by Olivia Miles
Instead she sighed and took another sip of her wine. If things continued like this, it was going to be a very long week, indeed.
Chapter Ten
Carrie
The house was quiet when Carrie woke the next morning. She’d slept well considering that she had been given a pull-out couch with a lumpy mattress and what she was fairly certain were not Tess’s best sheets, while Jules slept in the proper guest room, complete with a queen-size bed that Carrie would have been happy to share.
Still, she was just as happy to have her own space. Her own corner of the house where she could let her guard down, let her smile fade, and think about Lucas and what he could be doing right now. It was Monday, and even though it was Christmas week, she was almost certain he was at work. The only reason she couldn’t be completely certain was because she was starting to wonder if she didn’t know Lucas as well as she had thought she did. The Lucas she knew lived in a world where the scarf girl didn’t exist. The Lucas she knew did not go to Starbucks. And the Lucas she knew would be at the office Christmas week. But the real Lucas had shared a Saturday morning coffee with another woman, mere hours after dumping her. The real Lucas had somehow met her, long before that fateful dinner. Had possibly spent Friday night with her. And could easily be on a vacation with her this very week. The real Lucas may even have decorated a Christmas tree with this other woman yesterday!
Still, the Lucas she knew couldn’t have just been replaced! It was highly likely that he was at work. Right now, at his desk, with his second cup of coffee and his computer powered up. He’d be wearing a blue tie because he always wore blue ties. Surely he couldn’t have changed that much?
She could call him, see for herself, without the risk of scarf girl being around, and make up an excuse like she needed back something from his apartment. Or she could just call and then hang up, just to be sure that he wasn’t off to Bali or Fiji or Paris with her replacement.
But what if he was in a meeting? How could she be sure?
She could call the main line, ask the receptionist for him. Pretend to be a prospective client. Yes, that was a good one!
But that was lame. And it would defeat the entire purpose of coming here to Winter Lake. She needed to put Manhattan behind her, both physically and mentally.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee greeted her when she opened her door. She pulled a sweatshirt over the tee shirt she’d worn to bed and padded down the stairs, her hand gripping the rail. Afraid of her own sister. She was afraid of her own sister! If it wasn’t enough to make her want to cry, she’d almost feel the need to laugh. Growing up, she and Tess were as close as two sisters could be, sharing every secret, every fear, every dream. They knew each other’s first crush, first kiss. They’d spent hours in the room they shared behind a closed door, safe and secure, knowing that inside those four walls, they were in control and that their world could be happy.
Now, Carrie frowned when she reached the hall and saw the sad excuse for a Christmas tree in the window. The lights were off (again) and the ornaments were clustered on the bottom branches. Phoebe’s doing, most likely, but still odd. And the rest of the house was bare. There was no Christmas spirit. No laughter. No joy.
She had the uneasy memory of Christmases past, the ones spent in this very town, at their childhood home. “When I grow up, my Christmases will be magical,” Tess used to say. “Every room will be decorated. Every Christmas will be the best Christmas ever.”
And she’d stuck to that promise, hadn’t she?
Until this year.
Carrie wanted to give Tess that feeling of comfort that Tess had offered her all those years ago, when their dad was gone and their mom was quiet and sullen, and Tess jutted her chin instead of breaking down in tears. She wanted to make things right, not just between them. But for Tess. And for Phoebe.
Jules was sitting alone at the kitchen table when Carrie walked into the kitchen, bracing herself. She darted her eyes and, sensing that no one else was home, released a pent-up breath.
“Where’s Tess?” she asked as she opened a cabinet in search of a mug. She didn’t know her way around the house, hadn’t spent enough time it. That didn’t sit well.
“She took Phoebe to the grocery store,” Jules replied. “You just missed them.”
Was it terrible to admit that she was relieved?
“That’s good she’s getting out.” Carrie found the mugs and closed the cabinet. “Last time we were here for Christmas, she went all out. Did you see the tree?”
Jules pulled a face. “I know. It’s small, and the decorations aren’t what they used to be. She rarely returns my calls anymore, too. At least before she would tell me she was too busy to talk. Now she just doesn’t talk. She’s completely withdrawn.”
Carrie nodded. It was true. Tess was in survival mode, the way she used to get when they were little and their mother would forget to pay the power bill and the lights would go out, and Tess would sit in silence until she traced her way to the dining room cabinet, grabbed a few candles and matches, and lit them. She was always tense until a resolution was found. Always unwilling to show her emotions.
“Maybe she’s mad that we came,” Jules continued.
“More like she’s mad that I came,” Carrie said. Really, what was she doing here? Did she think they’d go back to the way things were before? Andrew had died, and nothing was the same. And the Campbells knew all too well how permanent it was when a family member was lost.
Still… “She seemed to warm up a bit last night at dinner. She’s gotten close to Jeff.” She filled her mug and added a heavy splash of milk and a generous amount of sugar. She eyed the cupcakes on the counter, resting under a covered dome. Normally, she would have helped herself to one. Now, she felt stiff and formal. She walked over to the table and took a seat opposite Jules. Jules was wearing an old college tee shirt and had her curls pulled back in a messy bun. She wore her glasses, but even with them on, her blue eyes were striking.
Jules seemed to consider this for a moment. “Makes sense. He was Andrew’s best friend. He probably feels responsible. He was there that night, after all.”
Carrie sipped her coffee, saying nothing. “Well,” she finally spoke. “I think it’s a good thing. At least there’s one person that seems to bring out her old self.”
“Maybe we can too,” Jules said with more confidence than seemed realistic.
Still, Carrie appreciated her optimism. Someone had to hold this family together, after all.
Carrie gave her sister a little smile. “I was hoping you would say that. I was thinking that maybe we could get her into the spirit of Christmas? Give her a really nice holiday.”
“I know where the decorations are,” Jules said, pushing back her chair.
Carrie glanced at the clock as they hurried into the hallway, factoring in that the grocery store was small and only about a mile away. “We don’t have much time.”
It took only a few minutes to locate the clearly labeled boxes in the attic. There were three of them, and one appeared to have been opened recently.
Carrie hesitated before lifting the largest container. “Maybe we shouldn’t. What if Tess doesn’t want her house decorated?”
“Tess doesn’t know what she wants,” Jules replied as she scooped up a box in her arms. “That’s why we’re here. To show her what she wants and needs. To let her see that she can find it in us.”
Carrie nodded, hating the fact that she wasn’t only here for that reason, and that her other motive, possibly her main purpose, was purely selfish. That maybe she was the person Tess thought her to be. The kind of person who didn’t come back to town when her sister needed her the most.
But then she thought of Lucas. He’d needed her that weekend too.
“You’re right,” Carrie said, reaching for a box. It was heavier than she’d anticipated, but she would manage. She’d have to manage. She was a single girl again, on her own. No one to open doors or help carry luggage or boxes down f
rom attics, not that she would ever have a house with an attic at the rate she was going. She was much more likely to end up living out her final days in the same rent-controlled apartment, childless, alone…
She didn’t even realize she was showing the horror of this thought on her face until she caught Jules staring at her.
“Is everything okay?” Jules asked, frowning.
“What? Oh. Fine. Just…this is heavier than I expected.”
“Here. This one’s light.” Jules set down her own box, strode over to Carrie, and pulled the box from her arms. Her annoyance was evident in the pinch of her lips and Carrie didn’t know whether to feel amused or insulted. Jules was an independent woman. Didn’t “do” relationships, and seemed to silently judge Carrie’s decision to commit to Lucas and prioritize their relationship.
Now Carrie wondered if Jules had been right all along. She’d made Lucas her top priority. And he’d gone and replaced her.
“Let’s at least get the mantle decorated and wrap the garland around the banister,” Jules said as they walked single file down the stairs, Jules balancing two boxes while Carrie managed just the one.
“Let’s leave some little things for Phoebe to set out, though,” Carrie advised when she popped open her box and saw the nutcrackers inside. “Kids love feeling included.”
“Finally figured that out, huh?” Jules gave her a wry look, and it took a moment for Carrie to catch on that Jules was referring to herself.
“Jules,” she said gently. “We included you. You were just so much younger.” Five years was a big difference back then. In many ways, it still was. When they were younger, Carrie and Tess were riding bikes into town before Jules was out of diapers. And now, she and Tess were saddled with responsibilities while Jules didn’t even have a steady job. But she’d always made time for Jules, still talked to her on the phone on a pretty regular basis. Told her pretty much everything.
Well, except for one thing.
“And Tess adored you. You were like her first child,” Carrie pointed out.
Jules gave her a pointed look and opened her box. Carrie let her comment drop and they worked silently, quietly, as if they were afraid that Tess might walk in at any moment, and secretly, Carrie was afraid of just that. It would be much easier for Tess to protest if they were in the middle of the project rather than finished. Besides, she wanted the joy of surprising her, of doing something nice for her, of trying, however small, to make things right between them and to show that she cared.
“So,” Jules said as she quickly wound the garland around the banister. “How’s Lucas?”
It was bound to happen, Carrie knew. Still, she felt rattled and her heart was starting to race. How was Lucas? She’d like to know the answer to that herself. Was he happy, laughing, and going about his day without a care in the world? Was he relieved to be free of her? Did she even cross his mind at all?
Her mind wandered to the image of him in the café, and she swallowed back the lump in her throat.
“Lucas is great,” Carrie said, happy that her back was to her sister. She narrowed her eyes on the ornament she held—a delicate porcelain snowflake—and set it on a high branch where Phoebe wouldn’t be able to reach it. Breakables and all that. “He’s just great.”
There was a long silence before Jules said, “Still think he’s going to propose soon?”
Oh no. Carrie couldn’t be vague with that question, could she? It wasn’t like Jules to be so direct either, not when it came to Lucas or anything with relationships. She usually seemed disinterested or put out when Carrie started talking about her boyfriend.
Ex-boyfriend.
“You never know,” Carrie said in what she hoped passed for a breezy tone, but her voice felt pitched and tight. She tried to think of a way to turn the conversation back on Jules, but Jules didn’t have relationships, or if she did they were casual, usually lasting a few weeks, or, at best, a few months.
“I’m just thinking,” Jules continued, and Carrie felt her eyes flutter. “Andrew was definitely the one for Tess. It was so obvious. Not just to her but to us, to everyone.”
True. So true. And could the same be true for Lucas, Carrie wondered. What did Jules think of Lucas? She’d never made that opinion known.
Not that it mattered now.
“How do you know when you’ve found the one?” Jules suddenly asked.
Carrie looked at her for a moment, and noticed, rather surprised, that Jules was being serious. She thought for a moment, realizing that she had no insight, no words of wisdom to share. Her boyfriend of four years had left her. She’d thought he was the one and he thought she was replaceable. “I guess you just know.”
Or you don’t. Or you get blindsided.
Jules pushed her lips to the side, as if she was thinking about this answer, and went back to adding thick red ribbon to the garland on the banister.
“It’s just…”
Carrie’s hands froze mid-branch and she had to bite back a curse word. Couldn’t they just do this in silence? Distract themselves with half an hour of decorating?
“I wonder if there’s more than one person for us out there,” Jules finished, and Carrie, much as she hated to admit it, turned and gave her sister a small smile.
“I sure hope so, Jules,” she said.
For all of their sakes.
Tess’s car pulled into the driveway just as they were setting the nutcrackers on either side of the fireplace. Carrie was sure to leave a few in the box for Phoebe to set out, along with some of the less fragile parts of the porcelain village that Tess had collected over the years.
“Hurry up and hide the boxes!” Carrie cried, and she and Jules scrambled to close the containers and run them upstairs to the attic. By the time they began their descent, they could hear Tess’s voice in the kitchen, instructing Phoebe to set her wet mittens on the radiator in the mudroom to dry.
“Do we tell her or let her walk in to it?” Jules whispered.
“Let her discover it herself,” Carrie decided. She pulled Jules back against the wall. “We’ll wait here.”
The wait was longer than she expected. Tess not only had to set all of Phoebe’s things out to dry (apparently Phoebe had decided to make a snow angel while Tess unloaded the groceries) but then put all the groceries back in their proper place, and with a kitchen as large as hers, this seemed to take much more time than it took Carrie to cram all the processed food into the only cabinet that wasn’t being used to house dishes and glassware.
She was just about to toss up her hands when she heard Phoebe scamper into the living room, and then heard the gasp emerge from her mouth. Carrie rested a hand to her heart and gave Jules a look. They’d brought their niece a moment of joy. They’d done the right thing.
Carrie waited expectantly for Tess to come into the room.
“Mommy, Mommy, come look!” Phoebe cried.
“What? What is it?” Tess’s voice sounded alarmed, strangled and tight and almost…fearful, if Carrie didn’t know better.
She and Jules hurried down the rest of the stairs just as Tess walked into the room. “Surprise!”
Tess’s eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open, but she wasn’t smiling, and the tears that seemed to be building were definitely not tears of happiness.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Phoebe was saying as she ran around the room.
“How could you do this?” Tess’s jaw set as she turned on her sisters. Her eyes were stony and demanding.
Carrie blinked, at a loss for words. “We wanted to give you some Christmas cheer,” she explained, only, saying it like this, now, she realized that she had messed up.
“Cheer?” Tess looked at her with disgust. “When did you become so insensitive, Carrie?”
“It was my idea too,” Jules cut in. She tried to set a hand on Tess’s elbow, but Tess pulled back quickly, muttering under her breath as she ran up the stairs.
“I shouldn’t have come,” Carrie said, looking at Jules, wait
ing, she realized, for her sister to disagree with her, to say that she needed her. Wanted her.
But Jules just gave her an injured look and then let Phoebe take her by the hand to wind up a music box.
Carrie looked up the stairs, her heart fighting with her head, wanting to run up to Tess’s bedroom more than anything and knowing that she couldn’t.
She grabbed her coat and slipped on her boots and walked out the door instead.
Chapter Eleven
Tess
Tess heard the door slam and a moment later she saw Carrie walking down the street toward town, her head bent against the wind and snow that had started early this morning and that showed no sign of letting up anytime soon.
She stepped back from the window and let her eyes drift to the bed, knowing how easy it would be to succumb to it and knowing that this was exactly what she didn’t want to do. It would be selfish, and weak, and she wasn’t in a position to be either of those.
She was a mother. She had her child to think about. And right now Phoebe was delighted by the decorations that were now splayed all over her home, thanks to her sisters.
The regret that filled her was nearly as strong as the anger. It wasn’t the decorations. It was the liberty. The fact that Carrie thought she could come back to town, waltz into Tess’s house (and Andrew’s house!) and do as she pleased.
That somehow some tinsel and garland could make everything right between them. Ha!
Tess took a deep breath and walked to the mirror. Her hair was a mess—windblown and unkempt from trudging groceries in from the detached garage—and her cheeks were still flushed. From the cold? Or from anger? But she wasn’t even sure that anger was what she felt. More than anything it was a deep sense of loneliness. A nagging, dead weight in her chest that lingered day after day.
And there was one way to cure that.
Jules was in Phoebe’s room when Tess emerged from her bedroom a few minutes later, her hair smoothed into a ponytail, some lipstick on her mouth. An effort that felt overwhelming these days but had once been part of her daily routine, without requiring any thought.
