by Beth Ehemann
I shrugged and grabbed a couple more grapes. “It can be, but we’re used to it at this point. Wait—” I sat up and looked over to her family room, “—speaking of trees, where’s your tree? You always put it up the day after Thanksgiving, like us.”
“I’m just a little slow this year.” She poured the eggs into the frying pan and grabbed a spatula. “Fred and I were lazy yesterday. We stayed in bed most of the day and watched HGTV.”
“I heard my name . . . you better be saying good things,” Fred teased as he came around the corner, smiling at me with a broom in his hand. “Hi, sweetheart.” He bent down and kissed the side of my head. “Where are all those crazy girls of yours?”
I motioned toward the hall. “Destroying the playroom.”
He nodded with a quick chuckle. “I’ll go say hi in a minute after I finish sweeping the front porch.”
“You want breakfast?” Mom asked, glancing over at him.
He stopped in the doorway. “Maybe. Whatcha making?”
“Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Fruit.”
“I’ll take all of the above,” he said as he walked across the room and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Be back in a bit.”
A minute later the front door closed with a thud, and I stared at my mom who was still smiling to herself like a love-struck teenager.
“You two are ridiculously adorable, you know that?” I finally said.
She looked back at me quickly, then returned her attention to the pan of crackling bacon on the stove. “He’s so great, Kacie.”
“He is,” I agreed. “You’re a lucky woman.”
Turning to face me, she pinched her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest. “We both are.”
I nodded, suddenly missing Brody more than usual. “For sure.”
“Alright . . . go get those girls so they can eat while everything is still hot. I’m gonna set the table.”
I hopped off the stool and quietly made my way down the hall, hoping to hear whatever it was the girls were saying.
“You know Santa?” Emma said in a surprised tone just as I got to the door.
“Yep,” Piper responded. “We met him a long time ago, when we were your age, and we’ve been friends ever since.”
Leaning in carefully toward the door, I prayed the wood boards beneath my feet didn’t creak and give me away.
Emma continued excitedly, “And you can write to him?!”
“Shhh!” Piper hissed. “Yes, I told you . . . we have his real address and can write to him, but you can’t tell anyone, because if adults find out, he cancels Christmas and no one gets anything. Got it?”
I didn’t hear Emma answer, but I could just picture her standing there wide-eyed, nodding at her big sister’s little white lie.
“So, you tell us what you want, and every time you clean our room, or do what we say, we’ll write to him and tell him to get you one of those things for sure. Deal?”
That little shit.
“Uh huh,” Emma agreed innocently.
“Good. Now remember . . . don’t tell anyone. Promise?”
“Pinky promise,” Emma answered eagerly.
I raised my fist and knocked on the door. “Girls . . . breakfast,” I called out, deciding I’d deal with Piper and her antics later.
They followed me down the hall, like little ducklings waddling behind their mother, and hopped up around the table. I buckled Grace into her high chair and walked over to help mom carry the bowls of food to the table. We scooped piles of scrambled eggs, bacon, and strawberries onto their plates and they started shoveling the food into their mouths.
“Slow down,” I said to Grace, who was eating the strawberries as fast as I could cut them. She grinned up at me with piece of egg stuck to the corner of her mouth. I bent down and kissed the top of her sweet head.
“Gigi, where’s your Christmas tree?” Emma asked in between bites.
Mom let out a soft sigh. “I haven’t put it up yet, sweetheart.”
Emma’s eyes grew wide. “Can we help you with it?”
“Uh . . . maybe,” Mom stammered, her eyes darting from each of the girls to me as she shifted uncomfortably. I tilted my head and frowned at her before she looked away.
The girls finished their breakfast in record time and hurried back down the hall to the playroom.
“Ah, ah, ah!” I called out. “Piper, come back here, please.”
She spun around.
“Can you clear the plates from the table and wipe it down for me?”
“What? Why me?” she complained as she walked over and started balling up the paper napkins.
“I’ll tell you what—” I smirked as I stole a quick glance down the hall to make sure no other kids were in earshot, “—you do this for me and I’ll write a letter to my friend, Santa, telling him all about how amazing you are. Maybe he’ll bring you something you want for sure.”
She froze and looked up at me but didn’t say anything. Her cheeks turned pinker by the second.
“Busted,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Now . . . you’re going to help clean up breakfast, then you’re going to stop trying to bribe your sister to do your chores, got it?”
She nodded and quietly cleaned up most of the kitchen table. After a minute, I stepped in and helped her with the rest. Before she left the room, she turned and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Sorry, Mom.”
“You’re her big sister, Piper. Her role model. Be nice, okay?” I said through a sigh.
Her head nodded against my chest and she skipped down the hall.
My mom snickered from the sink.
“Are you laughing?” I asked incredulously.
“Just a little,” she answered.
I let out my own small laugh and shook my head as I sat back down at the island. “I’m telling you, Mom, that one is going to be the death of me.”
Mom set the plates down in the sink and turned to face me. “Baby, I said that same thing about you at least a hundred times.”
I stuck my tongue out at her playfully and glanced down at my phone. “Okay. It’s almost eleven. I’m gonna take the girls home so we can all get dressed and brush our teeth and stuff. Then I’ll come back and we’ll do your tree together?”
Her eyes pinched shut and she rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. Mom and I were close and I could tell when she had something on her mind. Whatever it was . . . it was huge. “Kacie,” she finally said. “I have to talk to you about something.”
“Okay . . .” I said slowly, nervous to hear whatever it was that had obviously been bugging her all morning.
“I don’t even know how to say this because it’s going to upset you and I don’t want to upset you, but you’re going to be upset,” she rambled, anxiously wringing her fingers together as she dropped her eyes to the floor.
“Mom, you’re freaking me out. What is it?”
She took a long, deep breath and lifted her eyes to mine. “Honey, we’re selling the inn.”
“Wait . . . what?” I said, sure that I heard her wrong.
“We’ve been thinking about it for a while. Fred and I aren’t getting any younger and it’s just getting to be too much to keep up with,” she explained, taking a step closer to me.
I sat stunned, not sure how, or whether I even wanted to, process what she was telling me. The inn was my life. My second home. I couldn’t imagine not being able to walk over and sit at the island anytime I wanted, or sit on the deck and watch the girls play in the garden with Gigi while Fred tinkered in the garage, or sit on the end of the pier with Brody and talk about everything and nothing.
“Mom, you can’t sell the inn,” I blurted out.
“Kacie—”
“No.” I jumped up and started pacing back and forth across the kitchen. “I’m serious. Ninety percent of my life’s memories are in this house. The twins practically grew up here. You can’t sell it. I won’t let you.”
“Kacie—”
“We’ll buy it!”
I interrupted again. “Brody and me . . . we’ll buy it. How much are you going to sell it for? We’ll give you whatever you want for it.”
“Kacie!” she hollered in an attempt to stop my incoherent rambling. I froze and stared at her as her face softened and she continued, “Honey, we’ve already accepted an offer.”
I pulled my brows in tight as I sunk back onto the stool. “What? How?” I said in a calm, even, sad tone.
She sat down on the stool next to me and gently put her hands on mine. “We decided to put the inn on the market a few weeks ago, but before we could even get the sign in the ground, someone contacted our realtor and made an offer. A really good offer. One we couldn’t turn down—so we didn’t.”
I stared down at our hands and tried to listen to her words, but all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears.
“And let’s be honest,” she continued, “I could never sell it to you anyway. You have four daughters to take care of and a husband who’s gone half the year. You really think you could run this old inn too?”
“Maybe,” I mumbled stubbornly.
“Sweetheart, I love that you love this place, but it’s time to move on.” Her words stung. I felt like I was being told to move on from something I didn’t even want to move on from. I wanted to go back in time fifteen minutes and have everything be normal again.
“When?” I asked after a minute, my voice cracking.
“Huh?”
Clearing my throat, I tried again. “When do you close?”
“Oh. Uh . . . right after the New Year. January fourth.”
The front door slammed and Fred’s familiar whistle got closer. “Sorry! After I swept the porch I raked the front yard real quick. Hope you guys didn’t eat all the—” He stopped talking and looked at me. “Everything okay?”
Mom nodded. “I told her.”
“Oh.” His tone turned solemn.
I sniffed and tried to hold in the tears that had begun stinging the backs of my eyes. Fred walked up behind me and put his arm around my shoulders. “You okay?”
I shrugged and shook my head, but didn’t lift my eyes from the island. “No.”
“I know this is hard, but it’ll all be okay. I promise.” Mom said as she squeezed my hand.
Fred slid the box of tissues toward me.
“Is this why you’re not putting up a tree?” I asked as I dabbed my nose.
“Kinda,” she answered. “I just didn’t see the point to go through all that extra work when we’re going to be packing up the house anyway.”
Packing the house up. Those words made everything inside of me hurt.
I pinched my lips together and nodded slowly as a tear slid down my cheek. “Where are you going to live?”
“Well,” mom said with a sigh as her eyes moved over to Fred. “We actually found a really cute, little house. It’s nothing fancy, but perfect for the two of us. Big garage for Fred, small garden area for me, and a big playroom for when the girls want to have sleepovers. Plus, a huge porch and walking distance to town. We’re going to rent it for now just to make sure we like it, but if we do, the owner said he’d be willing to sell.”
My chest ached. It felt like someone had walked up and punched me as hard as they could right in the sternum. It wasn’t even my house to be sad about, yet I was. I was sad. So incredibly, unbelievably, astronomically sad.
“Sounds nice,” I said dryly. I wanted to be excited for them—I really did—but it was too soon. I don’t know that I’d ever get over the heartbreak of losing the inn.
The minute our plane touched down, I turned my phone back on like I always did, except this time it blew up like the Fourth of July.
“Uh oh . . . someone’s in trouble,” Viper teased, nodding toward my phone.
“Shut up.” I punched him in the arm and stared back down at my phone, waiting for the dinging to stop and all the notifications to come through.
I had a handful of missed texts and calls, all from Kacie’s number. A knot immediately formed in my throat as I dialed her back without reading the texts.
She answered quickly. “Hi,” she said in a soft voice. She only said one word but I knew my wife better than anyone and I could tell she’d been crying.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I slowed my pace, hanging back a bit behind Viper and the rest of the team as we made our way through the airport. We were scheduled for an afternoon practice at the rink, but the tone in Kacie’s voice had me worried I was going to be on a plane headed back home instead.
“I’m sorry I called and texted so many times. I just . . . wanted to talk to you so badly.”
“Don’t apologize . . . is everything okay?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She sniffed into the phone. “We went over to mom’s for breakfast after you left this morning, and she told me they sold the inn.”
“They sold the inn?” I repeated, the shock raising my voice.
Viper spun around when he heard me. “Who? What? Sold the inn?”
I shook my head and held up a finger for him to wait a minute.
“Yep, they sold it,” Kacie said. “I don’t even know what to think. I’ve been crying all morning.”
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“Brody, how can they do this? I mean, I know it’s theirs and they can do whatever they want with it, but they’re still young. It’s too early to get rid of it.” Her voice cracked and she started to cry again.
“Aw, Kacie. Don’t cry. It kills me to hear you cry when I can’t do anything to help.”
“I’m just so deflated. I told the girls we’d watch movies and hang out all day but I don’t even feel like it anymore.”
“Did you tell them?”
A loud sigh filled the phone. “Yeah. I had to . . . they could tell I was upset.”
I felt helpless. Kacie was upset but there really was nothing I could do to make the situation better. It was Fred and Sophia’s inn and I knew how much work went into running that place, but I also knew how much that old place meant to Kacie.
“Did they say when it’ll all be final?”
“Yeah, right after New Year.”
“Wow. That’s just a little over a month away. Pretty quick.”
“I know. I feel like it’s all happening so fast. And she’s not even putting a tree up or decorating. Not only is it not going to be the perfect Christmas, Christmas is gonna suck.”
Her words broke my heart. I was absolutely crazy about my wife, and one of the things I loved most about her was the way she got overly excited about everything . . . like Christmas. I teased her about the perfect Christmas thing, but I really thought it was adorable. We walked through the door to the pick up area, the smell of exhaust fumes attacking my lungs as we walked toward our charter bus.
“Babe, I’m so sorry, but we’re about to get on the bus and head over to the hotel to drop off our luggage, then we’re going straight to the rink. Can I call you after practice?”
“Yeah.” She sniffed one more time. “Just call me later when you get back. Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood by then.”
I felt bad getting off the phone with her, but listening to her cry while I was on the bus with thirty other guys wasn’t a good idea. “Okay. I love you, Kacie.”
“I love you too.” She hung up and I shoved my phone in my back pocket.
“What the hell is going on?” Viper asked, eying me with a concerned look on his face.
I stepped up onto the bus and followed him all the way to the back. “I don’t really know. I guess Sophia is selling the inn,” I said as we sat down.
I stared straight ahead, still stunned by the news Kacie had just given me.
“Whoa. That’s a big deal,” Viper said, his voice as serious as I’d ever heard.
“I know. Kacie is pretty broken up over it.”
Viper and I were quiet the whole way to the hotel. I think he was just as surprised as I was, and maybe even a little sad himself about the news. We’d all spe
nt so much time hanging out at the inn. Even after Kacie and I built our own house, Sophia often had the whole gang over for chili on a cold Sunday in the winter when we were in town, or she’d host a huge barbecue in the summer and invite all of our friends and their kids to come and stay for the whole weekend. The Cranberry Inn belonged to all of us and it was going to be a huge loss, but Kacie would definitely feel the brunt of it. She lived there since she was a kid, long before I even came along. This was going to be so hard for her.
“Hey.” Viper nudged me hard. “We’re here.”
I looked out the window and realized the bus had stopped and we were parked outside the hotel. I was so lost in my own mind that I hadn’t even noticed.
I stood and flung my bag over my shoulder as Viper gave me a tight smile. “It sucks, man. Sorry.”
I nodded and we headed inside. After we were all checked in, we left pretty quickly for practice. Viper made stupid jokes and tried to lift my mood on the way there, but none of it worked.
He reached over and smacked my leg. “Come on, man. Lighten up.”
“I will as soon as we’re on the ice. I need a distraction to work this all off and clear my head.”
“What you need to do is spin this and make something good out of it,” he said nonchalantly.
I turned and looked straight at him. “What . . . you get married and have a kid and suddenly you turn into an enlightened life coach?”
“Whatever, asshole. I’m serious.” He rolled his eyes. “There has to be a way to make this easier on Kacie.”
I shook my head. “I got nothin.’”
“Well, let’s think about it.” He turned and looked out the window, tapping his thumb against his knee. After a couple minutes I was convinced he’d forgotten what it was we were supposed to be thinking about, but he swung his head toward me. “She already sold the inn, right?”
“Uh . . . yeah. That’s what Kacie said.”
“Okay.” He got a wild look in his eyes and turned in his seat to face me. “So that means there aren’t any guests for the whole month of December . . . correct?”
