All They Want for Christmas

by M. K. Stelmack

  From the rattle of the ladder, it sounded as if she was skipping down.

  “Your turn,” Sofia called.

  “I’m holding the ladder,” Mara called up. “Take your time.”

  All the time in the world, and she wasn’t going anywhere. She’d die on this roof, frozen into place. Then topple off like a chunk of ice. It was the only way she’d see ground again.

  Even moving her mouth was an effort. “Mara,” she said, her voice a whisper. She tried again.

  Mara probably sensed more than heard her. “Yes?”

  Bridget gathered up all her strength to request her last-ditch hope. “Call Jack.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JACK COULD SEE Bridget straddling the highest peak, gripping the roof, hunched over, as if riding a runaway horse. He forcibly slowed his steps from a jog to a walk and didn’t call out, not wanting to startle her. She’d probably already seen him.

  Mara, Sofia and Isabella were at the bottom of the ladder.

  “I hear,” Jack said to Sofia in Spanish, “that you climbed this ladder without permission.”

  “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to,” she said, her logic sound.

  “True,” he said. “I forgot to put away the ladder and that was my fault. I’m sorry.”

  “You need to apologize to Bridgie. She climbed up there and can’t get down.”

  Another truth. Bridge wouldn’t be up there if Sofia hadn’t climbed the ladder he’d left there. Jack switched to English for Mara’s sake. “I’ll help her down. Meanwhile, how about you go inside with Mara?”

  He looked questioningly at Mara who bundled the girls inside with promises of hot chocolate and cupcakes. Isabella shot Jack a worried look over her shoulder.

  “Everything will be fine,” he said. For the second time this month, he’d fielded a distress call from Mara about his girls. Or, in this case, his girl.

  Bridge hadn’t moved. She didn’t even turn her head, as he climbed the roof through Sofia’s snow angels. The wing of one angel was inches—inches—from the edge of the roof. The second he and Bridge touched down, that ladder was going into the farthest corner of the garage.

  She stayed rigid as he slipped behind her, both of them now astride the peak. “Bridge? I’m going to put my arm around you, okay?”

  She gave a quick jerk of her head, which he took for acceptance. He settled his arm around her, and holding her had never felt so good. Never before had it been a case of life or broken bones, at the very least. She wouldn’t fall now.

  She must’ve thought the same thing because she relaxed against him. “I was fine,” she whispered, “but then I...wasn’t.”

  “I’m here now,” he said.

  “You’re mad at me.”

  “More resigned,” he said. “Like when Sofia lost a mitten somewhere between the house and the car. Unbelievable but treatable.”

  “Like I’m a disease.”

  “I’m definitely terminal about you.”

  “That’s really tacky,” she said. Still, she snuggled against him.

  He wrapped both arms around her.

  “Ready to go down?”

  She drew breath and moved to lift her leg. It stayed put. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t move.”

  Jack had no idea how to get her down. He could do something about her shivering, though. He unzipped his jacket and folded it around her as far as it would go. “Here,” he said. “Don’t worry. You will move. We will get down the ladder. Everything will be fine.”

  She kept right on shivering.

  “Hey, Bridge,” he said by way of distraction, “I was thinking that we needed to do Christmas shopping for the girls.”

  She groaned. “I still need to go to Cozy Comforts and buy my usual Christmas Eve pajamas. Did you want me to pick up something for the girls then?”

  “No, I want us to do it together because I trust your taste.” He paused. “I want to put our names on the presents.”

  If possible, she stiffened even more. “Jack, we hardly know what we’re doing.”

  “I know exactly what I’m doing. Starting with getting you off this roof.”

  “I know I need to get off. I’m making us late for the dinner service. I just can’t make myself move.”

  “Don’t worry. Mano and his family can hold down the fort until we get there.” He pulled himself as tightly as he could against her. “You must be freezing.”

  “Yeah. With—” he could actually hear her teeth chatter “—fear.”

  He believed that. “How did you manage to get yourself up here? You’re terrified of heights.”

  “I already told you I love your girls.”

  “That must be some kind of love.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “A higher love.”

  Jack laughed at her pop-music reference. If she could make a joke, then he was making progress. He wondered to what heights her love for him might take her. Probably to the top of the bathroom step stool Sofia used to brush her teeth.

  “You know, being scared of heights is pretty normal. It’s our survival instincts kicking in.”

  “Survival. Right. Sort of the reverse for me.”

  “Oh?”

  “My mother. My biological mother. I’m mostly over the bad things she did, except for this.”

  “She made you afraid of heights?”

  Bridget covered her face with her bare hands. “She made me feel certain I’d never get down.”

  “Ah.” He tried to sound as if he understood, or at least as if he wanted to understand.

  “She was always in and out of jail, which meant that I was always in and out of foster care. I don’t remember much from those years. Not much from the foster care, anyway, except for the food. There was food every few hours. And I remember a fruit bowl in one house. The rule was you could eat from it anytime, and that bowl was never empty.”

  “Isabella would’ve loved that place,” Jack said.

  “When I was with my mother, I seriously didn’t know when I was going to eat next. Once we lived in this old, old house out in the country. Out back was a tree house. A platform, really. But there was a ladder up to it. I liked going there because it felt safe. I could see anyone coming.

  “One time, there was food on the counter and I could eat whenever because my mother was in bed. But then she gets up and comes into the kitchen. I’m there about to take a banana. She gets angry, asks me what I’m doing. I panic. I grab up a bunch of food and run. Run straight to the tree house, climb up there one-handed with all the food. I look back, and she’s following. Not so fast. She must’ve still been drunk or high or whatever she was.

  “She gets to the ladder and starts to climb it, but can’t get herself up it. She falls back and brings down the ladder. She says, ‘I’m your mother. Your mother. I’m your mother. You listen. I’m your mother.’ Over and over. And then she gets up and leaves. Leaves in a car. Leaves me up there, the ladder flat on the ground. And all I can think is that I’m okay, because I have food.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say, except to wrap himself tighter around her.

  “Deidre—Deidre said that when help arrived, I had probably been up there for three days. It took hours and hours to figure out how to get me safely down. I guess it looked as if I’d bolt over the edge whenever they sent someone up.

  “She said they finally got the fruit-bowl foster-care dad to come up with an apple. I don’t even remember him now. They couldn’t take me in because their place was full. But there was a new family I could go to. One with two girls.”

  “Krista and Mara.”

  “They were the first people I ever loved.”

  Jack fought through his quiet rage against Bridget’s unknown mother to speak in a light, even voice. “I’m pretty fond of my cousins, too.”


  “Deidre said they never left me alone. Offered me their clothes, gave me food, let me play with all their toys, brushed my hair. And then I started doing the same for them. She said we were our own self-contained unit. Dad said all he and Deidre needed to do was parachute in supplies.”

  Jack would hate to have that kind of relationship with Isabella and Sofia. It already grated that his time with them was pushed into the corners of the day.

  “There is a ladder here today,” he whispered into her ear.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you feel ready to give it a try?”

  “You going to be my fruit-bowl man?”

  He kissed the side of her head. “Your hot-chocolate man.”

  She giggled. A sweet, sweet sound. “Let’s do this, then.”

  And they did. Inch by inch, rung by rung, he coached her down the ladder until both her feet hit the ground. His reward was a hug, as Bridget plastered herself against him. It was hard to pull away, but he had something more important to do.

  “I’ll meet you inside,” he told her and reached for the ladder, “after I get this out of harm’s way.”

  * * *

  ALONE IN THE restaurant kitchen, Bridget slid two large pans of minicinnis into the fridge for Mano to bake for the breakfast service. She shut off her playlist, and in the ensuing silence she detected faint footsteps above her head from Mara’s unit. What would Mara be doing there at quarter to eleven at night?

  Every bone in Bridget’s body ached for a few hours of sleep. But if it wasn’t Mara, then it was an intruder, and she couldn’t very well let that carry on. And if it was Mara, well, she had meant to speak with her ever since the incident with Sofia two days ago.

  In the unlikely event of the first scenario, Bridget took along a heavy wood cutting board, not risking the chance that something more deadly, like a chef’s knife, might be taken from her grasp and used on her. The stairs were pitch-black except for the flickering from a single candle. Good, no intruder dealt in candles. Only...Mara with her poor eyesight might knock it over.

  “Mara?”

  Bridget entered the room. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she made out the familiar shape of Mara with her fair hair next to the candle that, as Bridget realized as she moved carefully across the floor toward her, was battery-powered. And lavender-scented.

  “What is that you’re sitting in?” Bridget said.

  “An armchair.”

  “Really? It’s the size of a couch.”

  “I got it for clients. It actually reclines, so they could lie back, if they wanted.”

  “Ah. Like in a real psychiatrist’s office.”

  “Psychologist, Bridget.”

  “Same diff. You deal with head issues.”

  “And heart. Come, it’s big enough for both of us.”

  Bridget patted with her hands and shuffled her feet to the outline of the armchair and sank in, her left side fitting against Mara’s right. “Now I know how blind people feel.”

  Bridget sucked in her breath, wishing she could do the same with her stupid, thoughtless words. She quickly said, “Do you get many of those coming in? With issues of the heart?”

  “I’ve been in the field for not even a year,” Mara said, shaking half her throw over Bridget. “But, yes. The two are pretty inseparable.”

  “What’s your advice?”

  The leather squeaked as Mara shifted around. “Each case is unique. And I try to let the client come to their own reasonable conclusion. I don’t want them doing anything they don’t believe to be true.”

  Mara sighed and added, “I guess I’m trying to figure that out for myself.”

  “Alone, in the cold and dark, at eleven at night?”

  “Given what I’m trying to figure out, it makes sense.”

  Bridget didn’t like where this was going. “Are you reconsidering taking this place?”

  Mara’s second sigh confirmed Bridget’s fear. “Was this about my comment when Sofia went missing? I meant to talk to you about that. It was straight up cruel and wrong, Mara. Every caregiver has had a near-death experience with a kid. Or so I’ve heard.”

  In the dark, Bridget made out Mara shaking her head, her fair hair shimmering in the artificial candlelight. “No, really. Jolene was saying last week about how her baby nearly froze her ears off because she didn’t see how her toque had scrunched up. It happens. Anyway, Jack’s the one who left the ladder there.”

  Mara’s hand touched hers. Cold. “Bridget. I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but I lost Sofia because I couldn’t see that she’d gone. I spoke with the specialist today, and I know the truth.”

  Bridget inhaled and exhaled, prepping herself for Mara’s news.

  “You know that I don’t have any night vision but I’m losing my peripheral vision, too. And not so gradually, despite the fact that I’m taking enough supplements to curdle my liver. I Skyped with my specialist and she let me know it—it has gone macular.”

  Bridget had no clear idea what that meant, but there was no missing the tremble in Mara’s voice.

  “This—this is where the real vision loss sets in. There is a very real likelihood that in five years I will be legally blind.”

  Bridget wrapped Mara in a tight hug, and Mara set her head against Bridget’s shoulder, pulling Bridget to her as if her older sister was a body pillow.

  “My world is disappearing,” Mara whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears. “Before my eyes, because of my eyes.”

  Bridget felt choked, helpless. “I wish this wasn’t happening to you. I wish there was some kind of Christmas miracle of new vision I could give you.”

  Tears leaked down her face.

  “It’s not just the loss of my vision. It’s the loss of everything I thought I could have. Like a family.”

  “Don’t say that, Mar. Blind people can raise kids just as well as sighted people.”

  “I lost Sofia! I didn’t see her leave. If you hadn’t showed up... How could I take care of a baby? How could I pass on this disease to a child?” Mara broke into loud sobs, and Bridget wondered how she could find the tissues while not leaving Mara.

  She pressed a corner of her apron into Mara’s hands. “Here.”

  Mara blew, folded over the corner, blew, folded, blew. “Hey,” Bridget said, “leave some for me.”

  Mara’s stuttering laugh was quickly drowned in more sobs, and both of them converted the apron into a giant soft tissue.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Mara said.

  Bridget sorted through various options. None seemed good. “What did Krista say?”

  “I haven’t told her. I haven’t told anyone except you. I think that’s why I came here tonight. I could hear you in the kitchen. And I stayed up here, trying to get the courage to come down and tell you.”

  “I had no idea,” Bridget said. “I had the music on. I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “I know,” Mara said. “I snuck in because I didn’t want to disturb you. At least that’s what I told myself. But it was lack of courage.”

  “It’s a hard thing to have to say.”

  “You’re the only one I could say it to.”

  “I’m your psychologist,” Bridget joked.

  “You’re the family who thankfully has never had to worry about sharing my poor genetics.”

  “Just so you know,” Bridget said, “that wasn’t my first thought when I heard the news.” She’d felt sadness and helplessness. Krista had felt guilty because she didn’t have it, and Deidre had felt guilty because she’d passed it along.

  “Jack doesn’t carry the gene, Mom said. Because of the way it’s inherited. So you’ll be safe.”

  “Mara, we’re barely dating, much less married or thinking about kids.”

  “Everyone knows that it’s a matt
er of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack produces a ring on Christmas Day.”

  He wouldn’t. He was too practical to buy her a ring when they were scrimping to meet mortgage payments. Mara didn’t know what desperate straits the restaurant was in.

  “What? No, no. He can’t afford one.”

  Mara lifted her head from Bridget’s shoulder to look her in the eye. “If I have to face the truth about my future, then you can face the fact that your future is Jack.”

  Bridget pressed Mara’s head back down. “I face my future every day, let me tell you. How about we just focus on you for now?”

  “Believe me, I have focused on myself until my head spins, Bridge. Quite a bit about whether I should even start this business.”

  “What do you mean? Of course you should. There’s nothing about your condition to stop you. Your job is all about listening.”

  “But there are so many visual cues that a client gives and expects you to catch. Who will come to a blind psychologist when there are perfectly healthy ones on the next line in the directory?”

  “Too late. You’ve already agreed.”

  “Unlike Krista, I never signed the forms. This is day thirty, you know. I still can reverse my decision.”

  For an awful, awful moment, Bridget wondered if it might be a good thing. The money from the sale of the unit would solve so many problems. Then, the moment passed. “Not an option, Mara. What would you do with yourself? This is a godsend.”

  Her words seemed to have a settling effect on Mara. “I was wondering that myself. I have to do something with my life. If I can’t be a wife or a mother, I can still be a psychologist.”

  Mara could be a wife and a mother, but right now better she knew the importance of who she already was. “Don’t forget you’re a sister and a daughter and a cousin.”

  “I think my cousin is keener on his adopted cousin—” Mara gave Bridget’s ribs a quick tickle “—turning into his wife.”

  “Ugh. You make it sound so inbred.”

  “Don’t worry. Everyone can see that you’re not blood-related.”