All They Want for Christmas

by M. K. Stelmack

By then, no one expected her to travel, even though Bridget logically accepted that nothing was lost in doing so. She couldn’t get her heart to make the same leap. By unspoken agreement, Krista and Mara visited her, and she welcomed them with open arms. That was how it was done. Even Jack knew that she didn’t like going different places. Why else would he have said he’d come back after the year? And then found a way out of his promise by challenging her to come join him when he knew it was impossible for her?

  Except she could have met the challenge all those years ago. By inviting her to join him out in the world, he had leaned a ladder against her tree.

  But that was then, this was now, when things were far more complicated with the house, the restaurant, the girls. Especially the girls.

  She wasn’t ready to be their Bridgie-ma. She had feared her first mother and then when rescued from her, she’d loathed her. News of her death came as a relief. It had damaged her relationship with Deidre to the point that she couldn’t view her as a mother. Bridget herself was not fit to be a mother, despite what Jack and the girls kept angling for.

  She dropped the pile of petals onto her dirty plate, clattered her plate onto his and picked up the works. With her other hand, she reached for the wineglasses.

  Maybe the part of her brain on autopilot hadn’t calculated for the difference in weight and shape of the plates compared to the sturdy restaurant-issue, but they skidded from her grip and crashed to the floor.

  Bridget screamed. First, as a shocked cry. Then, with intent. “Jack! I told you that you shouldn’t use the plates. I warned you that they could break. Don’t worry, you said. There’s plenty more where these came from. But look! These are gone. Forever. There will always be two less.”

  Ten more plates, he’d assured her, leaning another ladder.

  Shards had scattered everywhere. She headed to the back for the broom, her shoes sawing into her toes. Par for the course tonight.

  The tinkling noise of broken china as she swept made her think of another time when things had come apart between her and Jack. It was back at the Canada Day celebrations six years ago. Jack had remembered her red-and-white outfit. She remembered the afternoon thunderstorm.

  They were manning a booth together as part of Jack’s latest humanitarian project, this time to promote a newly founded partnership between Spirit Lake and a sub-Saharan village. She and Jack served up free cupcakes made from cassava flour and iced red and white with mini Canada Day flags. She’d been up half the night making them.

  “Bridge, thank you for all the work you’ve gone to,” he’d said, during a break. “When Penny had said you’d come up with something, I hadn’t expected this.”

  “It’s for a good cause.” But she’d gone overboard. Transformed her feelings for him into twenty-four dozen cupcakes. She looked away, to the thickening rim of clouds on the horizon. “Looks as if we’ll get a thunderstorm.”

  He’d followed her gaze. “You’re probably right. At least we can see it coming. I’ve been in places where you’re soaked before you know it’s raining.”

  “Oh? Where was that?”

  “Tropics. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Amazon.” And between serving up cupcakes and his patter about village wells and market produce, he’d told her about his adventures and his vision to increase food security through reliable and safe distribution.

  During a lull, he said, “There’s a committee here in town. They plan to visit the village. See what’s happening there.” He paused. “You’re welcome to join them. I—I’d love to show you around.”

  Her in Africa? With a bunch of strangers and him, her ex? “I can’t see myself doing that.”

  “You wouldn’t have to worry about a thing,” he’d persisted. “Consider it payment for all the cupcakes.”

  “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the people in that village.”

  “Bridge.” His voice dropped. “I guess I am having a good time with you, and I am trying to find a way for it not to end quite so soon.”

  By asking her to take off to a strange place. “Jack, that ship sailed a long time ago.” A sharp breeze snapped the plastic tablecloth, shook the canopy uprights. “Storm’ll be here in a half hour. We should do takedown.”

  “But—” A rush of people had come up and Jack had refocused. By the time they’d cleared off, the sky had darkened and they were scrambling to pack up.

  A sudden gust swept up a couple dozen cupcakes and tossed them everywhere. Departing children had broken from parents’ grips to chase after them. Jack had cracked up when a squirrel tried to lug away one.

  His grin faded when he’d looked at her.

  “They’re gone,” she said.

  “You’ve made loads, Bridge. There’s more than enough.”

  Pretty much what he’d said tonight about the plates. But she hadn’t seen it that way tonight or six years ago. “Why don’t you tell that to the women in your village?” she’d snapped.

  His face crumpled. “I’m sorry, you’re right. You know better than me what it’s like to go without.”

  She’d only ever told him that her early childhood wasn’t easy. On his own, he must’ve figured out how little food she’d had. Maybe during his six-plus years working with the world’s poor.

  She could’ve told him then, could’ve extended their day together with her own story or two. Instead, she shrugged away his apology and they’d finished packing up in near silence. Back at the restaurant, Auntie Penny had fawned over Jack, and Bridget slipped away without having to say goodbye.

  She hadn’t told him the full story until this month, when he’d climbed to bring her down from the roof where she’d treed herself. He’d guided her down then, and countless times over the past weeks whenever she felt overwhelmed, tired, sad, lonely.

  Tonight, he leaned up a beautiful, sparkling diamond ring of a ladder and she stayed frozen like when she was six.

  Crouched on the floor with a dustpan full of broken plates, Bridget had no idea how to get her feet back on the ground.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TONIGHT WAS WATERMELON and kiwi bubble bath. Jack hadn’t known that either fruit even had a scent until he poured it into the girls’ bath.

  “Watermelon or kiwi?”

  Watermelon from both.

  “Kitchen or bedroom?” Predictably, kitchen from Isabella and bedroom from Sofia.

  “There’s no food in the bedroom.”

  “Yes, there’s the food in the drawer.”

  “That’s for—” Isabella broke off. Jack knew it was for when food ran out. For when he could no longer provide for them. Could he blame her distrust when their livelihood wasn’t secure?

  “City or country?”

  Both frowned. “What’s Spirit Lake?” Isabella asked.

  “A city for a mouse,” Jack said.

  “City!”

  And Isabella agreed.

  Before Jack could present another set of choices, Sofia patted the pile of bubbles she’d built for yourself. “Look. I made a snow angel, Jack-pa.”

  Jack smiled. Days after she gave him his new name, he still experienced a shot of pride. He’d won her over. Isabella slipped on her rump at the other end of the tub, her foot shooting up through the skirt of the snow angel.

  Sofia squealed. “Isabella! You wrecked it.” Blobs of soap angel drifted across the bathwater.

  Isabella righted herself. “It can be fixed.” She set to patching the angel back together.

  Jack reached to help.

  “It was my fault,” Isabella said. “I will fix it.”

  Isabella’s trust was harder to earn. Already wired to take on far more responsibility than she should ever have had to, Isabella resisted attempts to get her to accept help.

  “You’re like Bridgie,” he said without thinking.

  Isabella frowned. “No, I’m not.�
�

  “I’m more like her,” Sofia said. “Except shorter.”

  “No, you’re not,” Isabella said. “No one is like her.”

  Never a truer word spoken. “What I meant is that she doesn’t like to accept help, either.”

  “Auntie Deedee and Auntie Krista and Auntie Mara are helping her right now with the crates,” Sofia objected. “You can see them through the window.”

  Jack knew that very well. “Yes, but she doesn’t like that she has had to accept their help.”

  “But she can’t do it by herself,” Sofia said.

  “She knows that, which is why she has let them in.”

  “But that is because it is the Christmas Crates,” Isabella said, patting bubbles in place. “It is okay to ask for help for other people. It is best to help yourself. It is good not to need people for food or a house or things.”

  Jack realized that even if he’d not lost his money and his venture had become successful, it would have done nothing to fill Isabella’s scared emptiness. Would it be like Bridget’s, and never fill?

  The phone’s alarm beeped “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” the agreed-upon cue for them to get out of the tub and into jammies. “Now remember I’m telling the story tonight because Bridgie is busy with the crates.”

  He’d planned to read them a Christmas story about a boy and his penguin, but as usual, Sofia had a different plan. “Tell us,” she said, climbing over the seven million objects on the bed, “about you and Bridgie and the lake.”

  No. That story was too raw now. He couldn’t imagine a time when it wouldn’t be.

  “Tell me about the first time you ate her cinnamon bun,” Isabella said.

  She said it with such confidence, as if everyone would remember their first bite of Bridge’s specialty. Oddly, he did remember.

  “She burned them,” he said. “A whole pan. Burned them black.”

  Isabella and Sofia gasped.

  “I know,” he said, clearing a spot on the bed. “Hard to believe. I had come over to go on a bike ride with her. Off we go, and we are on the far side of town when she jumps up and starts screaming about her buns, her buns, her buns. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Everyone is staring. She forgot to take the buns out of the oven. She gets on her bike and I follow. We didn’t have phones, and it wouldn’t have mattered because Penny and Auntie Krista and Auntie Mara were shopping in Red Deer. And Bridge’s parents weren’t home, either.

  “When we got back to the house—this house—the kitchen is thick with smoke. I open the windows and the doors. She opens the oven door and takes out the buns. So black and tiny.”

  The girls looked grief-stricken. “What did Bridgie do?” Isabella whispered.

  He’d forgotten about this part of the story. It was...private. But he could tell part of it. “She turned to me and her brown eyes grew very big.” Two sets of brown eyes widened in anticipation. “And she said, ‘Jack, I don’t believe it. You made me forget about food.’”

  He’d laughed and taken her into his arms, and they’d kissed and kissed again, even as they choked on smoke. That part wasn’t for the girls’ ears, but they’d heard enough. Sofia threw her arms around him.

  “I am just like Bridgie because you make me forget about food, too.”

  Isabella looked more dubious. “Did she ever burn another pan?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  Isabella nodded and informed Sofia, “And that’s why I am like Bridgie. I always do better next time.”

  And didn’t that describe the woman he loved but could not reach. It was only when he switched off the overhead light and switched on the night-light that he realized something.

  “Hey, we talked all this time in English.”

  “Yes,” Isabella said, snuggling closer to her sister. “I think and dream of Bridgie in English.”

  Me, too, Jack thought. Me, too.

  * * *

  THROUGH THE WINDOW on the garage, Bridget caught the shapes of the girls and Jack as they passed by the upstairs bedroom window. Bath was over, time for jammies.

  Bridget gasped. “Christmas jammies! I’ve forgotten to buy them.”

  Krista clapped a mittened hand to her heart. “Whatever will I sleep in on Christmas Eve?” She flung a scarf intended for the crate over her shoulder and pulled a mock moue. “Last year’s?”

  Krista and Mara were sorting through outerwear and matching them with a master list of requested items. At least, Mara was. Krista exclaimed over every pretty object, tried on toques, made Mara try them on, flung scarves over all their shoulders.

  “Make fun of me now,” Bridget said as she secured a ribbon on a crate and set it aside, ready for Deidre to layer the bottom with a large cardboard coupon from Spirit Lake’s Auto Center. “But you will feel weird if you don’t have a new pair to put on.”

  Krista shrugged. “It’s happened before and I survived.”

  “But I’ve always given you a pair. Even when you weren’t coming, I sent them to you.”

  “Yeah, but one year I went on a ski trip, and we left before the pajamas arrived. Bridge, you look as if I’d left behind a pet or something.”

  “But I asked if you’d gotten them in time, and you said ‘yes.’”

  “Because I didn’t want to deal with you carrying on as if the world was coming to an end.”

  “I wouldn’t have.” But she saw Mara and Krista exchange looks.

  Right. Another prime example of how she couldn’t let go. “Okay, I guess I’m a bit obsessive about them. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” Mara said. “For what it’s worth, I always like getting them.”

  “I’ll buy them tomorrow, for sure. It’s the least I can do, considering all the work you guys have put into these crates.”

  “And Jack’s,” Deidre said.

  “I’m thanking you on behalf of him, because without your help, he couldn’t have paid back the debt.”

  “We made ten thousand?”

  “Pretty much, between the Brigade and the school sales.” Now to square away the back payments on the house.

  “Yay for us!” Krista said and glanced at her phone. “Shoot, the plumber. I have seven minutes before I show him around. Bridge, can I use the car?”

  Mara followed. “I’m going with. I want to talk to him, and, anyway, there’s a trick to turning on the lights.”

  After they left, the garage seemed quiet. Three ribbons were tied, three coupons inserted before Deidre spoke. “Isn’t it time for stories with the girls?”

  “Jack is covering for me tonight, so I can work on the crates.”

  “The girls won’t like that.”

  Bridget didn’t like it, either. She missed their scented smells, their squirmy snuggliness, the play of expressions on their faces as she spun out a story. But given the state of her strained relationship with Jack, she thought he would prefer the break in routine.

  “Deidre, can I ask you something?”

  “You can always ask. I’m not sure if I have the answer.”

  “Jack said I act as if I’m still stuck in the tree house. You know, the one that brought me to you and Dad.”

  “Stuck?”

  “That I don’t like change. Like always getting pajamas for Christmas and wanting to do Christmas Crates.”

  “I’m not sure why he thinks pajamas and crates constitute being stuck. They’re more like traditions.”

  Bridget wasn’t about to discuss the marriage proposal with Deidre, but there was one part she could hint at. “Isabella and Sofia, especially Sofia, are beginning to see me as their sort-of mother.”

  “You mean that business with ‘Bridgie-ma’? Sofia explained it all to me. That when you and Jack get married, she can call you Bridgie-ma.”

  “And we’re not engaged. Not even close.” Bri
dget stapled on a ribbon, fluffed it and moved the crate to Deidre.

  “Okay, but I’m not sure what this has to do with being stuck.”

  “Because I do love them, but I can’t bear the thought of being their mother.”

  Deidre refluffed the ribbon on the crate Bridget had brought over. “Because you’re afraid you’ll be like one or both of your mothers?”

  “No. Yes.” Bridget sighed. “I know I’ll never be as bad as that woman I share genes with, and I know Krista and Mara think the world of you, so I know the problem is with me.”

  “You?”

  “Deidre. I think that you never stood a chance with me. By the time I came to you, I was already treed.”

  Deidre leaned on a crate, adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. “We took you to psychologists, you know. Time and patience were their top recommendations. And to treat your reactions as normal given the circumstances. But honestly, when you were a kid, only Krista and Mara could get you out of the tree house, as you put it.”

  “Do you think the girls should go see someone? Mara hasn’t said anything. Maybe I should ask her.”

  Deidre arched her a look. “Is that for you to decide?”

  No, it was Jack’s call. By refusing him, she’d also refused any claim on the girls. “Jack will tell me that it’s none of my business.”

  “Don’t know if he’ll say that. I can imagine him asking why you’re so interested.”

  It was Bridget’s turn to eye Deidre. “More like that’s your question. I don’t know the answer. From the moment they walked through the door, it was like seeing my kids for the first time. As if they’d been taken from me and now just returned. Or maybe I was seeing the lost, lonely kid I once was in them. That first night, I might’ve signed up to be their mother, but now that they want me to be...”

  “Ah, I see. You got scared and ran up the tree.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’m the last person to give you advice. I’m living in my kid’s bedroom. I’m charity.”

  “You took me in.”

  “You were six, not fifty. I’d always prided myself on my independence. I wasn’t going to be like my mother. Too scared to do anything for fear of disaster. And here I am, with nowhere to go.”