“Read one of yours, Charlie,” I suggested, trying not to think about how sad that year must have been for them.
Rather than open his box, Charlie moved to the vacant spot beside me and settled next to me on the couch as he held the box by the string and dropped it onto my lap just as Camdyn had. Carefully lifting the lid, I dared to glance over at him, confident that Camdyn couldn’t see the private smile we shared.
“Charlie Taylor, age seven,” I read as I glanced at the paper. “Murray sleeps in my room.”
“Dog,” he quickly informed me. “Really good dog. He died the year I left for college.”
“Every boy needs a good dog.” Staring into the box, I noticed that Charlie’s papers were neatly folded rather than twisted like Camdyn’s. “Let’s see, number two. Charlie Taylor, age eleven. Went to two Cardinals games this summer. Lankford tossed me a foul ball.”
“I still have it.”
“I’m sure you do. I’ve seen your bedroom.”
“What should I write this year?” Camdyn asked, interrupting the laugh I shared with Charlie.
“It’s supposed to be a secret,” Charlie stated, “until we open them next year. That’s what makes it fun.”
“I know.” Camdyn sighed as she reached for the pen and slip of paper her grandma held in her hands. “What about Trina? We can’t leave her out.”
“The boxes proved impossible to find, but I was able to find this little container and I tied a cord to the top.”
Surprised, I fully turned to look at Willa, who had a cylinder that looked a lot like a tiny mailbox. Once again I fought emotion as I thought about the lengths to which this family had included me in their traditions, and I was at a loss for words as I stared at the container.
“Here sweetie,” Willa continued, holding the item toward me with a pen and paper. “You don’t have to leave it here. You can take it home with you, if you want.”
No way was I taking that home. Sentiment like that belonged in St. Louis with the Taylors, not in Nebraska with the Millers. My parents probably didn’t even put out a Christmas tree in that cold, sterile house. The Christmas ornaments were probably in some corner of the house in a box, right next to my dad’s dusty books.
Camdyn handed me the paper, and I eyed it curiously. A whole year to pin my hope on, so what should I choose? Staring at the blank space, I twisted my mouth to the side as I considered my words. Beside me, Charlie turned to the arm of the couch and began writing. As Camdyn rose and stepped to the kitchen table to neatly fill out her sentiments, I placed the pen against the paper on my leg.
Trina Miller, I wrote. Age twenty-one. Grateful for a Christmas I’ll never forget.
Twisting the paper as Camdyn had, I slid it into the little mailbox and held it up by the string, loving how I felt like I belonged in the little group.
“Here.” Charlie interrupted my thoughts, thrusting a folded paper in my direction. “Take this for me, will you? I’ll be right back.”
The second I had possession of his memento, he jumped up and disappeared down the hall. One glance in Willa’s direction told me she was busy with her own thoughts, and my curiosity was getting the better of me. Attempting to keep my peek a secret, I barely spread the paper apart, my eyes darting to the words.
Charlie Taylor, age twenty-four. The Christmas that my sister’s best friend stole my heart.
Quickly shoving the paper inside the box, I closed the lid and rose, crossing the room to the hallway where I paused at Charlie’s open bedroom door. He stood next to his dresser with a baseball in his hands. I quietly rapped my knuckles on the door.
“Hey,” he stated nonchalantly. “This is the foul ball I was talking about.” He held it out toward me, but I didn’t take it. Instead, I wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his shoulder. After his momentary surprise, I felt the warmth of his arms against my back as he drew me closer.
“I really like your hair like that,” he muttered. “Did you curl it?”
“What an odd thing to say.” I held him a little tighter as his fingers raked through the back of my hair. “To think I care about my hair when you wrote something so unbelievably sweet.”
“You weren’t supposed to read that.”
“You wanted me to.”
“Even so…” His lips grazed my skin, touching my forehead and then the curve of my cheekbone. “What am I supposed to do with you? She’s going to kill me.”
“We’ll break it to her gently,” I whispered, pulling back so I could look at his blue eyes.
“Oh, man.” He chuckled as he placed his forehead against mine. “I’ve been telling myself this is a bad idea from the first night when I pretended I didn’t know you were in my room, but I can’t seem to help myself.”
My mouth dropped open in shock at his admission, but I recovered enough to gather my senses. “You don’t have to tell her, you know.” No way did I want him to agree to that plan, but I felt the need to throw it out there, if nothing more than a test.
“She won’t wonder why I keep calling you?” He pulled his gaze away as he glanced at the door. “It’s too late for that. Unless you don’t want…”
His eyes returned to my face, scanning my own for an answer.
“I’m really not a fan of long distance relationships,” I told him. He nodded his head, inching back slightly. “So…I’m very serious when I say I’m willing to give this a go.”
He offered a mischievous smile as he wove a strand of my hair through his fingers. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
“What sort of promise is that? Is it one of those ‘all 206 bones in my body’ promises?”
Laughing softly, he shook his head. “No, more like a ‘one heart’ promise.”
“Can we make it a ‘two heart’ promise?”
Rather than answer, he pulled me closer, sealing our deal with a rather hurried but thorough kiss that left me feeling breathless.
“Strawberries,” he whispered. “I love that.” Stepping back, he put some space between us as he held the baseball out to me again. “As I was saying before, this is my baseball.”
“The infamous Lakeford baseball.” Taking it from his fingers, I passed it between my hands.
“Lankford,” he corrected with a roll of his eyes. “You are really going to have to work on your baseball knowledge.”
“And you’ll have to work on your fashion sense. Not every occasion is an excuse to wear a Cardinals T-shirt.”
“I actually might be able to argue that point, but I’ll concede.” With a lazy smile, he leaned his backside against his dresser. “This is me making an effort.”
Crossing to the dresser to place his baseball back in its place, I smiled as sweetly as I could. “Lankford. Made an effort.” Stepping away, I backed toward the door. “I better go back out there. See you later?”
“No.”
Pausing midstride, I remained by the foot of his bed. “No?”
“It’s Christmas Eve. I can’t go out there on Christmas Eve, it would ruin everything.”
“Ruin everything?” The skepticism was clear in my voice, because I was having a hard time understanding his words.
“Stuff just happens between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I don’t want to see how it happens or prevent it from happening by being in the way.”
For a split second I bit the inside of my lip, wondering why he was being so strange, until understanding washed over me.
“Charlie Taylor,” I said, “age twenty-four. Doesn’t want to spoil the magic.”
“Trina Miller, age irrelevant. Don’t miss the magic. It’s Christmas.”
Taking a deep breath, I studied his face trying to lock it in my memory. “I won’t,” I whispered, backing toward the hall.
Before I could stop to think, I made my way to the couch, picked up that little box that held my scrap of paper about the Christmas I’d never forget, and I hung it on a mostly empty branch. Standing before the simple tree, I stared at it and thou
ght about what Willa said it stood for, all my hopes planted in the proper place. An arm slid around my shoulders, and Camdyn hung her box on the branch beside mine, where they clinked together as they settled.
“Welcome to the Taylor family, Trina.”
Chapter Ten
Christmas Eve as a child was always rather sleepless, thinking about the presents I could open in the morning. That Christmas Eve, at the Taylor home, I drifted off the instant my head hit the armrest of the couch. After several very late nights sharing stories, hopes, and dreams with Charlie, I was rather exhausted.
My sleep was interrupted soon, though, by a slight rattling noise that I realized pretty quickly was ornaments tinkling together on the tree. Opening my eyes to a squint, I focused on Willa bending low to the ground and placing packages under the tree. I attempted to quietly adjust myself, but the couch groaned in protest as I moved and alerted Willa to my motion.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s okay.” Raising myself to a seated position, I watched as she rearranged the packages and then began dropping things in the stockings that were pinned to the wall. One had been placed there for me. Although it didn’t quite match the others, I could tell she tried to find one that looked similar, just like she had with the box for the special memory. It was such a slight difference, it made me think about what life would be like as part of the Taylor family. I would be the one who didn’t quite fit, but was close enough that they embraced me anyway.
“My presents were always under the tree the whole time, but I never believed in Santa anyway.”
Why I felt I needed to offer that information was a puzzle, but she rose from her position and moved to the couch, sitting beside me.
“I’m not sure the kids ever believed in Santa, but there was something special about seeing their eyes light up on Christmas morning.” Willa leaned her head back against the couch, her curls fanning about her face. It was the only feature Camdyn and her grandmother shared–those rather unruly curls. She closed her eyes, and I imagined her going back to some memory, watching as a smile turned up the corners of her lips. Nearly every wrinkle on her lovely face framed the corners of her eyes or the sides of her mouth, confirming to me that Willa made a point of smiling often. Not that I needed the visual clue, exactly. There was an unmistakable happiness in her home that was starting to settle itself deep inside me as well.
“You’ve done a great job,” I finally said. “Everything about Christmas here is magical. Thanks for letting me share it with you.”
“There’s no magic, sweetie.” Opening her eyes, she turned toward me as she placed her long, cool fingers over mine. “Cold hands, warm heart, my mom used to say.” Smiling at her own memory, she let out a slight sigh. “I’ve always figured that God gives us things so we can share them with others. When I went through the most unspeakable heartache, He gave me joy. That’s the contribution I can make. Some people have great talent, or a passion to change things, or the resources to impact groups of people. I have joy.”
She didn’t add anything else, and I felt like whatever I could say would be inadequate, so I just sat there beside her, her hand over mine as I stared at the newly filled stockings on the wall. My mind drifted back to the Christmas tree covered with the trendy silver ornaments back in Cape Girardeau, all the packages perfectly trimmed with bows and in identical paper. Nothing like the many different colors underneath this tree, but there were many good memories. Was my mom sneaking around after I went to bed? No, but she tried in her own way.
In fact, it was hard for me not to feel a little sorry for her now, imagining her with Aunt Shelly eating some kind of sea bass instead of turkey the next day.
Patting my hand, Willa rose from the couch. “I’m glad you’re here, Trina. You’ve been a good friend to Camdyn.” Her words brought a smile to my face. Stepping toward the hall, she paused to look back with a rather sly grin. “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re good for Charlie, too. Good night, honey.”
♥
The night air stung my cheeks almost instantly when I stepped onto the back deck, and I pulled the pink fuzzy robe Willa had loaned me a bit closer. She thought I might want it since I had to sleep on the couch. I figured she imagined me sleeping there in a nightgown or something and thought I would want to keep Charlie from seeing my sleepwear. Since I wore lounge pants and a T-shirt, it didn’t seem necessary.
Still, since it was protecting me from the chill, I was glad to have it. My fingers reached into the pocket, fiddling with the tube of lip gloss resting there. Immediately I felt rather idiotic, both for keeping the lip gloss in my pocket in the first place, and for the possibility in the back of my mind that Charlie might stumble upon me. He had most likely passed out upon hitting the pillow as I had done before.
Looking at the screen on my phone, I settled on the steps of the back deck, listening to the ringing on the other end. It dawned on me that I shouldn’t be calling so late, but as I was rethinking my decision, a familiar voice sounded on the other end of the phone.
“Trina?”
Swallowing my hesitation, I tried to ignore the tears that immediately gathered in my eyes. “Hi, Mom.”
“Has something happened?”
“No, not at all. I’m sorry to call you so late.”
“It’s okay, we were just wrapping up a game of bridge.”
“Oh.” I rolled the tube of lip gloss between my fingers and stared at it a moment. “Merry Christmas. That’s really all I wanted to say. I’m sorry I didn’t come home, and—”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry, Trina. I should have tried to have Christmas back in Nebraska. The house just isn’t the same, though. I miss…“
“Home.”
She paused after I said the word aloud, and it made me wonder if I had jumped the gun in finishing her sentence.
“Home,” she finally agreed. “I miss home.”
We both remained silent, and I assumed her mind was back in Cape Girardeau just like mine, staring at the Christmas tree across from the fireplace.
In my memory, Dad was in his study, intently going over his research, and I held a mug of hot cocoa in my hands. Mom placed a peppermint stick in my drink, and I secretly hated the taste of it screwing up my chocolate, but I adored the way it looked poking out of the mug. She had taken off her makeup after the holiday festivities, and had a mask around her eyes with a strange sea foam green tint. There were little chunks in it…of what I was afraid to ask. Bananas? Avocados? Likely whatever fad her social circle was praising at the time.
She leaned back against the couch and smiled toward the ceiling at nothing in particular. The sweet memory caused me to smile in the present.
“I love you, Mom.”
She sniffed on the other end of the phone. “And I love you.”
My toes began to sting from the cold, and I leaned forward, wrapping the ends of the bathrobe around them.
“When you’re back from Florida, I’ll go to Nebraska. Maybe we can mess the house up a little. Ooh, we could paint the kitchen yellow.”
“Yellow, Trina?”
“Why not yellow?” Shivering slightly, I tugged again on the ends of the robe, trying to make it bigger. “Yellow is cheery and sunny. It would spread a little joy.”
She laughed on the other end of the line as though I’d lost my marbles. “Sure, yellow. It’s worth a shot.”
“Tell Dad I said hello, and good night.”
“Good night, sweetie,” she told me as I hurried back into the house. Pressing the door closed with only the sound of a click, I shrugged out of the bathrobe and draped it over the back of the couch. Sitting down in the spot Willa had occupied not long before, I thought about her words.
When I went through the most unspeakable heartache, He gave me joy.
I peered across the living room at those two boxes Camdyn and I had hung together, resting side-by-side where they touched, as if they were dest
ined to be a pair. Charlie’s box was near the top–where I’d seen him hang it before he went to bed. That left only Willa’s, near the center of the tree, shoved deep inside like she didn’t want it to have a chance of slipping from its branch.
Unable to resist, I crossed the room and pulled it from its hiding spot, carefully lifting the lid. Although the room was dark, the gentle twinkling lights on the Christmas tree were enough to see at a close distance. Holding a little strip of paper next to a red bulb, I looked intently at the writing.
Willa Taylor, age seventy-six. Charlie and Camdyn.
My eyes darted to the hallway, feeling every inch like an intruder prying into her private life, but I couldn’t stem my curiosity. Lifting out another paper, I tilted it toward the tree so I could catch the light.
Willa Taylor, age fifty-four. Charlie and Camdyn.
By that point, I was fairly certain the pattern would continue, but I withdrew one more sample just to be sure.
Willa Taylor, age sixty-three. Charlie and Camdyn.
Replacing the lid, I returned the box to its hiding spot, gently dragging my own away from Camdyn’s. Retrieving a pen from the coffee table drawer next to the couch, I unwrapped the paper I had lodged inside earlier, staring at my statement. It was still very much true, being grateful for a Christmas I would never forget. I’d realized there was so much more, though.
Setting the pen on the paper, I scribbled a few more words.
For joy wherever you find it.
Chapter Eleven
Back home in Cape Girardeau, I usually woke on Christmas morning at around seven or eight to the scent of a breakfast casserole and the sounds of Vivaldi drifting through the vents. My dad was never a great lover of music, but on Christmas morning he liked the sound of violins.
Unwrapped (The Camdyn Series Book 5) Page 7
