Bubble Chum

by Wendy Meadows

  Kids catch snowflakes on their tongues and stare at the geometric shapes on their sleeves and gloves. The adults talk in quieter voices. A gentle feeling of togetherness enfolds everyone.

  Just as many people come through our tent as before, but without the rush of urgency. The snow covers the tree and the garlands between the buildings. It lays a blanket of white over West End and makes everything beautiful and right.

  15

  Zack positions his hammer over the nail and taps it into place. “Don’t smash your thumb,” I warn.

  He bites his lip embedding the nail into my mantlepiece. He hangs his stocking on the end and taps in another nail for Gilly’s stocking.

  He turns around and holds out his hand. “Where’s yours, Mom?”

  I wave at him. “I’m not putting up a stocking.”

  “Yes, you are,” he fires back. “It’s Christmas Eve. You have to.”

  “I told you she was a Grinch,” David adds.

  “I am not a Grinch,” I counter. “I just don’t want to hang up a stocking. That’s for kids, not elderly ladies who run their own businesses.”

  “First of all,” David replies, “you’re not elderly. You’re younger than I am.”

  “Are you telling me you’re hanging up a stocking at home?” I ask.

  “You bet I am. I hung it up before we came over here.”

  “You should see it,” Ariel interjects. “It’s an old grey sock with holes in the heel.”

  “It is not!” he exclaims. “Don’t go telling lies about me.”

  “For another thing,” Zack chimes in, “you’re not a lady, either.”

  “Watch it, boy,” I snarl. “I can still wash your mouth out with soap.”

  Everybody laughs. “Go on, Margaret,” Ariel encourages me. “It’s Christmas Eve. You have to hang up a stocking.”

  “Well, who’s going to fill it?” I ask. “The parents are supposed to fill the kids’ stockings.”

  “Sacrilege!” Zack hisses. “Santa Claus fills all the stockings, including the stockings of elderly ladies who run their own businesses and aging Police Detectives who don’t know how to darn their socks. Now go upstairs and don’t come down until you have a stocking to hang up.”

  I dutifully go upstairs and select a chunky knitted sock in bright colors. When I come down, Zack drives in another nail and hangs it up for me. Then he turns to Sabrina. “What about you, Sabrina? You don’t have anyone to spend Christmas with, so you better hang up your stocking here.”

  She looks around the room in stunned surprise. “I didn’t bring a stocking. I didn’t know I was expected to hang it here.”

  “Well, you might as well do it here,” Ariel replies. “Then Santa won’t have to make an extra stop at your house. He can just fill it here.”

  “You’re spending the night so you can share Christmas dinner with us tomorrow,” I add. “You might as well do the stocking thing here, too.”

  “I don’t have a stocking,” she points out.

  I go back upstairs and come down with a different sock. We hang it up next to mine. “Is that all?” Zack counts up the people present. “I guess that’s it. Let’s go.”

  We all troop to the entry and climb into our coats and hats and scarves. Then we bustle out of the house into the snowy dark. Laughter and conversation accompany us to our cars. I get into David’s car with him and Ariel. Zack, Gilly, and Sabrina get into Zack’s car and we convoy to the beach.

  When we get out in the parking lot, the sky clears into a brilliant spectacle of stars glowing in the Milky Way. David switches on a flashlight. Lights bob all over the place as more cars pull in and people get out. They swarm onto the beach.

  The surf churns out of sight in the distance and a brisk winter wind blows off the waves. I can’t see the water. I can only see a carpet of waving lights pouring onto the beach.

  David takes my hand, and we join the throng. Sabrina appears at my side. “We couldn’t ask for better weather for the Bonfire at the Beach.”

  “That’s the truth,” I reply. “It’s a perfect night.”

  “It looks like we’ll have a good turnout, too,” she points out. “I was worried the beach would be deserted and we would be out here all alone.”

  Out of the gloom, the strains of singing voices fill the night. A group of carolers strolls up the beach. They carry candles in one hand and their notebooks in the other. They sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” The notes fill my heart to overflowing. This is the most perfect Christmas ever.

  All the flashlights converge on one spot. David guides us in that direction. Stacy emerges from the shadows calling everyone together. “Come on, everybody! The Bonfire is about to start.”

  Kids gather around her. Tourists flock up the beach in droves all collecting around a massive pile of firewood arranged on the beach The Overlook Hotel stands statuesque on its pinnacle and watches everything through its window eyes. Golden light streams out and gets lost in the endless black over the ocean.

  When everyone forms a crowd around the bonfire, Officer Tomlinson takes a long-handled lighter from his pocket and strikes a flame. It spreads through the wood until flames lick the sky. The kids dance around, hooting in wild excitement.

  I expected Ariel to get in there with the rest of them, but she comes toward us instead. She worms her way between me and David and wraps her arms around both of us. She stays there and watches the sparks spread against the sky.

  Pretty soon, a bed of glowing embers radiates heat to the surrounding onlookers. Everybody relaxes while Officer Tomlinson lights three more bonfires. They illuminate the beach and warm everyone.

  When my face radiates with heat, I turn my back on the fire to warm my back. Everyone does the same. Friends and neighbors stand around chatting in low tones. People meander from one cluster of social interaction to another, and the atmosphere settles into a comfortable environment of friends and visitors from near and far.

  When I look around, I can’t help noticing all the people smiling at me. They never whisper behind my back. They never make me feel out of place. If they remember that I got arrested for murder, they don’t show it.

  Ariel pulls me and David closer to her. She hugs us both, and a rush of exhilaration burns through me. I love this little girl like my own daughter, and I don’t want to let her go any more than I want to say goodbye to Zack.

  I look up to find David studying me. His eyes glisten with moisture, but a beatific smile spreads across his face. He leans toward me over Ariel’s head and kisses me.

  I never dared to dream the Winter Carnival could turn out to be such a success. In my darkest hours, I dared not hold out hope for this moment. I held onto my friends and my loved ones. They were my lifesavers who kept me afloat when all seemed lost.

  That must be why Ariel holds onto us like that. We’re her lifesavers. All around me, a giant network of lifesavers and the people they save drifts over the beach. We’re all just floating along in the current, saving each other and being saved at the same time. That’s us. That’s the town that means so much to me.

  The carolers sing one Christmas song after another. They cover all the old standbys. The crowd joins in and harmonies drift on the chilly air. Sparks from falling wood scatter against the stars. I never want this night to end, but I know it will.

  In a little while, Zack and Gilly and Sabrina and I will go home to our house. David and Ariel will go home to his place to spend Christmas Eve before we all reconvene at my house for Christmas dinner.

  Tomorrow will bring new joys and laughter and camaraderie with the people I love. After that, more challenges will come my way for me to solve. The agony and the ecstasy will never end. That’s just life in the human world.

  I wish I had known twenty years ago what it took to be happy in the world, to embrace the varied human interactions that fill my life with pleasure. I could have avoided years of heartache and loneliness.

  If I knew in my twenties that I would be living al
one with my son at the age of forty-five, I probably would have fallen into black despair that my future life didn’t match the fairytale, storybook ending of happily ever after.

  I didn’t know then that there is no storybook ending. Life is the storybook ending. It just keeps going on, and I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t need to be married to a man or copying some template to be happy.

  I have David and Ariel and Zack and Gilly and all these friends and neighbors filling my life. They hold me up when I fall. They keep me floating on the surface when hardship threatens to pull me under the tide. What a good feeling that is, to know I’m not alone and that all these people want to help me and see me succeed.

  Their faces glow with light and warmth and happiness. All the work I put into the Winter Carnival and the other community events pays off when I see them happy.

  I’ll have to be careful, though, when it comes to sneaking out of bed to fill Zack’s and Gilly’s and Sabrina’s stockings. His insistence that I hang a stocking, too, tells me he plans to fill my stocking himself. If we don’t time this just right, we might bump into each other on the stairs in the middle of the night. That would be hilarious.

  Thanks for Reading

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  About Wendy

  Wendy Meadows is a USA Today bestselling author whose stories showcase witty women sleuths. To date, she has published dozens of books, which include her popular Sweetfern Harbor series, Sweet Peach Bakery series, and Alaska Cozy series, to name a few. She lives in the “Granite State” with her husband, two sons, two mini pig and a lovable Labradoodle.

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