by Taylor Hart
Chills washed over me.
He pulled in a breath. “She loves to make Christmas stars. She and Lacey have made a whole grundle of them. I think we could fasten them to hooks.” He pulled some wire ornament hooks out of his pocket. “What do you say?”
I pushed down the torrent of emotion that had been loosened inside of me. I swallowed. “Okay.”
He moved for the door, keeping my hand in his.
I pasted on a smile—my best retail smile.
Hospitals always had a smell to them. Sterile cleanliness. But her room had that smell and the ‘old person’ smell, like death was near.
Janet was in the bed, her head wrapped in a neon, purple wrap. A smile lit up her sunken in face. She looked—old. Tired.
“Hey!” I went straight to her and tried to give her a hug. It ended up being impossible, because she was on oxygen and had an I.V. in her arm.
Janet reached for my hand. Hers was cold, but tender. She smiled. “Snow Valley hasn’t been the same without you, Mol.” Her green eyes were like sunshine to my heart.
I paused and the lump of emotion in my throat grew. “I’ve missed you.” And I had. I hadn’t realized how much until this moment.
She dropped my hand. “I heard that Addy’s slacking on her Christmas tree decorating.” Her eyes fluttered, signaling that she didn’t want to do the cry thing.
I nodded and pulled in a short breath. “Total slacker.”
Lacey held up two silver paper stars. They were bigger than her head. “Mom says it must be destiny because we’ve been making stars for the last week.”
Another rush of chills. I took one from her hand and looked down at my ring. They matched. It was weird. The stars actually matched. The top spike longer, the two side ones smaller. It was one of those coincidences that you couldn’t even really tell people because it would sound made up.
Lacey touched my ring. “It’s pretty, who gave it to you?”
Put on the spot would be the term for how I felt. I let out a laugh and looked to Janet and Kevin to be rescued.
Both of them stared back at me with expectation on their faces.
“Um, just a friend.”
Lacey was determined to get answers. “A boyfriend?”
“Umm, a friend that’s a boy.” I didn’t look at Kevin.
Janet held out a pair of scissors to me. “Well, let’s get started, I’ve been looking forward to seeing how the stars would look on this tree since last week.” She winked at me.
“Since last week?” I questioned.
Janet gave me a slow smile. “Pastor John assured me that he would find a way to make that happen.”
I swerved to Kevin and he put up his hands. “I didn’t know about any of it until today, I swear.”
I took the scissors from Janet and grinned. “I see Pastor John hasn’t lost his touch.”
***
After an hour of cutting out stars, Kevin carefully puncturing and hooking them and lots of talk with Lacey about Santa and presents and God and His plan for us, Kevin and I walked down the hallway toward the front doors.
I saw the clock on the wall. Almost four-thirty. “I’m going to go check in with my parents.” I knew I needed to leave in about an hour to get to Billings and make my flight.
Kevin stopped, searching my face. “Look, I want you to know how much I appreciated you back there. I know it’s not easy to see Janet and listen to Lacey rattle on about religious stuff. It’s been something that she kinda has held onto through this whole thing.”
“No.” I waved a dismissive hand through the air. “I didn’t mind at all.” I hadn’t. In fact, it had been quite refreshing. “Janet and Lacey are amazing.” I blinked back my emotion. Janet had been so strong when Lacey’s dad had left her…and now she had to face all of this alone.
Kevin licked his lips. He’d pulled back on his Carhartt. He flipped his hair out of his face and pushed out a breath. “Yeah, you were always good like that.”
Even though I didn’t want to be in this stupid town. The fact that we were both standing here, in the middle of life junk, made me second-guess everything.
He let out a breath and his eyes went to mine. He looked like he wanted to say something.
“Spit it out, Kevin.”
His tongue went to the inside of his lip.
“What?”
He still hesitated then shook his head. “Why didn’t you come back, Mol?”
I hesitated. “Whatever.”
“I told you to stay in touch when you came back to town.”
I was flabbergasted. “You said that as a mercy shot. A pity shout out to the girl next door that had a crush on you.”
He stumbled back, almost dropping all the stars he held. “I never gave you pity.”
The scarred part of me reacted. “Right, you’re right, Kevin. But, you never asked me to come home, either. You never Facebooked or wrote or sent an email.”
His eyes widened. “You told me you were leaving and starting a new life. You always wanted out of this town. I let you go... and then I waited for you to come home.”
My brain couldn’t handle the information coming out of his mouth. He thought that he was letting me have my life. He thought that he was doing some favor by not contacting me? I stood there. Completely without words.
Everything was jumbled inside me. My dad telling me he loved me. My mom saying she hated the store. The snowball fight. The almost kiss. Janet.
My phone buzzed. I ignored it. “You were leaving, too. You had that scholarship to Washington State.”
He shrugged, looking miserable. “Whatever.”
My phone buzzed, again.
I pulled it out. It was a text from Stan.
COULD YOU PLEASE WALK SALLY THROUGH THE COMPUTER INVENTORY SYSTEM, IT’S NOT WORKING? WHAT TIME IS THE RADIO SPOT TOMORROW?
My hand shook. I didn’t know what to react to. The fact the store was going up in flames or the fact that everything I thought about my life was not the way I’d thought.
“Kevin!” A voice yelled down the hall.
Both of us turned.
Lacey flew toward us, panic on her face. “Uncle Kevin, she can’t breathe!”
Chapter 9
I stood with Kevin and Lacey, outside of Janet’s room, the sound of doctors and machines and people rushing in and out all playing a picture in our minds, even though they’d insisted on closing the blinds to her room.
Lacey was in Kevin’s arms. A painful expression on his face. He grimaced every time he heard the machine warming up to shock her heart.
It was like a bad dream. The worst movie in the world. It was the second time I’d watched and I wanted my money back.
“Kevin.” I touched his arm.
He shrugged back, his jaw pulsing in and out. I knew he wanted to hit something.
Twenty minutes later, the doctor came out of her room, going for Kevin. “She’s okay. It…” He looked tired, like any man would look that fought off death every day. “You know what it is.” He gestured back to her room. “Best to let her rest right now and come back tomorrow.” His lips turned up when he looked at Lacey. He patted her back. “Your mom’s a fighter.”
Gone was the jabbering of the earlier Lacey. She didn’t look at the doctor, just buried her face into Kevin’s neck.
The doctor turned and gave Kevin a sympathetic look. “See you tomorrow.”
My mom ran down the hallway. She stopped next to us, her eyes on Kevin. “Your mom just called me and told me what was happening. She’s coming right now. How is Janet?”
The mask of anger on his face broke for a second. “She’s holding.”
My mother put her hand on his back and rubbed little circles. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She reached to take Lacey.
Lacey wouldn’t let go of Kevin.
Kevin lifted his eyebrows. “I’m going to take her to the front of the hospital and meet my parents.”
Lacey’s head flew up. “But I’m coming back for the fir
eworks, right Uncle Kevin?”
Kevin’s face softened. “I don’t know if your mom will be up for it.”
Lacey wiped at her eyes. “But, you’ll be here.”
I could see the inner struggle wash over Kevin’s face in two seconds. Then all concern was erased and a smile covered his worry. “Of course, I’ll be here. We’ll sip hot chocolate and watch fireworks by the tree, it will be epic.”
Lacey nodded, her body relaxing, again. She put her head back down. “Maybe mama will be able to come out in her wheelchair?”
Kevin’s eyes began to blink and he moved down the hall. “Maybe.”
“Okay.” My mother’s hands had that gentle shake.
I watched Kevin walk away and felt emotion bubbling into my throat. Without thinking, I took my mother’s hand.
She turned, her guard down. All of a sudden, she fell into me and cried.
***
We stood next to my father’s bed. He seemed much more lively. The wrinkles around his eyes creased as tears flowed down his cheeks. “That Janet. She doesn’t deserve this. She’s been a soldier.”
My mother held his hand, her own face wet. “It’s so tragic when you’re so young.”
I sat next to my mother, my hand on her back. “How come you didn’t tell me?” I quietly demanded.
She lifted a helpless hand. “You told me not to speak of the Snows.”
I had. The fact I didn’t know about Janet was my own fault. My chest constricted.
My mother turned to me. “You just never know when something in your life is going to take away the people that love you.”
Even though I recognized the hit for what it was—I took it, turning away from her. Not saying what I wanted to say.
“My Molly.” My father said it softly.
I blinked and turned to him.
“Tell us why you never came home.”
Chapter 10
The funny thing about being hurt by someone you loved with all your heart, was that admitting that hurt and dealing with it—felt even worse than the hurt itself.
So I didn’t.
I brushed off the direct question and muttered something about how hard it was to get ahead in this world.
Neither of them had pushed me. I’d given both of them short hugs before leaving.
There.
It was done. I’d done my ‘duty’ for no other reason than the fact that they had given me life.
I rushed out of the hospital and checked my text messages. Four more from Stan and two from Sally. For some reason the system was even more messed up. Sally couldn’t find all of the purchases on the computer. Stan was asking if I wanted his father at the radio spot, too.
Then, I saw him.
Up on the ladder. The sun going down because that’s what happened in the winter in Montana, the sun went down early.
There were five stars already up. He was wiring the side of another.
I went to the bottom of the ladder and stared up.
“You better go before it gets even slicker on the roads.” He didn’t look down.
“Where’s Gus? Or that other guy that was here before?” It would take him awhile to secure the stars onto the tree by himself.
“Gus went home and the other guy is attending to my sister.”
Of course. Small towns. Everyone was utilized.
I looked at the stack of stars on the cement next to my feet. “It’s going to take you forever to finish this.”
At this, Kevin looked down. “It’ll be worth it – for her.”
Lacey’s face popped into my mind. All she’d wanted was to watch the fireworks by the tree with her mother. They’d been making stars for a week. All her work. My heart tugged with sadness. It would most-likely be Janet’s last Christmas.
My phone buzzed.
I thought of my dad’s tired face. My mother, telling me that we never know when the ones we love will be taken from us.
Another round of buzzing.
Kevin came down the ladder. “Is that Stan freaking out?” He finished getting off.
I took a step back. “How would you know that?”
The side of his lip went up. “I don’t have a rule about not hearing about your life.”
I stood there, motionless. He knew about my life? He knew about Stan? For the third time, I was blindsided by Kevin Snow. “My mother told you about my life.”
He smacked his lips together and bent to get two more stars. “Excuse me.”
I moved back and he moved the ladder to another part of the tree.
“I know all about Christina and her cooking.” He gave me an up and down look. “You’re too thin, by the way. She must not be that great of a cook if you come home fifteen pounds lighter than when you left.”
He’d noticed my weight. Thoughts of how many times my mother had started to say the name Kevin and I’d cut her off, rushed through my mind. “You know about Christina’s cooking?”
He hooked the stars to his jacket and began climbing the ladder. “And the fact you run too much. And Sean.” He stopped and gave me a pointed eyebrow raise, then kept climbing. “Is that who gave you the ring? Are you supposed to vow that you’ll buy bonds from him?” He chuckled, a deep, rich chuckle.
It was unbelievable to me that I knew nothing about Kevin’s last two years. Nothing. Yet he knew everything about my pitiful life.
He stopped and began attaching one of the stars. “But, it doesn’t matter, Mol.” He let out a laugh. It had turned angry and hollow. “Nothing matters. Not you. Not Janet.” His voice broke. He paused and took in a rough breath. “Not God’s plan or…Christmas.”
I watched him shake. He was crying.
Panic surged through me. “Kevin, come down, you’ll fall if you’re not careful.” He would fall. Tonight of all nights would be the night that would happen. Thoughts of another horrible hospital scene went through my mind.
He wiped his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“No.” The certainty of this pounded into my gut. “You’re not fine. Please get down.”
“I’m not getting down.” He covered his face and the ladder shook even more. “I’ll be fine.”
“Kevin.” I actually stomped my boot. “Kevin Reynolds Snow…get down!”
He sniffed. “I’m getting this done!”
“Well, take a break and then do it when you’re thinking clearer.”
“Just go.”
“No.”
“You’re going to miss your flight if you don’t leave now.”
I looked around at the ‘new hospital,’ at the stars on the tree, at Kevin crying. I made a decision that would definitely make the Hollingsworth’s wonder if they should have shaved the ten grand off of the franchise buy in. “I’m not leaving.”
Chapter 11
Kevin’s face went blank. “You’re staying?”
It was weird that all I’d wanted to do since coming back to Snow Valley was leave, but it felt like a huge relief to say, “Yes, I’m staying.”
The way Kevin’s whole face lit up made the sacrifice almost worth it. “Well.”
“Come down, please.”
Kevin finished fastening the other star and then headed down. He did something that would have counted as the fourth time he took me off guard, if I was counting. He hugged me.
A long hug. His breath tickled my ear as he said, “Welcome home, Mol. It’s about time.”
I didn’t pull away. “I’m not back,” I said, clarifying, “I’m just staying for a day or two.”
He grinned. “Tell me what he said to you when he gave you that ring.”
“What?” It took me off guard.
“A man doesn’t give a woman a ring, any ring, without saying something.”
I thought of the sincerity on Sean’s face and instantly touched the ring. “He said…he said he hoped it would guide me to whatever I needed in my life.”
***
It only took us another hour to finish doing all the stars. I trudged up and
down on Gus’s ladder, fastening them with the wires. There was a strange peace that spread through me. It was just like the first time my father had taught me how to ice skate on the pond. I’d fallen a couple of times, but he’d helped me get up and get up again. By that night, I was skating pretty well and I remembered looking around and feeling like the trees were talking to me. I hadn’t thought about that in a long, long time.
I climbed down the ladder and Kevin was staring up at it. The lights were on, in their silver and blue colors. The silver stars made the whole tree look…like it had truly been designed by someone that had planned it the whole time. “It’s beautiful.”
Kevin stood next to me, not speaking.
I turned. His eyes were on me. “It is beautiful. More beautiful than I remembered.”
The way he looked at me. The way he stared at me like I really was the most beautiful thing in the whole world, felt like he’d just taken the last two and a half years of brick walls I’d built around my heart and knocked them down with one blow.
I inhaled quickly and turned away. No. No. No.
“I’m going to go check in on Janet and Facebook message Pastor John.”
I nodded. “You go. I’m going to go tell my parents that I’m here for a while.”
He touched my arm. “For a while?”
I shrugged. “I absolutely have to be back to the store for Christmas Eve, but I’ll work from here until then.”
The scar on the side of his eye creased as he smiled his ridiculous smile. “I’ll take what I can get.”
***
My father gazed up at me, a happy, content look in his pale blue eyes. “I knew if my Molly would just come home once, she wouldn’t be able to leave.”
Uncertainty circled into the lower part of my stomach. I’d made a rash decision. A rash decision that I was now second-guessing. So what if the boy I’d loved my whole life had confided that he knew everything about me? That didn’t mean anything. A flash of Christina saying love’s true kiss would find me on Christmas Eve popped into my mind.
My mother was next to me, gently pushing her hand down my hair. A smile on her face. “He’s asked about you every time he was home from school.” She shrugged. “And, I’m sorry, Molly, I had to tell him. He…you two were always so close. I just thought it would be cruel to completely cut him off.”
