All They Want for Christmas

by M. K. Stelmack

  Mel leaned in. “This place in trouble?”

  “No, no,” Bridget said and quickly looked around. The last thing they needed was to have customers think that they were eating at a sinking ship, but the remaining customers were still cuddling their cups. “Not any more of a struggle than anyone else in town has with the bank.”

  Mel frowned. “The bank?”

  She’d said enough. Jack’s new coffee policy had nothing on her squawking aloud about the bank’s involvement.

  Mel looked as down in the dumps as all the Montgomery clan put together. “It would be a shame to see you have to close your doors. Been here for as long as I can remember. A good thirty years.”

  “And it’ll still be here another thirty,” she said, not believing it for a second.

  Mel and Daphne didn’t seem convinced, either. Bridget kicked herself for opening her mouth. What had she hoped to gain by telling them? Sympathy? Ten thousand dollars?

  “Anyway,” she said quickly, handing Mel back his change. “Thank you both for your support. And just to let you know that we’re open this Friday and Saturday night. Our last dinner service of the year. I hope you can make it.”

  “You do know that there’s a storm headed our way this weekend,” Mel asked.

  “It might blow over,” she said, which was as likely as Penny’s financial crunch blowing over.

  Again, Mel didn’t look convinced and, as always, dropped his coins into the tip jar. At the door, Daphne turned. “Will I see you at the school Christmas concert tonight?”

  Right. “Sofia’s singing solo,” Bridget said. “She won’t let anyone miss it for the world.”

  Sofia had exploded with happiness this morning when she learned that her first real snowstorm was arriving tomorrow. Jack had rallied and showed her pictures on his phone of what it would be like. He’d explained how the snow would sting and yet muffle everything, too. He’d made the snowstorm into an exciting wonderland, even as it spelled disaster for their finances.

  He and the girls didn’t deserve this, after all they’d gone through to come here. She had declined the offer to become wife and mother, but that didn’t mean she didn’t wish she could make it all better for them.

  * * *

  A CARNIVALESQUE VIBE rolled through the high-ceiling school gymnasium in anticipation of the Christmas concert—the first one for Bridget since being in one herself. Speakers played Christmas carols, tween girls dressed as elves did cartwheels up the aisle, a baby jingled a bracelet of bells, moms and dads drank coffee and burst into laughter with neighbors.

  Bridget sat with Jack, who’d insisted on an aisle seat. Mara was on her left and Deidre’s coat was on the next seat over, Deidre herself having gone to the back for a coffee and, from what Bridget could make out, had entered into a lively conversation with a circle of seniors. Krista had to work late at the Christmas shop, and had made Jack swear he’d video Sofia and Isabella.

  “I’m going for coffee, too,” Mara said. “Jack? Bridge?”

  They’d both had enough of coffee for one day. Alone now, Jack said out of the blue, “I shouldn’t have wigged out on Marlene in front of everyone. And you. I embarrassed you in front of your people, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. She’s built tough. Me, too,” Bridget added.

  “Yeah, Bridge. I know you.” He looked straight ahead to the stage. Not too long ago they’d stood up there and Jack had the whole gym rocking. She had felt part of something intimate and something greater at the same time. The little bubble of Jack, her and the girls amid the larger and louder school population. “Do you think I scared Marlene off?”

  “She knows we make the best coffee in town. She’ll be back as grumpy as ever tomorrow morning.”

  “There you guys are,” a familiar voice boomed out. Mel. “Ready for the kids?”

  Jack stood as Mel came over. “Ready as ever. You?”

  “You bet. I got a niece and nephew in the concert,” Mel said. “The rest of us are over there. Oh, here’s Daphne.” His arm slipped around his petite wife.

  A small child crashed into Mel’s leg. “Amos, you monkey.” Mel swung him up into his arms. “This is my latest nephew. He’s one and a bit.”

  “Fifteen months last week,” Daphne said and smiled at a teenager a good three inches taller than her. “And this is our oldest nephew, Matt. He’s grade eight this year.”

  Hellos were exchanged. And Mel continued with his family rundown. “The youngest is with her class for the concert and the middle one, he’s over...there! And oh, hey, did Daphne tell you our news?” He beamed at Bridget and Jack.

  “How could I?” Daphne said. “We were only told at supper tonight.”

  “Two more on the way!” Mel held up two fingers like a victory sign. “Alexis and Connie are due. One in June, the other in July.”

  Grinning, too, Daphne wrapped her arm around Mel’s waist and squeezed. “Mel. You’d think you’re the proud papa.”

  “I’m the proud uncle, is what. Doesn’t matter that I’m not the parent.”

  “Doesn’t even matter if you’re not related by blood,” Matt said quietly and held out his hands to the baby, who pitched himself into his older brother’s arms and allowed himself to be carried away.

  Bridget vaguely knew Matt’s story from Mel. Like her, he’d been adopted out of foster care. He was right. Bridget’s first experience of love was for her sisters. She wondered how many more people like her and Jack and Matt and the girls were in Spirit Lake, products of bad beginnings and happy endings.

  “The girls call me Jack-pa now,” Jack said. A quiet admission of triumph followed by a congratulatory gush from Mel and Daphne.

  “Funny how much power kiddos can have over you,” Daphne said. “I swear the best part of my wedding day was when the kids wrote in their own card to us, ‘Uncle Mel and Auntie Daphne.’ That’s when I felt married.”

  Deidre and Mara wandered up, and Bridget made the introductions. First, Mara and then...how to say this?

  “Mel, Daphne, I would like you to meet...my mother.” Strange, but true. “Deidre.”

  Mel reached out his hand. “Know of you. The Brigade’s giving you quite the name,” Mel carried on after a round of handshakes. “We were all sorry to hear the news about your sister. Penny meant a lot to Spirit Lake.”

  “Your daughter does, too,” Daphne added. “We wouldn’t know how to start our morning without her.”

  Deidre wrapped her arm around Bridget’s shoulders. “I am very proud of my eldest daughter.

  “And—” she used her other arm for Jack’s waist “—my nephew, too.”

  Mara tucked herself against Jack’s other side. “He lost his mom, but picked himself up an aunt and some cousins.”

  “Well now, don’t you all look set for a picture,” Mel said and pulled out his phone. “Do you mind?”

  Once Mel crowded everyone into a shot without a kid darting in front, Ms. Lever arrived at the mic to ask everyone to take their seats.

  The concert started with kindergarten, which meant that Sofia’s class was up first with her rendition of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” It was then that Bridget understood Jack’s rush to claim an aisle seat as he took an unobstructed video of her with an extra close-up of Sofia flashing the audience her actual missing teeth.

  As she skipped over to them once her act was done, Jack held out his arms. “You did great, Sofia,” Jack said and gathered her onto his lap. Jack, Bridget thought with a pang of pride, made an awesome father.

  They might’ve all left after Isabella’s class finished—the school didn’t want overtired kids the next day—except that Sofia insisted on singing along with every grade, regardless of whether she knew the words or not. “All is come, all is bright. Brown, young, verging Mother and Child...”

  Isabella came and squeezed hers
elf between Bridget and Deidre, pushing Bridget up against Jack, who had nowhere to go on his aisle seat. Bridget arranged Sofia’s legs and feet on her lap and draped her arm across them. Isabella tilted toward her in order to see between the shoulders of the parents ahead and Bridget’s arm settled across her shoulders. It was pure muscle memory. At this time of night, her right arm always came around one or another of the girls during story time.

  She caught Jack looking at her arms draped over his kids. As if they were a family. Jack-pa and Bridgie-ma with kids. But she had excluded herself by her own choice. A choice that meant living under the same roof was no longer possible. And since the girls needed a safe home and Jack was their caregiver, the outcome was straightforward.

  She would leave, if not for her own sake, then for everyone else’s.

  She tightened her hold on the girls a smidge, felt the warmth of Jack, enjoyed them for the time remaining.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE FORECAST WAS dead-on. As the last of the coffee crowd filtered out of Penny’s on Friday, the first of the snowflakes drifted down or, more precisely, sideways, caught up in a northerly breeze.

  Jack tried not to look out the front windows as he set up for the dinner service. Tried to ignore Mano’s glum predictions as he prepared sauces and marinades.

  Tried not to wonder where Bridge had gone. She’d left right after the morning rush for an appointment, saying she’d be back in plenty of time to pick up Isabella from school. Now, with visibility diminishing by the minute and highway advisories flashing their yellow warning alerts on his phone, he was worried.

  Except it wasn’t his place to worry. He’d given up his place a dozen years ago. Still, when a text came in from her, he could breathe again. Back at the house. You want to pick up Isabella, or should I?

  He texted that he would. He already had too little time with Isabella. The one upside to the end of the dinner services was he could spend evenings at home with the girls.

  I will change and bring the vehicle over. See you in 30! She added a smile emoji. Wherever she’d gone had made her happy.

  And kept her happy as she sailed into the office a half hour later, where Jack pondered how to wring out the last dollar from the budget. “Is it ever coming down out there!” She set the keys on the desk and shrugged off her coat to reveal her usual black cocktail dress complete with short boots.

  In the few ticks it took for him to formulate a reply that didn’t refer to how incredible she looked or to pry into her whereabouts earlier, she headed into the kitchen. “How can I help here?” Jack followed, caught up in the wake of her strange high spirits.

  Mano threw up his hands. “We are beyond help. No one will come tonight.”

  Bridge grinned and kissed Mano on the cheek. “Quit fussing. Snow is falling, not the sky.”

  Mano and Jack exchanged stunned looks. This was not the Bridget who’d sat beaten at the supper table six weeks ago, after grim news from the bank, or even last week when the bank had called about the house.

  And he’d would be the last one to remind her of those worries. “I’m off to pick up Isabella, drop her off, change and be back in under forty-five, okay?”

  Bridget waggled her fingers. “Take your time.”

  Here she was, safe and happy and gorgeous, and he was seriously worried.

  * * *

  SATURDAY NIGHT, AND Jack’s worries, like the blizzard, had not abated. Friday night’s take was half the previous week’s, but considering the near whiteout conditions, not the disaster he’d expected. But the snow had continued through the night and all the next day. No sooner had Sofia winged out a backyard of snow angels than they were filled in, and she had to start again. She was in heaven.

  Bridge had joined her there and flapped out a few of her own.

  “It’s good to see her like this. Just playing,” Deidre had said to Jack as they watched through the kitchen window.

  “I don’t get it,” Jack had admitted. “Unless a busload of steak-craving tourists unloads in front of Penny’s tonight, we face closing doors. And she’s out there, making snow angels.”

  Deidre nudged him with her shoulder. “You could join them.”

  “I don’t think Bridge would like that.”

  Deidre had laughed. “Who’s to know? For Sofia, at least, the more the merrier.”

  No. He was stressed enough without adding the stress of not appearing that way. But then Bridget swept into the restaurant twenty minutes before opening, wearing the red-and-gold dress, the one she’d worn to their date, the one he’d gone down on bended knee before.

  Krista must’ve got to Bridget’s hair. Her dark masses were swept up into soft coils of a labyrinthine complexity. She wore makeup: her eyes were extra bright and soft, her lips red and glossy.

  She wrapped an apron, a skimpy red thing with jingle bells, around her waist and grinned at him. “I figured I might as well pull out all the stops.”

  He dropped his gaze to her red shoes. “You’ll be crippled tomorrow if you’re in those all tonight.”

  She shrugged her bare shoulders. “I’ve nowhere to go tomorrow.”

  It was when she fastened a sprig of holly to the lowest dip of her dress, drawing attention there, that he couldn’t hold his tongue any longer.

  He closed the office door. “Bridge, listen. I know you and I are not together. I get it. But you in that dress, it hurts.”

  Her fingers stilled on the sprig. “I don’t understand.”

  “And I don’t know if I can explain it. I don’t even know if I have the right to tell you, but not saying how we feel is what has brought us to this point, so I’ll get it out there and then we’ll leave here and get on with our work.”

  “Okay.”

  “When you wore that dress, not even a week ago, I had the best time of my life...and then the worst. And even though it ended badly, it was significant. It was an evening I—and I think you—won’t ever forget.”

  She flicked at a holly leaf. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “But you coming here tonight in the exact same dress means that you now figure it’s a work dress, not a special one.”

  Her beautiful brown eyes widened. “No, Jack. That wasn’t it at all. I mean... I knew from the way you reacted that night that I looked good in this dress, so if you liked it, others would like it, and that would help the bottom line. For the sake of the restaurant. For you, the girls, for all of us. I wore it because it is an important dress. One that I’d like to change into a good memory.”

  Good memory. Like making snow angels with Sofia. Just as he figured. He’d messed it up. The dress was a sad reminder for her, one she was trying to make better, and here he’d dragged her out of her newfound optimism. “Sorry, Bridge. Forget I said anything.”

  He kept away from her for the rest of the evening, parking himself behind the bar. Not that there was much to do. At the height of the evening between the first and second sittings, the restaurant was only at a quarter of capacity. Mano’s eldest daughter pushed around saucers and bowls pointlessly. Jack would send her home, except that she was counting on a ride with her parents. Bridge easily covered the front, the few plates swept away within seconds of completing. The usual hum had muted to the level where individual voices could be identified.

  One of them rose suddenly from a booth. “Is it just me or is everyone in here single and without a date on Saturday night?”

  Jack vaguely recognized the speaker, a man about his age seated alone. He’d come a couple of Saturday nights with his buddies and their girlfriends. He’d been the odd man out, and tonight he was even more so, sitting alone in the giant booth. The same one Jack and Bridget had sat at for their date.

  The scant population turned to him. Even Mano took a gander from the order window. Bridge crossed to his table and spoke too low for Jack to hear.

  His reply came
through loud and clear. “Doing just fine. No place I’d rather be. How about I buy you a drink?”

  Bridge quickly extracted herself from him, and met Jack at the bar. “We can’t let him drive home,” she said.

  Jack checked the order screen. “He’s on his sixth.”

  “He usually holds his liquor pretty well, but I think he’d already knocked back a few before coming here.”

  “Okay, I’ll see if I can get him to hand over his keys.”

  The man looked up unsteadily as Jack approached. “Am I in trouble?”

  “What kind of trouble are you thinking?”

  He thumbed over to Bridge at the bar. “I shouldn’t have hit on the staff. That’s a no-no.”

  He was glad the customer realized his mistake, but for extra insurance Jack added, “I understand, but she’s already spoken for.”

  “Congratulations. You drew a high card.”

  Jack’s first instinct was to correct him, but the point was to deflect attention away from Bridge. He simply replied, “Thanks.”

  The customer nodded. “The good ones usually get snapped up.”

  His voice had lowered, and the rest of the customers had returned to their meals, or in the case of one, an intense game of Candy Crush

  If conversation kept the drunk in check, then that was what Jack would give him. “I’m not your ideal dining partner, but mind if I take a seat?”

  “Sure, but I’m not buying you a drink.”

  Jack sat across from him. “Couldn’t accept it. On the job.” He held out his hand. “Jack.”

  The man took careful stock of Jack’s hand and lined up his own hand with it. “Carson.”

  “Your meal okay?” More food into the man might soak up the alcohol.

  Carson contemplated his half-finished plate. “Best steak I’ve ever had. And I’ve had steak across the world.”

  “Oh, yeah? For business or pleasure?”

  Carson shook his head. “Who gets on a plane packed with strangers and barely any food for pleasure? Of course, for work.”