by Olivia Miles
Jane darted her gaze back to her mother. “Are you… baking?”
Kathleen nodded with excitement. “Gingerbread.”
Jane stared at her mother, unable to blink. “For…”
“For the contest! Since I can’t judge, I’m entering this year.” Kathleen beamed.
Jane was bewildered. She looked around, noticing the stacks of boxes and decorations covering the entire surface of the dining room table. Turning back to her mother, she said, “But, you haven’t entered that in years.”
Kathleen shrugged. “So? No time like now to reclaim the throne.”
Reclaim the throne? What the heck was going on here?
“Mom, are you feeling all right?” She glanced at Sophie, who had wandered off to play with a Santa figurine. One of many.
“Of course, I’m feeling all right!” Kathleen insisted, her face creasing with confusion.
Jane lowered her tone. “You’re worrying me.”
“Worrying you?” Kathleen laughed. “Jane, this is the best I’ve felt in a long time. Honestly.”
Jane gave a tentative smile. She had to admit it had been a long time since she’d seen this side of her mother—her heart wrenched when she realized how much she’d missed her.
“What changed things?” she asked.
“I saw what Grace did to the store,” Kathleen said, taking her coat.
“You did?” She wondered what else her mother knew about Grace’s plans for the store, but she chewed her lip, not wanting to complicate matters.
“It’s exquisite,” Kathleen said. “It made me realize how much I’ve missed being surrounded by the spirit of Christmas. I was afraid it would make me miss your father more, but getting the house ready, seeing it come to life, brings back a lot of happy memories.”
Jane smiled. “You don’t know how good that is to hear, Mom.”
Turning to Sophie, Kathleen said, “Want to help me build the gingerbread house, Sophie? You loved doing it last year, and this year we have some showing off to do!”
“Yeah!” Sophie cried, skipping into the hall, her pigtails flying.
Jane frowned. “Oh, Mom. If you’re entering the contest—”
Kathleen winked. “Sophie will be bringing her gingerbread house home with her tonight, isn’t that right, sweetheart?” She grinned, triumphantly. “Whereas mine will become part of my gingerbread Christmas village window display. Can’t you picture it, Jane?” she mused, wandering over to the bay window in the front of the house. “I’m going to set up a table right here, and instead of the porcelain village, I’ll have gingerbread. That’s my theme this year, you see. It was the jigsaw trim on the porch that inspired me. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before, but as soon as the idea came to me, I knew I had to run with it!”
Jane pressed her lips together to keep her laughter from sputtering, but tears of joy sprang from her eyes instead. Her mother was back to her usual antics, already rambling about her plans, and Jane couldn’t have asked for anything more in that moment.
Well, almost anything.
“Is Grace at the store, then?”
“She’s upstairs, actually,” came Kathleen’s unexpected reply. “She came home about an hour ago.”
Jane felt her brow furrow. “Oh, well. I might go say hello then.”
“Yes, yes, but afterwards, if you aren’t busy, I’d love your help with the decorations.”
Jane stared at her mother for a long time, still in disbelief over the sudden transformation. “I can’t think of a better way to spend the rest of my day,” she said, and then sprinted up the stairs, careful not to disturb the garland that was so perfectly wrapped along the cherrywood banister.
The upstairs of the house showed pending signs of a Christmas makeover, too, Jane noted as she tapped on Grace’s door. At least fifteen boxes had been popped open, their glittering contents on full display. “It’s me,” she said, trying the handle.
Grace was sitting on the floor, rifling through a box of ornaments, when Jane entered. She smiled when she looked up. “Hi.”
“I thought you’d be at the store,” Jane confessed.
“I was.” Grace sighed. “I don’t feel like talking about it.” She shrugged and turned back to the ornaments, setting a few to her left and the rest to her right. It was then that Jane noticed the piles were being arranged by color. She didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or laugh in delight.
“She put you to work then,” Jane observed, crouching down to join her sister. She picked up a handful of small ornaments and began sorting them. “I can cover for you, if you want. If you need to get back to the shop.”
“No. It was a stupid idea, really.”
“Stupid idea?” Jane repeated, startled. “I thought it sounded brilliant, Grace! Even Mom was thrilled with the transformation. Think of what everyone else will say.”
Grace shook her head and pulled out another handful of ornaments. “It doesn’t matter. It isn’t going to happen.”
Jane felt her heart sink. She hadn’t even realized until that moment how much she wanted Grace’s endeavor to work. Not only for the shop, but also so that Grace wouldn’t leave again.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked.
“Not really,” Grace replied.
They lapsed into silence, quietly sorting through the box of ornaments. Jane marveled that they had been so poorly stored to begin with, until she noticed the date on the box, and realized these hadn’t been brought out in a while. Always one to keep things fresh, Kathleen scoffed at using the same Christmas decorations each year. Grace or Anna had probably stuffed all these into the box one year when Kathleen had asked for their help.
Jane eyed her eldest sister. Her mouth was a thin line, her brow narrowed in concentration on the task at hand. A curtain of silky chestnut brown hair fell in front of her face, and she didn’t bother pushing it away as she scrutinized the objects in her hands.
“Well, I have something to talk about today,” Jane finally said, breaking the silence. The moment the sentence was out, she wished she could take it back. Somehow the proclamation felt formal and prepared. Like it was another person speaking, another person’s life. It still didn’t feel real, but maybe it would when she finally said it out loud. “Adam and I are getting a divorce.”
Grace snapped her attention to Jane. “What?”
Jane let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she had been holding, and then promptly burst into tears. She covered her eyes with her hands, feeling the weight of her grief with each sob that racked her body.
The comfort of Grace’s arms enveloping her only made her cry harder, and she wept into her sister’s hair until she had no more tears left to cry. Depleted and weary, she pulled back, brushing at her swollen face with the back of her hand.
“Sorry,” she blubbered, forcing a smile.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Grace said gently. “I’m the one who should say sorry. I had no idea it was this bad.”
Jane swallowed the last of her tears. “I didn’t want to make things worse. Christmas was hard enough this year, and then with Sophie to think about, too… I tried to put on a brave face.”
Grace gave her a sad smile. “You were always the strong one, Jane. Always thinking of others. So loyal.”
Jane let out a bitter laugh. She sniffed, wiping her nose with the tissue Grace handed her. “Loyal to a fault.”
Her blood stirred when she thought of Adam, who probably hadn’t shed a single tear over the demise of their marriage, their family. He had simply faded away instead—found happiness and security with another woman, and then… poof! On he went with life. How perfectly easy for him. Bastard.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grace asked.
“Adam’s been having an affair.” Just saying the words lifted ten pounds from her heavy heart. “He’s a cheating sneak,” she said, trying again. Her chest heaved and then lifted. She smiled. “He’s a lying jerk.”
She grinned. She hadn’t felt this great in months.
Grace looked puzzled. Horrified, really. “What the hell are you smiling about, then?”
Jane shrugged, unable to temper her relief. “I have been holding this inside for months, trying to fight through and pretend my life wasn’t crashing down around me. I have sat there and tried to cling to the good in that man for the sake of holding this family together, and now I don’t have to. Adam is a lying, cheating bastard. And now that I have nothing left to fight for, I can finally admit it to myself. And it feels great!”
Grace stared at her. “I can’t believe this.”
Sobering, Jane admitted, “I can’t believe it either, actually.”
And she couldn’t, not really. Adam had been absent from her life for so long that she had gotten used to not having that close bond with him anymore, of not sharing a bed, or even a meal, for that matter. Still, divorce entailed something bigger, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it yet.
“Are you going to be okay?” Grace asked slowly, and Jane knew what she meant.
“The truth is, I don’t know,” she said, feeling her chest seize up the way it always did when she thought about her future. “I gave up everything to marry Adam. I have no degree. I’m not qualified to do anything.” She’d been a wife since she was nineteen, a mother since she was twenty-one. It was all she knew.
She sucked in a breath as her mind began to race. She couldn’t panic—when she panicked, she became depressed, and she couldn’t afford to feel that way. It wouldn’t help her. Or her daughter.
“What about teaching ballet?” Grace suggested.
Jane felt her face color. “Oh, that,” she said, trying to brush away the idea. Rosemary Hastings had been asking her to help out at the studio for years, and Jane had always found a reason to shut her down. It was tempting, but when Sophie was younger it wasn’t really an option. And besides, there was Grace to consider.
“I saw her the other day and she mentioned something to me,” Grace continued, searching her face. “She’s asked you to work there before?”
Jane shrugged. She fumbled with the ornaments in her hand. “It didn’t feel right,” Jane said and then quickly added, “and I wasn’t looking for a job then.”
“Well, you are now!” Grace said. “And why wouldn’t it feel right? You love ballet. You were the best dancer in town! And you were always Rosemary’s pet.”
Jane smiled. It was true. “It didn’t feel right because of Luke. Because it wasn’t fair to you.” There, she had said it.
Grace looked like she had been slapped across the face. “You are right, Jane,” she said. “You are loyal to a fault.”
“So you think I should call Rosemary?” Jane asked quietly.
“Yes,” Grace said. “And if you don’t, I will.”
Jane felt her chest swell with relief. It wouldn’t be a lot of money, but it was something. She chewed at her lip, imagining what it would be like to get back in the studio, to pass on everything she had learned. A little shiver zipped down her spine at the thought. She’d always regretted not having a career or something of her own, and she’d learned to temper that empty place in her heart when she thought of everything she was doing for her family instead. Now, she was being given an opportunity to live up to her accomplishments, follow her dreams.
Maybe it would all be okay, after all.
Something else was weighing on her mind now. “Are you going to move back to New York, then?”
Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t want to, but I don’t really know what I want to do. Or where I really belong.”
“You really don’t think the bookstore can be saved?” Jane pressed. “I do.”
Grace shook her head firmly. “It isn’t going to work.” She tossed a miniature green knit stocking into a pile. “Maybe it’s a sign that I need to go back. That my life isn’t here.”
“Is this because of Luke or the store?”
“Both,” Grace sighed. “Without the store, I don’t really know what I could do here.”
“What about your writing?” she asked, but Grace shook her head forcefully, and Jane knew better than to push the topic.
“It turns out,” Grace suddenly said, her voice shrill with emotion, “that Luke has been leasing the empty storefront next to Main Street Books.”
Jane stopped sorting the ornaments. “What? Why?”
Grace met her eyes. “For Helen.”
Jane frowned, trying to make sense of this information. “But Helen…”
Grace hastily tossed the ornaments into their piles, accidentally tossing a green elf into the red pile. Without a word, Jane shifted it to its proper place. “Apparently Helen had leased that store for a boutique before she died.”
“Wow.” Jane tried to digest this information. She had not known Helen except in passing; she never could have known this. “He’s having a hard time letting go,” she surmised.
Grace nodded. “There’s no room in his life for me. But then, maybe there never was.”
Knowing she couldn’t hold her opinion in much longer, Jane carefully said, “I think that’s probably how he felt about you for a long time.”
“Maybe I should have stayed with Derek,” Grace mused. She gave a weak smile, but Jane didn’t feel amused.
“You said that Derek couldn’t give you the things you wanted. If that’s true, then it wouldn’t have lasted.”
“I know.” Grace shrugged. “As much as it hurts, being alone is better than being with the wrong person. At least then there’s the hope of finding what you’re looking for.”
“Then maybe there’s still hope for me,” Jane said.
“Of course there is!” Grace shook her head. “You know, it’s funny, because even now, with everything you’ve been through, I still think you’ve got a great life.”
“Me?” Jane burst out laughing. “Oh, please, Grace. You don’t need to try to cheer me up. I’m fully aware of how pathetic I am.”
Grace frowned. “No, I mean it. You knew what you wanted early in life, Jane. I didn’t.”
“You always knew you wanted to be a writer. And look at you! A best-selling author!”
Grace stopped her. “I mean in my personal life. I was so focused on my career that I didn’t think about everything else I wanted from my life, not really. And now… what’s left?”
“Oh, Grace. I had no idea it was this bad.”
“I know in my heart it was right to break up with Derek, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever find a guy who makes me feel the way—”
“The way Luke does?”
Grace nodded. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”
“No,” Jane said. “Lately I wonder if I’ll ever find someone who made me feel the way Adam used to. Before he changed.”
After a long silence, Grace said, “I still can’t get over Adam. He loved you, Jane. I know he did. How could he do this to you?”
Jane shrugged. She had asked herself these questions a hundred times, and she still couldn’t make any sense of it. “All this time, I’ve wondered what I could have done differently, and the truth is that yes, Adam strayed, but maybe a part of me let him do it. I’m not saying he’s off the hook, but somewhere through all this, we both stopped trying. And now it’s over.”
“Oh, Jane. I’m so sorry.”
“It is what it is,” Jane said with a shrug to mask her pain. “I’ve tried to deny it. Now I have to find a way to move on with my life.” She couldn’t bring herself to think of the hardest part: sharing Sophie.
She closed her eyes, reminding herself that it would be better this way. She wouldn’t be in knots all the time, she wouldn’t be half present, only there in a physical sense with her mind wandering, worrying. She would have quality time with her daughter, and she would always be Sophie’s mother.
That was one thing Adam could never take from her.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Jane?”
Jane forced a half smile. “N
o. But I will be. I have to be.”
“You gave up a lot to be with Adam,” Grace said.
“Yes, but it didn’t feel that way then. Only now. Now that it’s over.” She looked down at her hands. She was still wearing her wedding ring. She had tried taking it off that morning, but her finger felt bare. She’d kept rubbing her thumb over the spot where it used to be.
She drew a deep breath, releasing it slowly. One day at a time.
“So you really don’t think you and Luke will find a way back to each other?” she asked, ready to turn the conversation back to Grace.
Grace pulled a disappointed face. “No. I don’t think so.”
“And you’d be okay with that?” When Grace didn’t answer, she pressed, “The one thing I’ve learned in life is that you can get through a lot—painful, horrible things you never thought you could—but it’s the regret that’s hardest to move past.”
Grace nodded softly. “Do you have regrets? About you and Adam?”
Jane considered the question. Finally, she said, “Yes and no. I did the best I could, even if I could have done things differently.” She paused, thinking of Adam’s lies, the way her heart had dropped to the pit of her stomach when she realized what he was up to that day when she’d stopped by his office unannounced and seen him with that woman, laughing as they strode down the street, his hand casually draped on the small of her back. She had started trembling so hard she had to sit in the car for forty-five minutes before she trusted herself to drive home. “I think my biggest regret is holding on to something that I had already lost.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Move on.” She shrugged. “How about you?”
Grace gave a coy smile. “I don’t know. But you’ve given me a lot to think about.”
“What are sisters for?” Jane grinned. She leaned in and gave Grace a hug. And for the first time in a long time, she felt hopeful again.
CHAPTER
27
It was evening by the time Jane and Sophie left. The house had undergone a transformation in a matter of hours, and Grace could hear the faint sounds of her mother humming Christmas carols as she finished wrapping lights around the tree branches in the front yard.
