My Christmas Darling

by Vivien Mayfair

  “There’s something I’d like to announce…”

  Chapter 15

  “When in doubt, choose love; and a man who can make pancakes.”

  With Love, Vivien

  * * *

  Christmas couldn’t come fast enough. If he had a lick of sense, he’d spend it alone.

  Respected men had no sense.

  A lesson learned.

  Respected men were blockheads.

  Miserable, William jolted Iris’ car up the ice-covered driveway of his childhood home. When he slid it into a stop before cutting off the engine, he exhaled, aware he could easily turn back in time for breakfast.

  Yet, there it was.

  The white Colonial Westchester home with four front pillars where his mom died. They had packed up the day after her funeral and moved to the city, leaving it to the groundskeeper for care. Now, the exterior lights of red and white still twinkled and followed the line of the slanting roof.

  “This is a mistake,” he grumped, crunching a boot into the snow. “Then again…”

  His mom’s purple holly wreath blessed the door.

  Four life-size reindeer flickered lights attached to an animated sleigh in the yard. The winding walkway had been freshly shoveled as if in preparation for holiday guests. William touched the reindeer’s head.

  Still hot to the touch.

  Still working.

  By the time he got up the steps to the door, it finally felt like Christmas. He put his nose into his mom’s handmade wreath and tried to remember the smell it once had. Gone, but not forgotten. The drapes were drawn, leaving a clear view into the living room he once loved. The flicker of fireplace light danced across the glass and called him home to happier times. Familiarity comforted him like the toasty folds of an old blanket.

  He opened the door.

  Stepped into a soothing wall of heat that seemed to mix with Frank Sinatra’s O, Come All Ye Faithful. Pulling off his gloves, he worked his way down the hall to the open expanse of the living room of happier days come to pass.

  Nothing changed.

  His mother’s holiday decorations adorned the home. The illuminated Mr. and Mrs. Clause next to the nine-foot artificial tree. The nativity set on the coffee table. Even the stockings hanging over a sizzling fire. He thought of the book The Christmas Box. The smells of Christmas were the smells of childhood, or something like that. As much as he loved the book, he never understood the power of its message until that moment.

  He couldn’t move.

  It took all of his effort not to fall flat on the tiles. Even his mom’s crocheted Christmas afghan hung over the back of an ivory sofa. The same one that warmed her body on Christmas Eve the night she passed.

  He heard a clank and laugh. Then, “Will?” with footsteps that emerged.

  William cranked his head toward the kitchen where his father wiped his hands on a dish towel. He wore the same Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation flannel set he wore every Christmas morning.

  His dad hugged him. “I’m glad you came.”

  “Who did all of this?”

  “I did, of course, for you.”

  “But, you didn’t know I was coming.”

  “I told you weeks ago I wanted you home for Christmas. That I had something to tell you.”

  “Yeah, about the book, Dad. Remember?”

  Max followed him into the living room. “Not because of that.”

  William shrugged off his jacket and placed it carefully over the back of his mom’s rocking chair. He scanned the room for its holiday welcome, expecting to see Adele Harcourt’s ghost appear.

  “I can’t believe it,” he whispered, touching the red embroidered letters on his stocking. “It’s all the same.”

  “I regret all of the years we stayed away.”

  “You mean all the years you wouldn’t let us celebrate?”

  “I don’t want to argue, son. It’s Christmas. But, unfortunately, yes, I confess.”

  “Do you know how hard it is for me to see this? To be here, even?”

  Max dropped the towel and pointed at a photo of his deceased wife on the mantel. “Your mother’s ghost speaks to me every year about coming back here. I finally decided to listen.”

  “Now, after a decade of holiday loathing?”

  “It hurt thinking of her and being here. But, your Lucy, she showed me a different way.”

  His Lucy.

  Not anymore.

  A timer dinged off from the kitchen where William caught the scent of maple cured bacon. He recognized that his father tried to recreate the Christmas from his childhood. Hating him was no longer an option. Not that he ever really hated his father. Resentment at times made it feel that way.

  Effort mattered.

  “You didn’t put up the angel,” William said, pointing at the tree.

  “I saved that job for you.”

  He spotted it resting flat on a footstool by the fireplace, hearing his mother’s delight as she struggled on her toes to place it on the tree. Is it straight, Will? Is it straight? Oh will, it has to be straight. It was always the same.

  “Maybe later,” he choked out.

  A woman holding a spatula interrupted. “Max, they’re ready.”

  William stumbled back, catching himself before plunging into the tree. A woman in his mother’s house, and not a runway model or twenty-dollar bimbo. A woman over sixty with short, silvery hair that swept her brows, and wearing what looked like a Quacker Factory Christmas sweater with glitter kittens piled in a sleigh.

  “June, please,” said his father, opening an arm. “Come, meet my son.”

  The woman graced her way to William with a wide embrace. She smelled like Aunt Jemima and butter mixed with coffee in the world’s warmest motherly hug. “I’m so thrilled you’re here.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

  “William, this is June Montgomery, my fiancé. June and I are getting married.”

  A tsunami. A war. A car fire.

  Anything would have surprised him less than the news he just heard. “Married?”

  The woman waved her spatula. “Your father and I met in a book club a year ago.”

  “A book club?”

  Another development.

  Maxwell Harcourt never spent a day in his life on anything other than work. Publishing books didn’t mean reading them. Then again, he wasn’t around enough for William to observe what he did in his free time.

  This woman had kind eyes.

  “Well, this is news,” he groused, unsure what to say. Should he be happy for them? Or, maybe angry for being kept out of the loop. Then again, he intentionally kept a wall up around his father, so being loopless was his own fault. “Sorry, I’m just speechless right now.”

  “I wanted to meet you so many times, but your dad thought you weren’t ready.”

  Wasn’t that the truth? It wasn’t the ‘getting married’ thing that rocked him. It was the fact that the woman looked like what William imagined his mom would have at the same age.

  He remained dumbstruck.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet my kids,” she gleed with a kind-hearted smile.

  “Three girls,” added Max. “All grown.”

  “My Francie just finished her PhD in literature. She wants to teach and write.”

  “Are they here?”

  “Tonight, they will be. I hope you’ll be here.”

  Max slapped his son on the shoulder. “You always wanted siblings.”

  Dear Lord. Not like that.

  “I hope you don’t mind me being here in your mother’s house,” she said, worriedly.

  “Of course not.”

  Something about this woman made it hard to begrudge. Maybe his father had changed. When she muttered something about breakfast, William collapsed on the sofa.

  “In a moment, darling,” said Max.

  They were alone.

  “This is what I wanted to tell you, Will. June means everything to me.”
/>   “I’m sorry, Dad. I thought you wanted to see me that day you called to…”

  “Steal your company?”

  “It’s not my company anyway. It’s not even where I work anymore. Everything’s ruined, Dad.”

  His father regarded him with concern before settling down in a chair. He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together while staring at a baby’s first Christmas ornament. “I’m not the same person.”

  “I know you weren’t trying to steal the company. I’m sorry.”

  “I know how much you love that job and value the company. I figured it’s better I own it than some international corporation where you’d lose all power. I realize it wasn’t ideal.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “You’re not coming to work for me, are you? I see it in your eyes.”

  “I have another plan, Dad. It’s a good plan.”

  His father merely nodded instead of grilling. “I trust you’ll make it splendid.”

  There was still one nagging demon.

  “Dad, why did you treat me the way you did after Mom died? Why did you tell me little boys without mothers didn’t get a Christmas? Why didn’t we have any Christmases?”

  After a pause, Max replied, “I suppose it’s time then.”

  “For an apology?”

  “The truth, son. You’re old enough to hear it.”

  William didn’t expect a bedtime story first thing in the morning on Christmas. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear, but knew he had to sort it out in his head to move forward. “Tell me then, please.”

  “I was a fool for letting your mother down like I did. I couldn’t bear to see her die. Honestly though, she didn’t want me there.”

  “So, you left it all to me?”

  “I’m very sorry. I know it was wrong.”

  “It ruined my life for years. I’ve carried around this weight of being a failure and never good enough for as long as I can remember. It even nearly cost me the woman I’m in love with for being a blind fool.”

  “I want you to understand this.”

  “You made me believe I killed my own mother.”

  When his voice shot through the roof, Max held up his hands in submission. “You’re right.”

  “How could you do that to me?”

  “I loved your mother, and I loved you. But, she didn’t want me. We’d been separated for years by the time she became ill. We tried to hide it from you so you could have a normal childhood.”

  William’s head spun a loop. “What are you talking about?”

  “The reason you hardly saw me wasn’t because of my work. I lived in the city, Will. You thought I came and went after you went to bed or before you woke. The truth is, I never came home.”

  “Give me a break, Dad. You can’t fool me.”

  “I’m telling you what happened.”

  There was a slight pause before William accused, “So now you’re just making things up as an excuse?”

  “Your mother asked me to move out two years before she died. She was in love with another man. Had a long relationship with him even before I found out. We agreed to go our separate ways and keep it from you. Everything else was for show, especially the holidays. When she became ill, I was angry.”

  William sprang to his feet. “Because she was dying?”

  “Yes, because I knew it would ruin your childhood anyway, in spite of all I sacrificed to make sure you had the illusion of a good one. First, she left me, then you.”

  Could it be true? No, impossible. Wasn’t it? He searched his memory for signs.

  “I didn’t cheat on your mother,” said his father with a haunted frown laced with pain. “She abandoned me.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Even as he said it, William’s heart knew it was true. The pain in his father’s eyes spoke the truth. Or, maybe he always knew deep inside.

  “We didn’t want to put you through a divorce. So, I came home on weekends and slept in a separate room. We had our holidays and let you think you had a happy childhood.”

  William picked up his mom’s picture off the mantel. “I remember a man.”

  “Dr. Stephens, the one who took care of her illness. He was the one.”

  “The one she was in love with?”

  His dad nodded as if there was nothing more to be said. William recalled thinking it unusual how the man came day after day for home doctor visits but often stayed through the night.

  “He was at the funeral,” said Will.

  June hollered from the kitchen, “Maxwell, pancakes, my love.”

  His father stood tall with a hand on his aching back. “It’s Christmas, let’s leave the past where it belongs.” He directed William to an aroma of heavenly smells coming from the kitchen.

  “You should have told me,” accused Will.

  “I just did.”

  “I’ve been an adult for a long time.”

  “And, love hurts a great deal, does it not? It’s messy business.”

  He thought about Lucy and wondered how she was spending her Christmas. Knowing he should call her, he somehow didn’t think she would answer the phone. Besides, a call hardly seemed good enough.

  “You realize what she did, right?” he asked.

  “You mean concoct a brilliant business maneuver to get somewhere in this world?”

  “It makes all of her contracts void. We lost the deal, Dad. You lost the deal.”

  Upon entering the gourmet chef kitchen, June scolded, “No business on Christmas.”

  “I’ve lost nothing,” said his dad, rolling up his sleeves at the stove. “Have you?”

  William watched his dad pour pancake batter in a hot skillet. “I can’t get over it.”

  “Lucy’s an ambitious girl. She has a good head for business and a brilliant talent.”

  “But, she lied to me, Dad. She pretended to be somebody else. I was emailing back and forth with who I thought was a stranger, telling personal details about my life, while on the same day conducting business with Lucy. Now I know why she looked at me with so much sympathy every time we spoke.”

  “So, you’re embarrassed that you opened your heart?”

  June pattered around the kitchen gathering utensils. “Love is all that matters in this world.”

  “I feel like a total idiot,” admitted Will.

  “Oh, well, then you really are in love with her,” said June.

  Max laughed. “Only a man in love feels like a fool in front of a woman.”

  “Everything I worked for all month is down the toilet, Dad.”

  June looked happy and homely like any mom would look in a kitchen. She set the table with red linen napkins before coming back to plate up the maple bacon. Speaking in front of her felt natural.

  “There is an alternative, son.”

  “I already have a plan.”

  When they situated at the table, June closed her eyes and uttered a prayer. She made the sign of the cross before passing around the platter of chocolate chip pancakes. “Business on Christmas?”

  “Not business,” Max corrected. “New beginnings.”

  William replied, “Speaking of new beginnings…”

  They listened as he explained his new career plan between bites of the fluffiest and sweetest buttermilk pancakes known to humankind. He laid it all out as a test run for what Lucy would think.

  Then waited.

  His father reached for June’s hand and squeezed. The loving glance they shared made William envious to have the same. He could see himself as married and happy and dying in Lucy’s loving arms. With any luck, it would be next to a Christmas tree, just like it was for his mom. Nothing better than going out of the world surrounded by twinkle lights and chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

  “So, what do you think?” tested Will.

  June answered, “I think it’s time to open presents, as much as we’d love to hear your plan. Honestly, business on Christmas?”

  Rats.

  Pre
sents.

  Still in the car, and nothing for June.

  William realized that for the first time, the canvas in front of him was blank and he held the palette of colors. It was entirely up to him what shades to blend together to form a new picture.

  A new life.

  Maxwell Harcourt, more father than king or Navy admiral, pushed back from the table. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and scraped forward his chair. “I have a better idea.”

  It was Christmas.

  Despite her book put to rest among the vanquished, she wasn’t going to let it ruin her holiday. There were few things left in the world that she loved, and Christmas was one of them.

  Her mom called out from near the tree. “Lucy, come see what Heather got me.”

  The oven timer dinged thrice.

  “The roast is done!” Heather gleed.

  Despite a traditional morning opening presents, sipping spearmint mochas, baking cinnamon rolls, and watching Miracle on 34th Street, Lucy’s dark cloud lingered. There would be no skating in Rockefeller Center due to her mom’s blindness.

  They played games instead.

  Holiday Jenga with red and green blocks. Holiday movie trivia. Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus chess. Even a few rounds of Rudolph checkers. Lucy then decided to focus on creating the most delicious holiday dinner this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

  A true feast.

  Pot roast with rosemary butter rub and cheese scalloped potatoes. Grilled asparagus with hollandaise sauce, accompanied by a fresh cranberry and walnut salad. From scratch, fresh and homemade sweet potato rolls with just the right plump, and a chocolate pecan crunch-top pie for dessert.

  She flipped off the timer. “We need cocktails.”

  Heather’s mom joined them, visiting Heather from Maui. She pulled her chopped blonde hair back into a ponytail and followed Lucy into the kitchen. “How can I help?”

  “Could you finish setting the table?”

  “Just point me in the right direction.”

  Heather hollered from the living room where she picked up wrapping paper balls. “China cabinet, Mom. Bottom drawer. Lucy’s totally obsessed with the poinsettia placemats.”

  The doorbell chimed.

  “Maybe we won the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway.”