A Little Christmas Magic

by Tracie Puckett

  “He knows we can hear him, doesn’t he?” Matt whispered, still stringing the lights. “We’re not deaf.”

  “Yet,” Charlie hissed, pulling an ornament from the box. He held the large bulb in his hand and admired his reflection in the glass. “Does he have to do that?”

  “Leave him alone, guys,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s here, he’s helping, and he’s not bothering anyone.”

  “He’s bothering me.”

  “Then that’s your problem, isn’t it?” I said, peering at Charlie.

  “Are you seriously trying to tell me that his singing doesn’t bother you?” Matt asked, already coming full-circle again. I ducked as he lifted the lights over my head once more. “It doesn’t bother you? Not even a little?”

  “Fine,” I said, looking back to Luke before turning to my cousin. “He doesn’t have the best voice—”

  “He sounds like a cat that’s been run over and dragged for sixteen blocks, Julie,” Matt said, finishing off the lights at the top of the tree. “Please make him stop.”

  “You three know that I can hear you, right?” Luke asked, looking at up at us through his thick lashes. Keeping his finger pressed down on the center of the wrapping paper, he used his other hand to pull a piece of tape from the dispenser.

  “Yes,” Matt said, injecting thick sarcasm into his tone. “And do you know that we can hear you? What’s with the singing, man? It’s Christmas. You’re bumming everyone out.”

  “Leave him alone,” I said again. “Luke has gone above and beyond here to make this Christmas special for us, guys. You should be thanking him.”

  Neither Matt nor Charlie had anything to say in response to that. They kept their heads low and continued to work, and after another ten minutes, I finally broke the silence.

  “Hey Mattie,” I said, standing back to admire the fully lit tree. I knew we’d hang the ornaments next, but I preferred waiting until Luke was done wrapping all of his gifts. I really wanted the four of us to do it together as a family. And I knew that there’d be no better time than now to switch gears and give my cousin a little shove in the right direction. “While we’re waiting on Luke to finish up the gifts, what do you say to pulling out Mom’s recipe book again? Maybe we could make some of her famous snickerdoodles?”

  “Go for it,” he said, reaching up to fix one of the branches on the tree.

  “You wanna show me how?”

  “It’s not that hard, Julie,” he said. “Follow the steps; it’s easy. Even you couldn’t mess it up.”

  “Ha!” Luke said from the other end of the room, and we all turned to look at him.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Reibeck,” I said, quirking my brow. I planted my hands on my hips and glared at him. “What exactly was that supposed to mean?”

  He looked up from the present and met my gaze. With a simple shrug he looked back down, pretending he hadn’t just let that unsubtle laugh slip through his lips.

  “Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ll do it myself.”

  I turned for the stairs and stomped up each one. I reached Matt’s room and pushed open the door. Mom’s recipe book was sitting right on the corner of his dresser… right underneath a crumpled up, creased, and tattered envelope. It was a letter addressed to Matt’s university address, and it was from Kara.

  I picked up the envelope and ran my finger over her perfectly scrawled shorthand. I studied every tiny detail, including the postmark date that was stamped only a few days before Matt had returned home in October. I knew that if Kara really had been the reason that Matt had decided to call it quits and return to Oakland, then the answers to all of my questions were right inside that envelope.

  What had she said? What had she done to make Matt give up everything?

  I looked over my shoulder to make sure my cousin hadn’t followed me up the stairs. Assured that I was still alone, I stared back down at the letter. With a few heavy breaths, I turned it over, lifted the torn flap, and pulled a folded piece of paper from inside. But I couldn’t open it.

  I couldn’t bring myself to betray his trust. Matt hadn’t told me yet and there had to be a reason for that… even if it was just because he wasn’t ready. So I had to trust that he would tell me when the time was right—if the time was ever right.

  I slid the letter back into the envelope and set it aside. I plucked Mom’s recipe book from the dresser, flipped the light off, and shut the door on my way out.

  I thought to turn down the front staircase and pop right back into the middle of the festivities happening in the living room, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look my cousin in the eye. I’d somehow find a way to put my foot in my mouth, or he’d take one look at me know that I knew something. To avoid any kind of confrontation, I turned in the opposite direction and headed down the back staircase to the kitchen, and I opened Mom’s book of recipes when I reached the center island.

  I flipped through a few pages until I found the recipe I’d been looking for—Mom’s famous snickerdoodle cookies. I set off to the refrigerator to collect the butter and eggs, ransacked the cabinets until I found the flour, sugar, and all of the other basic ingredients. The cinnamon was the most difficult search of all. It was amazing how long it took me to collect the few essentials. You’d think I’d never set foot in my uncle’s kitchen.

  But I had.

  Just not to bake.

  Once I had the dough mixed together, I put it in the refrigerator to chill. The recipe didn’t specify for how long, but I’d always remembered Mom saying ‘ten minutes is never long enough, and fifteen isn’t necessary. Thirteen. That’s the magic number.’ So I set Matt’s timer for thirteen minutes.

  I pulled myself up on the counter and sat there, my legs dangling off the ledge. I closed my eyes and remembered the last time I’d done that, the day Luke had come by our house and presented me with my necklace. I reached up and held the key in my hand, admiring the way the cool silver felt against my warm skin.

  And then I thought of what my mother would’ve said if she could’ve only been there.

  “You okay, kid?”

  My eyes snapped open to meet Luke’s stare, and he took a few steps closer to me. With a faint smile, I nodded, and he jumped up and sat next to me on the counter.

  “I used to sit up on the countertop at home and watch Mom bake,” I said, and his eyes softened at the mention of my mother. I cracked a smile at the thought. “It would make her so mad. She’d swat me with a towel or a wooden spoon… whatever she had in her hand. Not hard. Just hard enough to make her point.” A small grin curved on Luke’s lips. “Did your mom ever do stuff like that?”

  “No,” he said, nudging me with a shoulder. “She was about as domestic as you are.”

  “Oh, nice,” I said, half-laughing, but then my smile faded back into a frown. “I meant… did she ever do stuff that you hated, stuff that annoyed you, but… stuff you’d give anything to see her do again… as long as it meant having her back?”

  “All the time,” he said, reaching over to take my hand. He squeezed it gently and caressed my fingers with his thumb. “Dad and I always played ball in the house. It wasn’t anything formal, nothing organized. He’d sit in his chair and I’d be on the couch or on the floor. The TV was almost always on. We’d just toss a ball back and forth. Every now and then we’d knock something over, and you could always bet Mom would come whipping around the corner to yell at the both of us.” His faint smile faded away just as mine had done moments earlier. “Sometimes I throw a ball across the living room for Elvis,” he said, taking a deep breath. His eyes drifted somewhere else, down, but not to the floor. “Sometimes I want nothing more than to hear her yell at me again.”

  I kept watching him, knowing that the way he felt wasn’t just difficult, but it was normal for our unfortunate kind—the ones of us who’d lost someone special. It was hard, sitting there and talking about death, but it seemed like Christmas always brought the memories flooding back. I hated that Luke had to endure
those same struggles, but it made me feel better knowing that I wasn’t alone.

  “I think about it a lot now,” I said, bringing his gaze back to me. His eyes locked on mine for a few quiet seconds, and then I squeezed his hand. “I think about how angry it makes me that Charlie skips out on his appointments, eats greasy hot wings, or refuses to even climb the stairs. But I know that if I ever lost him… I’d give anything to have him doing all those things all over again. Just like Mom and Dad. And he makes it so hard for me to be mad at him.”

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “I get that.”

  “I can’t lose him, Luke. I just… I can’t. I need him, and if he…” I bit my lip and shook my head. “If he dies…” He nodded a couple times and let a breath slip through his parted lips. “Please tell me that I’m worrying myself for nothing,” I said, and a tear finally broke loose. “If you can just tell me that I’m in my head…if you can just say that everything will be okay, then maybe I can stop driving myself crazy.”

  “I wish I could, but I can’t do that, Jules,” he said, squeezing my fingers even tighter. “I think he’s doing great. I think he’s got a lot of work ahead of him, but I don’t know. We never really know anything. We only have the moment that we’re in. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed for any of us. That’s just how it is.” I looked down as another tear slid down my cheek. “I can’t sugarcoat it for you, kid. You could lose any one of us as quickly as you lost your parents.”

  “You’re not making me feel better.”

  “I’m not trying to,” he said. “I’m just trying to tell you that you have to embrace the time you have, give every moment the time and attention it deserves, and make sure that you don’t leave anything unsaid or undone. You can’t fear death, yours or anyone else’s.”

  Just then, the buzzer went off, and the thirteen minutes had passed far too quickly.

  Luke let go of my hand and reached around me to stop the timer.

  “Tell the people you love that you love them,” he said, looking back to me as if the monotonous beeps hadn’t interrupted him. “At the end of the day, that’s all you can really do.”

  He jumped down from the counter and turned back, offering me a hand. He helped me back down to the floor, and I planted my feet firmly on the tile beneath me.

  “I love you, Julie,” he said, brushing a hair from my eyes. I rested my head against his chest and wrapped my arms around his waist. He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of my head, wrapped his arms around me, and held me close. “What do you say we go wrap some more presents?”

  “I have to finish the cookies—”

  “I’ll finish them,” Matt said from the doorway, and I pulled my body away from Luke to stare at my cousin.

  “What?”

  “Dad’s already started on the tree. You guys go work on the presents,” he said, walking over to the refrigerator to get the dough. I hadn’t even told him it was there; somehow he’d just known. “I need to do this.”

  Looking from the oven to Matt, from Matt to Luke, and then back over to my cousin, I nodded.

  “Knock yourself out,” I said, reaching over to the counter to slide the cookbook over to him. Still watching the way he moved around the kitchen, I could see that Matt was doing his best to come around to the idea of baking again. He was pushing himself over the hurdle, trying to get back to the way things used to be.

  Leaving him to roll the dough into dozens of little circles, Luke and I returned to the living room. As Matt had promised, Charlie had already started hanging the ornaments. As he moved around the tree, trying to find the perfect spot for a tiny red bulb, the faintest grin settled on his lips.

  “He’s happy,” I whispered to Luke. I started toward the tree, ready to tell Charlie to move slowly and to take it easy.

  “Hey,” he said, pulling me back gently. He draped his arm around my shoulder and pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Give him a little space, Jules. He needs that. You can’t hover over him forever. Stand back and let him work this out for himself. He’ll come around.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, watching Charlie move around the tree. I felt my chest swell with hope. If Charlie could smile for the first time in a month, and if Matt could actually get over his heartache, I was convinced that there was nothing they couldn’t do.

  Maybe Luke was right. Maybe all Charlie had ever needed was a little bit of space.

  “Hey look,” Luke said, nodding out the front window. I hoped that I’d look up and see the first few flakes of snow as they drifted to the ground, but I looked up, and I saw nothing but the sunshine blazing through the glass.

  “More sunshine,” I said, letting go of a slow breath. “Where is all of the snow?”

  “I think the sunshine’s a good thing.”

  “How so?”

  “Seventy degree weather in the middle of December,” he said, looking down to me. “It’s just another reminder that things don’t always go the way we expect them to, Jules. There are surprises around every corner.”

  “Ugh, I hate surprises.”

  “Yeah, you’ve mentioned that once or twice,” he said, tightening his hold on me. “But life’s all about change, the welcome and unwelcome.”

  “Right.”

  “So you have to ask yourself one question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you ready for what comes next?”

  I paused.

  It was a question I couldn’t answer.

  I didn’t know if I was ready for anything more—good or bad. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready. I’d learned very quickly that life was all about living through change, beating the odds, and overcoming even the worst struggles, but at what point would it all become easier? Would it ever get easier?

  I didn’t know.

  I guess Luke was right when he said that we never really know anything for certain. But if all I had was one very uncertain future to look forward to, I could rest happily knowing that I wouldn’t have to go through anything alone. I had Luke. I had Matt. And for now, and hopefully for a very long time, I had Charlie.

  How could anything bad come of that?

  Dear Readers,

  If you caught my “Ninth Day of Christmas” post this morning on the blog, then you already know that Julie and I have decided to tackle another journey together. Please watch for details in 2014 about my new series (beginning with Breaking Rules), the Just a Little continuation, and a whole lot more!

  I look forward to another wonderful year with all of you!

  Merry Christmas.

  Love,

  Tracie