All Hearts Come Home for Christmas

by Annalisa Russo

  A few minutes later, a Mercedes pulled into the driveway at the Solano house and into the garage. She couldn’t see who drove the car, but she got the distinct impression of a car seat in the back. Maybe a young couple with children had purchased the home? She’d love to see more young couples and children in the neighborhood. For personal and financial reasons, she didn’t like Mrs. D’s dire prediction of an old, deteriorating neighborhood.

  After she finished her tea, Jillian picked up the phone to call Father Stevens. She should have time to drop off her Christmas jar on Saturday. The young pastor would know which of his parishioners could use the money. Over the past year, she’d dropped her loose change into the jar, and since she always kept a Christmas savings account for herself at the bank, she never missed the extra money.

  After making an appointment with the priest, she returned to the kitchen to rinse out her teacup and place it in the sink. One quick glance at the papers piled on her kitchen table inspired her to keep moving. She needed a bite to eat and the next few hours to grade papers. Maybe a little TV afterward, and then she’d be ready for bed. She sent up a quick prayer that Oprah wouldn’t visit her tonight.

  ****

  Jillian felt wonderful, one of the benefits of a good night’s sleep. No crazy visits from Oprah, all her papers were corrected, and she’d gotten a good seven and a half hours—with only one interruption from Buster. Someday she’d have to ban him from her bedroom, but until he acclimated to Agnes’s death, she’d let him sleep on her bed. Or not—if he continued to nudge her awake with his wet nose in the middle of the night.

  When she pulled out of her driveway, she noticed the drapes were still drawn across the front window of the Solano house. The new owners weren’t early risers, but neither would she choose to be, if her students didn’t arrive at promptly seven twenty-five in the morning. If her new neighbors had young children, maybe the mother would be about her own age, and she’d make a new friend. Not that she minded that most of her neighbors were octogenarians, but someone her own age would be nice for a change.

  Jillian stopped in at Cleo’s classroom to say good morning and to offer her help with the concert. After a short chat, she noticed Cleo’s averted eyes. The woman began to make small talk and pulled out busy work. Jillian had always been good at prying information out of people. She didn’t consider it a character flaw but rather a virtue. “What gives, girlfriend? You’re acting funny. Like you swallowed the proverbial canary. Spill it.”

  Cleo pursed her lips. “Okay. I wanted to talk to Mel before I decided whether to tell you.”

  “No fair. Now you have to tell me.”

  “All right. Okay. Don’t badger me.” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Tristán Solano is back.”

  Jillian would think later the news was like a punch to the solar plexus. The next thing she knew, she was bent over in a chair with her friend telling her to breathe. How ridiculous. “Not to worry, Cleo. I’m fine,” she managed to choke out. “I thought you said Tristán was back.”

  Cleo cleared her throat. “I knew I should have waited for Mel, but you know I can’t keep a secret. Yes, I said he’s back. I ran into him last night at the Seven Eleven. I didn’t want to upset you, but I thought you should know. In case you run into him, you know, unexpected like. Jeez, I’m not explaining this very well. Say something, Jillie.” She stepped aside and worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

  Jillian took a deep breath and straightened. “I’m glad you told me. I would have been caught off guard if we accidently bumped into each other. He must be in town to catch up with family since he left the band. Or maybe he wanted to get away from the press, and what better place to do that than in Green Earth, Minnesota?” She felt foolish for her reaction to Cleo’s news, but between a deranged cat and a visiting Oprah-like bag lady, she was on edge.

  “He doesn’t have family here anymore,” Cleo mumbled.

  “What?”

  “I said he doesn’t have any family here. His mother and grandmother died before he made the big time, and his father moved south and remarried. Remember the headlines when he bought his father a big house in Clearwater Beach? It was all over the news. I mean about his father’s new wife and family. The tabloids didn’t let the story go for weeks.”

  “I think he still has some cousins and an uncle or two here,” Jillian murmured weakly. But she really didn’t think they were close, and certainly not reason enough to bring him back to Green Earth.

  Cleo snapped her fingers. “I know. He probably had to sign papers to sell his grandmother’s house. Didn’t you just say you saw a car pull in after the movers left?” Jillian hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a car seat in the back.

  “Yes, okay…that sounds logical. He probably flew in to handle the details of the sale. Maybe he’ll stay a while and catch up with old friends.”

  As the words left her mouth, she was sorry, since Cleo shot her a look of pity.

  Yep, it was official now. Even her friends thought she was pathetic.

  Chapter Five

  “You guys are the best,” Jillian said after she opened her door at five o’clock to find Cleo, Melissa, and Wendy on her front porch with an enormous pizza box from Crazy Jake’s and a bottle of red wine.

  Jillian removed the child’s mountain of outerwear, asking, “Are you in there somewhere? Jeez, Mel, the girl can hardly walk. It’s not forty below, you know.” Wendy circled her arms around Jillian’s leg and squeezed.

  “Can’t afford a sick kid. And remember, your caroling party is next week. You wouldn’t want her to be sick and miss out on the fun.”

  “Your mom’s right, as usual, honey. Let’s get you a few big books to sit on.” Jillian grabbed a dictionary off the bookshelves and two old volumes of encyclopedia to make Wendy the right height for the dining room table.

  “What’s the occasion?” Jillian asked while she divvied up the pizza and poured each of her friends a generous glass of wine, with a juice box for Wendy.

  “We thought you might need a friend tonight, with Tristán back in town, and all.” Melissa wiped a bit of sauce from the corner of Wendy’s mouth and handed her daughter a napkin.

  “Thanks, but I’m over him. Did you forget he’s been gone eight years?”

  “What happens if he walks up to your door one day and asks you on a date? It could happen, you know.”

  “I’d say…we have to keep it casual, low-keyed, take it slow.”

  Melissa glanced at Cleo. “Good idea. Draw that line in the sand up front. Smart.”

  “That’s sarcasm, right? It’s hard to tell with you, Mel. You’ve never been very good at it.” Jillian pursed her lips. “Okay. I’d probably panic due to my limited experience with the small quantity of attractive and available men in Green Earth right now.”

  “True love is hard to find and even harder to get over.” Cleo licked her fingers delicately. She gestured with her wine glass. “I speak from experience.”

  Melissa laughed. “I was about to say don’t be so dramatic. Then I reminded myself you’re a drama teacher.”

  “Ha, ha. His name was Derrick, and he was a dancer. Gorgeous, built, bright, and funny. We fell in love.”

  “Jeez, Cleo. In all these years, you’ve never mentioned anyone named Derrick.” Jillian had seen the quick flash of pain that crossed her friend’s face. She exchanged glances with Melissa, who raised her eyebrows and shook her head discreetly. Melissa had never heard about the mysterious Derrick either.

  “He was the reason I came back to Green Earth.”

  Cleo rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart. “Aw, Cleo.” Jillian reached over to squeeze her friend’s shoulder. “You never mentioned him to us, but I’ll reserve my disappointment and legitimate resentment until you spill the story. He must have been important to you.”

  Cleo gave a single shoulder shrug and leaned back in her seat. The sigh that followed was long and deeply felt. “We worked together on a new production of West Sid
e Story, and I fell head over heels. He was a brilliant dancer.” She took a sip of her wine, steadying the glass with both hands. “When I lost him, it was too hard to talk about it.”

  “What do you mean ‘lost him’?” Melissa probed cautiously.

  “D-i-e-d,” Cleo spelled, glancing at Wendy, who was busy on her second piece of pizza.

  “Gosh, I’m so sorry. You should have said something. We would have been there for you. You didn’t need to shoulder everything by yourself.”

  “I know, but I couldn’t. I really couldn’t talk about it. I knew people would tell me time heals all—in six months, a year, things would look differently. I could barely get through the next five minutes. A shrink would probably advise me it wasn’t healthy to hold everything inside.” She smiled weakly and saluted with her wine glass. “Until now, I guess. This must be the right time. And saying the words out loud helps. I should have tried this years ago.”

  “How many? Years, I mean?”

  Cleo set her wine glass down to do a finger count. “Six…six and a half now. Seems like another life. Leaving the theater behind was the hardest thing I ever did, but I couldn’t stay without him.” She ran a fingertip along the rim of her glass. “But ‘what’s past is prologue,’ right?” Then, Cleo answered the question before anyone could ask, “The Tempest.”

  “Oh, honey,” Jillian said, glancing at Melissa, whose facial expression mirrored her own feelings. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I honestly didn’t come here to unload on everyone. We were supposed to cheer up Jillie, remember? C’mon, this isn’t a pity party.”

  Jillian glanced warily at Melissa and then picked up her own glass of wine. “A toast, then. To…what was his name again, Cleo?”

  “Derrick. I called him Love Muffin.”

  “Of course, you did. All right.” Jillian raised her glass. “To a good man, and you would have had to be one if Cleo loved you, to Derrick, a.k.a. Love Muffin, thank you for loving our friend and making her happy.” They all clinked glasses and the awkwardness vanished.

  Viewing the holiday through the lens of Cleo’s devastating loss, her own issues seem insignificant. Pain, the kind Cleo had experienced, always left a weight on the heart. Do you ever get over that type of loss, she wondered, or after time, does it just get easier to carry it around? Suddenly, facing the possibility of a lonely holiday didn’t seem like the end of the world.

  “What about you, Mel? Did you ever love someone besides Brad?” Cleo asked. “You two were already a couple by the time I moved into the area and started high school in Green Earth.”

  “Nope. It was love at first sight. Of course, Brad had to be convinced,” Melissa admitted. “But he came around quickly enough.”

  “Phfft,” Jillian said. “Once he settled into the idea, there wasn’t anyone besides you for Brad McQuada. He’s a one-woman kinda man. We all should be so lucky.”

  Melissa ran her hand over Wendy’s soft curls. “I want him home so bad—we both do.” She leaned over and kissed Wendy’s cheek. The child continued to munch on her slice of pizza. “I’ve never been this nervous before. I mean, sure, the bad thoughts are always there in the back of my mind, but now, some days I can hardly deal. Maybe I’m getting the jitters because the end of his deployment is so close.”

  Jillian felt a stab of anxiety for her friend. “He’s careful,” she pointed out, “and capable. There’s no one better, and you know it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to meet the man in a dark alley,” Cleo stated dramatically.

  Melissa agreed as she gave a small chuckle, the intended response. “I know, but I won’t stop worrying until he’s home safe and sound. Too bad it won’t be for Christmas.”

  After everyone had eaten their fill, the girls packed up Wendy and donned their own winter coats. Jillian noticed lights on at the Solano house. “I wonder what the family is like.” She pointed to the house across the street.

  Melissa picked up her daughter and set her on a hip. “Maybe they’ll have a daughter like you, button.”

  “New fwiend?” Wendy lisped, holding her mother’s cheeks in her chubby little hands.

  “Could be, if we’re lucky.” Melissa flicked her daughter’s nose and then gave Cleo and Jillian a one-armed hug. She scooted out the door and down the steps.

  “See you at school tomorrow, kiddo…bright and early,” Cleo said. “And thanks for the therapy session. I feel ten pounds lighter. Well…maybe five. I ate a lot of pizza.” She followed Melissa and Wendy to the car.

  They loaded Wendy into the car seat and backed out of the driveway. Jillian waved them off, a bit melancholy with the news Cleo had shared, but her friend did seem more lighthearted after she had shared her story. Jillian leaned back against the door. One thing a girl could always count on were her girlfriends.

  The lights at the Solano house blinked out. In the moonlight, Jasper Street looked the same as all those years ago, when she and Tristán had used it for their playground. They both adored their grandmothers—his abuelita and her nonna—two women who were best friends and always there to sooth minor bumps and bruises and even a broken arm one summer, after they’d taken waxed paper to the nearby park to hit the slides at a hundred miles an hour. She smiled at the memory. But after the break, Tristán had to stay close to home for weeks. She remembered how much she’d missed him.

  She stood at the window until her eyes prickled with tears at the dark house across the street.

  ****

  Buster was back on the bed. Jillian groaned. She’d already kicked him off twice during the night, and her alarm clock was set to ring in under three hours. Now she’d never get back to sleep. She rolled over and jolted upright. The Miss O-look-a-like reclined casually at the foot of the bed. “Holy moly. What the hell?”

  “Now, don’t go using that kind of language, Boo, when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Hell ain’t a nice place.” The woman morphed once again, but this time she wore a rainbow-colored jogging suit with her dreadlocks. “Sorry to wake you, but I got some last-minute questions. You up for it?”

  Jillian shook her head. “You’re just part of a dream, right? I can’t figure out why I dream about you. Are you supposed to pass along some kind of message? Because if that’s true, I wish you would spit it out, so I can get some sleep.”

  “I don’t rob you of no sleep. Uh-uh. Were you tired after the last time I came here? Nosirree, I ain’t no problem. But, Cher, you got problems, and I’m just doin’ my job. I been sent.”

  “Are you God?”

  Miss-O-slash-jogging-suit-lady erupted into peals of laughter. “Nope, not even close.”

  “An angel, then?” Jillian wished she were anywhere but in her bedroom with a whacko.

  “I ain’t no whacko, but I ain’t no angel either. Don’t think I wanna be. They got too many ’sponsibilities.”

  “How did you know what I was thinking?”

  The woman in the colorful jogging suit grinned broadly. “Darlin’, I know everything. Now, let’s get to work.” She hesitated. “You got any café au lait around here? Maybe a coupla beignets?”

  Jillian pursed her lips.

  “Okay, I’ll take me a regulah coffee.”

  ****

  When the alarm went off at five fifteen, Jillian couldn’t move. The dream was still there, hanging by a thread in her subconscious. The woman had come back, and they had talked for most of the night. She remembered…what? She had cried, sobbed her heart out, and laughed like a loon, but couldn’t remember why, and then the woman had poofed. Literally, poofed—in a cloud of smoke. Cleo would have appreciated the special effects.

  To remind her the alarm was still singing, Buster bumped his head against her arm. She hit the snooze button and ran a hand down the cat’s fur all the way to the tip of his tail. Maybe she should talk to a shrink. Maybe she was bat-dodo crazy. Or maybe her subconscious was trying to tell her something, using her dreams.

  Or…maybe…all the craziness really did ha
ppen.

  She thought about that option until the snooze button beeped again. Jillian slammed a hand on the off button and tossed back the covers. She took a moment to sit on the edge of her bed and realized she felt…good…amazingly good. Where did this feeling come from? She couldn’t wait to get to school and to her students. Even the Brown brothers wouldn’t be able to dampen her spirits. Or the after-school team meeting, or the hundred and fifty homework papers she would collect today.

  She treated herself to Christmas carols in the shower and leftover pizza for breakfast, with frozen holiday cookies for dessert.

  ****

  A few days later, Saturday morning arrived drizzly and cold, not cold enough for snow, unfortunately, but with a bone-deep chill, just the same. Jillian scraped light frost off the back window of her Jetta and said a prayer to St. Joseph her car would start.

  Sacred Heart parish was on the other side of town, a marginal neighborhood with struggling parishioners. For the last three years, she’d chosen Father Stevens to dispense her Christmas Jar because he always knew of a needy family. She never missed the small amount of change she put in the Mason jar each day, and the extra money at Christmas time would come in handy to whomever Father Stevens chose.

  When he was young, Jillian’s father had lived across the street from the Sacred Heart rectory. Although the neighborhood had changed over time, it wasn’t for the better. Unemployment was high in the area, and gangs ruled the streets. Though she admired his optimism and tenacity, she thought the idealistic young priest fought a losing battle.

  The old rectory had been built during the Depression era and sat back from the street on a shaded lot framed by towering old oaks. The old clapboard, with its generous wraparound porch, was kept in reasonably good condition by the diocese, though the house could use a fresh coat of paint.

  She climbed the wooden steps, rang the doorbell, and was met by Father Stevens with his warm, familiar smile and a handshake. “Come in, Jillian. It’s good to see you again.” He waved her into the foyer.