this woman for years and had informed her of Ruby’s … situation. The widow said she was happy to offer a room and salary to Ruby and to help a woman in need.

  Ruby forced one foot in front of the other, slowly making her way up the stone path that led to the biggest verandah she had ever seen. Even though her family had been solid middle class in Toronto, it had been city living, and the houses weren’t grand like this or surrounded by so much land. There must have been acres and acres of forest surrounding this … mansion. Right now, all the bare trees towered around the property, their branches thick and heavy with pristine white snow.

  She ignored the fluttering in her abdomen, knowing it would only last a brief moment or two. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that … or the baby. But she had time to worry about motherhood. First she needed to secure employment. Stepping onto the wooden front porch, Ruby prayed frantically for everything and anything she could think of before grasping the O-shaped iron knocker and giving it two quick raps.

  She held her breath and a moment later the door opened. Shame snuck up on her as she remembered the other porches where she’d been tossed aside. She didn’t think she would recover if it happened again.

  A woman, maybe in her late sixties, answered the door. Her gray hair was in perfect curls and she wore a bright red dress and matching slippers, with a knit red shawl draped around her thin shoulders. But it was her eyes that gave Ruby the most hope. They were kind, green eyes, filled with such warmth and kindness that Ruby was able to finally release the breath she’d been holding.

  “Come in, dear, you mustn’t get a chill. Especially in your delicate condition,” she said, moving to the side so Ruby could walk in.

  The moment she stepped over that threshold from the harsh winter into the warm, richly furnished entryway, Ruby knew that this must be a magical home. But it was when the woman reached out to grasp Ruby’s cold hands in her frail warm ones and looked up at her with such compassion that Ruby knew she wasn’t being judged. Her kind eyes confirmed what Ruby had come to realize during her months away from home, that family didn’t always mean unconditional love, and that kindred spirits did exist. She also knew the kind of woman, the kind of mother she wanted to be: filled with compassion and empathy and unconditional love.

  * * *

  Charlotte stomped the snow off her feet as she stood on Wyatt’s front porch, careful not to jostle the plate filled with shortbread cookies. She was stalling. It’s not that she didn’t want to go inside—she did. She really did. And she had followed her grandmother’s advice and had gone to change and brush her hair. She was just going to attribute it to looking professional because this was technically a job. That’s what she would normally do before going to a client’s house anyway. The fact that she knew Wyatt was irrelevant. They barely knew each other now, and they had barely known each other back then. Obviously, she had been the only one who’d felt a connection with him when they were kids.

  But there was no time for this kind of thinking anyway, because she had other things to worry about now, like her sister’s problems and her grandmother’s past. There was a part of h
er that almost felt like she couldn’t really trust Olivia anymore. Their relationship had been great until Will had come along. They had been tossed aside by their parents in different ways, but being tossed aside by Olivia had gutted her. She had never expected that from her. Charlotte didn’t want to be heartless, but she was a little hurt by the thought that Olivia might only be here because she was going through something and needed their help. But she’d follow her grandmother’s example and help Liv. Of course she would.

  She wanted nothing more than to just pick up where they left off, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t that easy. She knew nothing about Olivia’s day to day life now. She had wanted to pick up the phone so many times in the last year, but she had stopped because she knew her calls would go unanswered.

  A gust of icy wind gathered a puff of snow and sent it in her direction, reminding her of what she really needed to be focused on right now. She lifted the leather strap of her tote a little higher on her shoulder and rang the bell. Sam whipped the door open a minute later, giving her a giant smile.

  “Hi! I just got home, perfect timing,” Sam said, opening the door wider.

  Charlotte held up the plate of homemade shortbread cookies and smiled. “Great, because I have the perfect after-school treat, courtesy of my Grandma Ruby,” she said, walking into the house.

  “That’s awesome, she’s so cool,” Sam said, as Charlotte took off her coat and draped it on the hallway chair.

  “She is,” Charlotte agreed with a little laugh. She paused as she spotted what must have been Wyatt’s uniform boots. The memory of her father’s boots by the door brought a rush of feeling, and she shrugged it off. It was great Wyatt was a cop. It had been his dream.

  She rolled her shoulders and joined Sam in the kitchen. Charlotte pulled out her notebook and the appropriate colored pens and placed them on the island. She had made her preliminary list based on memory and now checked it over to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. She was happy to concentrate on organizing—it would force her to push aside all the unwanted memories and thoughts of Wyatt or her dad. “Feel free to do whatever you’d like, Sam. I don’t want to intrude on your plans. I’m going to start by just poking around. Does that sound okay?” Charlotte asked.

  Sam nodded and took a bite of one of the cookies, fixing her brown eyes on Charlotte. “Sure. Do you mind if I stay in the kitchen?”

  “Of course not! I’d love the company.”

  Sam took another cookie and watched as Charlotte opened the pantry and made some notes in her book. She pulled out her measuring tape and almost knocked over three different cereal boxes in the process. “That pantry is a wreck,” Sam said, coming to stand beside her.

  Charlotte wrote in the dimensions before she forgot them and shook her head. “It’s nothing that can’t be organized and solved. Trust me, it’s really not that bad.”

  She slowly made her way around the kitchen for the next fifteen minutes while Sam followed her around. She was surprised she had so much interest in all this. “I like all your colored pens, and that notebook is really cool too,” she said.

  “Thanks. I find it’s really easy to break down the different areas that need help by color. I’m kind of a planner nerd,” she said with a laugh as she crouched down and opened the cupboard under the sink.

  “That makes sense. I kind of like my digital stuff, though.”

  Charlotte pushed aside some of the cleaning supplies to get a better look. “There’s something very satisfying about making a color-coordinated checklist and then highlighting every task when it’s done,” she said, standing to finish off her notes.

  “I can see that,” Sam said, looking at her pens.

  “You should try it. You can use it for anything. Studying for a test or just keeping track of things you need to do.”

  “Maybe I will. Oh, don’t bother looking in the closet. It’s supposed to be for like brooms and cleaning supplies but Dad ends up cramming in paper towels and stuff like that in there. Things might crash on you if you open the door,” she said as Charlotte put her hand on the doorknob to the small closet in the kitchen.

  Charlotte swallowed her laugh and hesitantly opened the door. She caught the mega pack of paper towels and then peered in the small space. It was a good little storage spot, it just needed organizing.

  “So humiliating,” she heard Sam whisper.

  Charlotte joined her at the island again. “Seriously. It’s not bad at all. I have seen so much worse, believe me. But your dad is a very busy man, and a lot of times organizing isn’t a priority. When you have so much going on and you’re the only adult in the house, it’s really about just getting the immediate jobs done.”

  Sam leaned against the island. “We have a cleaning lady who comes over.”

  Charlotte shrugged and felt the need to defend Wyatt. “Sure, but she’s doing the essentials. Getting to the other stuff isn’t something she can do.”

  Sam crossed her arms. “So what are you going to start with?”

  “What would you like?”

  “The pantry! I can never find anything in there and it’s even worse than the fridge,” Sam said.

  Charlotte made a note of that. “Okay, that’s a good one. You’ll be able to enjoy it right away too, instead of a boring pots and pans drawer. So why don’t we clear off everything on the island and kitchen table? Then we’re going to take everything out of the pantry and organize it by item. Does that sound good?”

  Sam hopped off a bar stool and started clearing her school things off the table. “So, like, cereal in one group and, like, crackers in another?”

  “Exactly,” Charlotte said, starting to grab some boxes and place them on the table. They worked in silence for a few minutes and then Charlotte turned to Sam. “Hey, do you like Christmas music? Maybe we can put some on?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  Charlotte continued with the pantry and a few seconds later the sound of Nat King Cole’s smooth voice filled the kitchen.

  Sam walked back to the pantry. “I put on the Christmas Spotify channel. Not sure what song this is, though.”

  “This is classic. Perfect choice.”

  They worked quickly and efficiently. Once they were done emptying the pantry, they surveyed their work. “Okay, now let’s look at expiration dates. Anything old we toss in the garbage bag. While you do that, I can wipe down the shelves. Sound good?”

  Sam nodded and got to work.

  “So do you like your school?” Charlotte said, trying to make conversation.

  “It’s decent. Most of the kids are weird, though,” Sam said as she tossed a crumpled, half-empty bag of Goldfish crackers in the garbage bag.

  “Oh, yeah? How so?”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re just different than the kids in the city. I have a best friend, though. She’s actually dad’s best friend’s daughter.”

  “Really? That’s amazing,” Charlotte said, shooting the girl a smile while she wiped down the top shelf.

  Sam nodded. “Yeah. We do ballet together too.”

  “That’s great. How many years have you been dancing?”

  “Since I was six.”

  “You must be really good now,” Charlotte said, as she finished wiping down the last shelf.

  Sam’s face flushed slightly. “I’m okay, I guess. Our studio is doing their annual production of The Nutcracker—it’s on the same night as Candlelight Christmas.”

  “I love The Nutcracker! I see it every year in Toronto. My sister took ballet through all the grades. Did you have to audition?”

  Sam nodded. “Yes, but the older students get all the good parts. We weren’t even allowed to try out for Clara.”

  Charlotte smiled. “A few more years and you’ll be able to, I bet.”

  Sam nodded. “For sure.”

  Charlotte glanced at the time on the oven, surprised to see it was already six o’clock. “What time does your dad usually get home?”

  “He said he’ll be hom
e around six today. This is his last week of work before the holidays, so he’s kind of tired because he’s going in early and stuff.”

  Charlotte chewed her lower lip for a minute. “Are you hungry? Should we get dinner going or something?”

  Sam’s eyes widened. “Do you know how to cook?”

  Charlotte opened the fridge. She didn’t tell Sam that she’d had to learn to cook because most of the time her mother wouldn’t do it and, because Charlotte was the family peacemaker, she tried to not draw attention to that fact. Sometimes she’d even lie to her dad and say that her mom had made the food. She stared at the fridge, the image of Wyatt’s boots at the door floating across her mind. Was she doing that now? Was she in a hurry to make dinner because Wyatt was coming home from a long day at work and she …

  “I bet you can’t find anything in there either,” Sam said, clearly misinterpreting why Charlotte was just standing there blankly.

  Get it together, Char. “No, no, this is fine. To answer your question, yes, I can cook—my grandmother made sure my sister and I could cook. She said it was an important life skill. Of course, it won’t be anything fancy because we haven’t really planned for it. Let’s see what we can pull together,” she said, opening the vegetable drawer. It was slim pickings, and she had no idea what either Wyatt or Sam liked to eat.

  “Do you like brie?” she asked Sam. Charlotte was surprised to find a nice assortment of gourmet cheeses in the deli drawer of the fridge.

  “Uh, I don’t think so. But maybe I do. I never tried it,” she said.

  “Hmm, I actually think your dad might have the ingredients to one of my all-time favorite toasted sandwiches.”

  “Really?”

  The shock in Sam’s voice almost made her laugh out loud. She walked over to the table filled with the pantry items and started rifling through the jars, pretty sure she’d seen one of her grandmother’s jars of red pepper jelly preserves. “Do you have apples and a loaf of bread?”

  “Yup. Dad always keeps a loaf of sliced bread in the freezer and apples are on the counter,” Sam said, opening the freezer.