Holiday Homecoming

by Jillian Hart

  Kirby and Sam arrived, with Michael leading the way. He still carried his plastic dump truck everywhere he went, but he was bigger. Taller. A little boy with thick dark hair and big blue intelligent eyes.

  “Kristin!” It seemed impossible for Kirby to look any happier, but she did. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! This is what I get for being late to the shower. I missed all the excitement, and seeing you. You look good. Tired. You’re working too hard.”

  “Guilty, but I’m up for this cool promotion. I really want it.” Love for her sisters was the kind of love a girl could count on. She hugged Kirby, careful of her growing girth. “How are mommy and babies?”

  “Healthy and happy.”

  Kirby looked it, too. She seemed to glow from the inside out, and the joy on her face doubled when her husband took her hand to help her into a chair. “Oh, that feels better. Thanks, handsome.”

  “Anything for you, beautiful.” Sam kissed her, the way a husband kisses his wife, and means it. That’s true love.

  Ryan had kissed her like that. Kristin’s throat ached with too much emotion, a wild jumble of feelings that she didn’t want to name and didn’t want to feel. She remembered Ryan’s kiss. How could she forget it? Her lips sparkled. Her soul sparkled. That’s how Ryan had kissed her.

  Panic shot through her and she bounced out of the chair. “I’m going to the cafeteria,” she announced too fast, already striding toward the elevator. “Anybody want anything?”

  “Tea,” Kendra answered. “Want me to come with you?”

  “No!” She wanted to be alone, but she wasn’t fooling Kendra, who was watching her with concern. Or Kirby, who was gazing up over the top of her little boy’s cowlick, an unasked question clear on her face.

  She loved her sisters, and she knew they loved her back, but they wouldn’t understand. They couldn’t. They had chosen to hide from the fact that you were born into this world alone, and you left it alone. That no matter how much you loved someone, that didn’t stop them from dying. Loss was a part of life she didn’t want, no way. And she wasn’t going to close her eyes, open her heart and love as if loss wasn’t inevitable.

  No. She’d been there once. Allison’s death had brought Mom to her knees in despair. Broken Dad’s spirit for good. And it was all Kristin could do at the time to keep going through life with the grief. Taking her exams and the SAT she’d already paid and signed up for. Cooking meals that no one would eat, because her mom couldn’t. Of trying to hold on to the broken pieces of her life, her heart, her family.

  It had taken years before she’d been on an even keel again, before Mom came out of her dark depression and Dad began to talk a little, even if he spent most of his time in the fields or in his workshop.

  Grief took a hard toll. Kristin only had to look at her mom to see the cost. The woman who’d been so vibrant and bustling and humming everywhere she went. It was as if a light had forever died inside her.

  The cafeteria wasn’t crowded and she took her time making up a tray of tea and coffee for everyone. Chai tea for Kendra, chamomile for Kirby, mint for Karen. Coffee with sweeteners and black tea with honey for the brothers-in-law. She didn’t know them well enough to know what they would want. For Mom she waited for the apron-clad girl behind the counter to whip up a mochaccino. It helped to do this, something normal, something useful. But she couldn’t forget her thoughts completely.

  The kiss. That’s the way she was going to think about it forever. Her first real kiss. Wow, and she hadn’t even wanted it. If only she could erase it from her memory entirely. She wished she could hit the rewind button on her life and do that one moment over when he cupped her face with his amazing hands and claimed not just her mouth, but her heart and soul. How could a simple brush of lips be everything? The past, present and future all in one moment?

  Stop thinking about it. That’s what she had to do. Figure out a way to blot it from her mind. The kiss was never going to happen again. The kiss was a single aberration in her life centered around quiet, sensible choices and a serious work ethic. Before the kiss, she was a person who balanced her checkbook, set aside savings every month, paid her mortgage before the due date and was in bed by ten every night. She wore sensible shoes and a wild night out on the town was dinner with her cousin at their favorite burger place.

  And she intended to be exactly the same person after the kiss. It wasn’t a life-changing moment. It wasn’t a soul-shattering experience. It was never going to happen again.

  Because if it did, then the power of it would shatter everything she’d spent her life building. It would unbalance her carefully ordered world. It would make her want something she could never put her faith in—love.

  By the time she made it back to the waiting area, the rest of the family had arrived. Karen with her husband Zach and their daughters. Gramma was reading Allie her favorite picture book.

  Allie had changed, too. She’d grown taller and willowy, the toddler softness gone. Her shoulder-length straight hair shimmered like sunlight on the finest gold. She chattered away to Gramma; having the story memorized, she took over the telling. A preschooler.

  Dad appeared around the corner, leaning a bit to the left where Emily held his hand tightly as she skipped on her pink strappy sandals. A toddler now. He looked younger, happier, in the company of his granddaughter.

  He spotted the drink carriers. “There’s my girl. You wouldn’t happen to have a black coffee in there for me?”

  “The biggest one is for you, right there in the corner.” Kristin balanced the eggboard carrier while her dad helped himself to the large-size cup.

  Dad seemed better. He kept his distance from Mom, but at least he looked content, almost like his old self as he led Emily to the play area in the corner. Together, Granddad and granddaughter constructed a house of blocks, which Michael and his truck crashed into with appropriate sound effects.

  “Kristin, see what you’re missing.” Gramma winked over the top of Allie’s blond head. “Life without love is just existing. Life without family is like being lost on an island. Life passes a person right on by and keeps going.”

  She’d take the island any day.

  Except right now, at this moment, as she handed out the drinks, she couldn’t deny the horrible pain stabbing her directly in the heart. A pain that felt like grief. Not over her sister’s death, she realized.

  Grief for herself. For the life she’d lost.

  She examined the life her sisters had chosen. Fragile or not, they had husbands who gazed at them as if they were the only women in the world. They had children who played and laughed and gave sweet kisses. True love, the kind that was the most fragile of all, was in this disinfectant-scented room with the hard plastic chairs and the stark cold tile floor. The love they’d brought with them. The love they held in their hearts. The love they shared for Michelle as they gathered to wait. To pray for her. To be there to celebrate the new life she was being given to love and guide and protect.

  How many gatherings like this had she missed? Every single one of them. She’d missed every one of her nieces’ and nephews’ births. Except this one.

  Ryan, he was the reason she was feeling like this. His kiss…what had it done to her?

  Confused, she took the empty carriers to the garbage can in the hall, poured two packets of sugar into her chai tea and sat down to wait. She couldn’t help wondering. Where was Ryan now? Was he regretting kissing her? Or had she hurt him by running away?

  Two hours and eighteen minutes later, Brody appeared to announce the birth of their son. Ten-pound, eight-ounce Gabriel Peter, named after his daddy and grandfather.

  Ryan watched the sunset bleed like a wound. The proud rugged peaks of the Rocky Mountain Front glowed crimson beneath a troubled sky. The hospital parking lot felt abandoned. Although it was crammed with cars, he was the only one making his way across the petal-strewn pavement.

  The gusty winds had stripped all but a few petals from the trees. Dark limbs reached upward
, through the haze of light from the tall structure. The first cold raindrops fell as he dashed inside.

  There was no wait for an elevator in the lobby, which was nearly as quiet as the parking lot had been. As he jostled the packages and gifts for Michelle’s baby, he punched the button for the maternity floor.

  Kristin had been on his mind for hours. The memory of their kiss remained like a whisper in his soul. The sort of whisper that was too quiet to hear the words, no matter how hard he listened. All he knew was that it had brought him here.

  All was calm as he strode down the hallway. His boots beat like his pulse down the long corridor. He followed the shine of fluorescent lights on the tile to the last door on his right. It was half open and, hidden in the shadows, he raised his knuckle to knock but froze at the sight of Kristin. She was seated in a chair, graced by the glow of a lamp, so still and calm he could see the rare and beautiful love within her as she gazed down at the tiny bundle she cradled in her arms. A newborn child.

  In the space between one heartbeat and the next, he saw the world shift around him and time roll forward. For one brief moment he saw her holding a different child wrapped in a similar blue receiving blanket, dark downy hair curling beneath the blue infant cap.

  His son.

  In her arms.

  She was his fairy tale—enchanting and kind and a vision of everything good and dear. She stole his heart and he couldn’t have stopped his feet from moving forward anymore than he could have stopped his heart from beating.

  He lost his heart. It was gone. No longer his.

  More sure than he’d ever been in his life, he walked into the light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  What was this ache inside her, so sharp and fierce it was like a great pain?

  She felt as if places within her spirit were being opened for the first time. Places open only to the man who emerged from the shadowed doorway, with flowers in one hand and helium balloons trailing behind. He seemed like a dream, her dream. Had she been thinking so hard about Ryan that she’d conjured him up from her imagination?

  No, he was real. His step a hush on the floor, his presence as tangible as the pain in her heart. Wearing ordinary wash-faded jeans and a black T-shirt, he was manly, all right. Just watching him made the woman in her give thanks.

  Strong and steadfast, he towered over her. He was all she could see. All she wanted to see. Her spirit silenced. The places within her swelled with a strange force that was like pain. But no, it wasn’t pain exactly. She didn’t know what it was, but when Ryan knelt before her, it brought tears to her eyes.

  “Look what a precious gift you’re holding.” When he spoke, it was as if he tugged at strings stuck to those tender places deep within her.

  An odd pulling at her heart and her soul that made her ready to shatter. She couldn’t bear to look at him, it hurt so much. She gazed down at the new life cradled in the crook of her arm. Looking at her new nephew made a different place within her spirit hurt, too.

  She cleared her throat before she answered, and her voice came out as a rough whisper. “This is our newest blessing from God.”

  Ryan leaned closer to study the sleeping infant. His eyes tightly shut. One fist visible. “It blows me away every time I see a new baby. Look at those tiny fingers. They’re just so…new.”

  “And precious.” Kristin’s eyes burned, and she didn’t dare disturb Gabe, who’d had a hard time drifting off to sleep. “I’ve got another incredible nephew. I’m a pretty lucky aunt.”

  “You surely are.” His rumbling baritone was like a kiss to her soul.

  She shivered. The pain within her, that wasn’t a pain at all, became something more. An emotion she would not acknowledge. She couldn’t.

  “Michelle and Brody are just down the hall, if you want to give her those flowers.”

  “Down the hall? I can’t imagine they’d want to leave this little guy.”

  “Only because I swore I wouldn’t take my eyes off him. They’re having dinner. It’s a special thing the hospital does, serves steak-and-lobster dinner to the new parents. They have it catered. It’s really nice.”

  “They should get some time together, because they may not have a quiet romantic dinner for some time to come.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I volunteered to stay with him. Besides, tomorrow I head home, right after Easter dinner. I have a big day on Monday. It’s work stuff. So I thought I’d get in as much baby holding as I could. Next time I see him will be, gosh, next Thanksgiving, when I come home again. He’ll be seven months old. He’ll be so different than this.”

  “Yep. Babies have a tendency to do this. Grow up.”

  “Yeah.” The intense emotions she refused to feel became sharp enough to spike through flesh and bone, that’s what it seemed like as baby Gabriel’s sweet round face blurred. Everything became a fuzzy cloud as she blinked hard and fast.

  What was wrong with her?

  “He sure is something. I bet holding him makes you think about having one of your own one day.”

  “He sure is precious. Michelle and Brody are blessed to have him.”

  “Yeah. Aren’t they?” Ryan’s chest thrummed with a yearning so strong, it felt ready to blow him apart. He thought of how he’d been sitting on the back steps, feeling the night come. Missing his dad.

  Seeing the past, present and future in the same moment, what was and what could be, made him sure. As if his dad was watching out for him from heaven after all. Once, Dad had been like this, gazing at the woman he loved with a newborn in her arms.

  The seasons of life come full circle. He understood it now. What was the quote? There is a time for every season. As one season was linked to the next, so was one life linked to another. His father to his. And, one day, God willing, his life to his son’s. Love was the glue that bonded them together for good.

  This world was full of hardship and tragedy, accidents and illness, of loss, but of renewal, too. And God’s great gift of love.

  That’s what this was in his heart, in his soul. Love, honest and true. As infinite as heaven. As precious as grace. And it filled him with tenderness so rare, it overpowered everything. Made everything clear.

  All that mattered in his life was right in front of him. Kristin. Deep furrows dug into her forehead. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. He could feel her sadness, for his heart was hers. A life not lived was its own sorrow. He knew, because that’s how he went through his days, too. Existing, and it was no way to live.

  He was already reaching. His fingers already aching for the different texture of hers. He covered her hand, and the link between them strengthened. His soul sighed.

  Now, all he had to do was to come up with the right words. How did he start? “I’m absolutely sure of one thing. I’m going to be moving to Seattle.”

  “Your mom mentioned that you were thinking about it.”

  “Yep. Phoenix is just too far away.”

  “From your mom?”

  “From you.”

  The spikes in her rib cage lengthened. Sharpened. She felt this way because of the baby she was holding. The beloved new life asleep in her arms, trusting and innocent. Maybe it was her biological clock starting to tick.

  Or maybe it was that she was afraid if she met Ryan’s gaze, she would want everything she couldn’t believe in. Even if she wanted it, she couldn’t. Not knowing what she knew about life. About loss.

  No, she wasn’t going to let him go any farther. She had to hold on to her heart. She took a steadying breath although she felt as if her ribs had shattered. As if a part of her were dying, but it had to be said. “We’re only friends, Ryan. You shouldn’t move just to be closer to me.”

  “Don’t you feel this between us?”

  No, she should say. But the truth rang within her. Yes. If only he could be the one. The one man she could love for every day of her life to come.

  Could he be?

  All she had to do was to look into his eyes to see it. Yes. This all-
consuming agony within her was love. Love for this man kneeling before her, and she couldn’t let herself feel it or it would move through her like a mountain creek, refreshing and sweet, and it would tear her stable world apart.

  “Excuse me.” She waited for him to remove his hand and stand so she could lay baby Gabriel in his bassinet. With her arms empty, it was easier to close her heart. To face him, even though he’d let the balloons go. They hopped along the ceiling toward the other bouquets of balloons in the corner.

  He held the flowers, white lilies and pink roses, to her. “I’ve got to say this. I don’t know if the moment is right, but I know your sister and her husband are going to be walking through that door soon. And you’ll be surrounded with your family again and tomorrow, with Easter. And then you’ll be gone.”

  “Don’t, Ryan.” She had to be smart about this. She had to stop him before he went too far. Her entire life depended on it. “I don’t want you to say—”

  “I love you.”

  For one split second she felt as light as the balloons he’d brought. She seemed to be floating. When Ryan took her hand, she felt dizzy and joyous and terrified all at once. As if she were falling through the stratosphere without a parachute. With only the earth far below to break her fall.

  His kiss sparkled across her lips. Soft and warm and wonderful. Like a dream she wanted to hold on to as tight as she could and never let go. But how could she? She broke away from his amazing tenderness, feeling her heart buckle and her soul crack.

  She’d chosen her life for a reason. Look at the baby, so infinitely precious. If she kept following this new path, it was too much to lose. Life was like that. Look at Mom and Dad. Love didn’t last. Not even the best of loves. People let you down, death happened. The steel she’d found in herself, that had gotten her through her family falling apart, Allison’s death and losing the parents she used to have, was strong.

  Very strong. She could feel what was next as Ryan’s heart opened more. He was going to propose. She could feel it. She could see his dreams as if they were her own. Married, life along the lakeshore in Seattle, children and car pools and quiet evenings after the little ones were sleep.