by J. L. Berg
“It was a gift from our banker,” she answered. “He was a longtime friend of my grandfather and hated watching our family fall apart. He wanted to do more, but my father wouldn’t allow it. Dumb, stupid male pride. So, he offered to buy something from my father and give it to Evie and me. When he saw me trying to choose from this box of ornaments, he scooped up the entire lot and bought it. I’ve kept it with me ever since.”
“What did my mother get?” I asked, trying to remember if I’d seen anything in the house she might have kept hidden.
“A diamond necklace from our mother. It was worth a small fortune. Honestly, I would be surprised if she still had it.”
That would make two of us.
“So, you took a box of old ornaments, and my mother took a ridiculously expensive necklace?” I asked for clarification.
She shrugged. “Like I said, she was used to a certain type of lifestyle.”
“So were you.”
“Yeah, but I never really felt like I fit in it, you know? I mean, look at me!” She laughed, looking down at her paisley leggings and brightly colored sweater.
“Point taken.”
“And, in full disclosure, some of those ornaments are in fact worth quite a bit of money… not that I knew that as a teenager.”
“But I’m sure my mom knew how much she could get for that necklace,” I grumbled.
“Give her a little credit. Maybe she chose it for its meaning. It was our mother’s after all.”
“Yeah, I’m sure that really kept her heart beating — all the way to the pawn shop.”
“Willow…” Addy started.
“What? Addy, what? Why do you keep defending her? She neglected me my entire life! She brought creepy, disgusting men into our house every single night, and for what? So, she could feed me? Provide for me? Because, believe me, none of that happened! And then, when I got too grown-up-looking, she made me stay in my room after it got dark, so I wouldn’t entice the clients. So much for that!”
Turning away from the glowing tree with my arms stretched firmly across my chest, I took a deep breath, fighting back tears.
I’d suddenly lost my festive Christmas spirit.
Addy returned my heavy sigh with one of her own. “I’m sorry if you think I’m defending her,” she said quietly. “I’m just trying to make you understand her — or at least the version of her I knew.”
“Why?” I asked. “I don’t want to know anything about her!”
So much for fighting back tears. They were here, dripping down my face and sliding down my chin. I wiped them away, feeling the scratchy yarn from my fingers move against my skin.
“I just thought, maybe if you understood her roots, how she started out—”
“I’d what? Feel bad for her? Understand why she did what she did? Because I don’t!” I screamed. “I don’t understand any of it. Why she hated me, why she sent me away, when all I wanted her to do was hold me and tell me none of it was my fault. But she didn’t. She didn’t,” I said, my voice strangled and hoarse.
And, now, no one would hold me.
No one would tell me it was going to be okay.
Because I wouldn’t let them.
Because of these gloves and everything they represented.
“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” she said softly, her kind eyes meeting mine.
I could see the emotion behind them as her heart slowly broke for me.
I quickly nodded.
“Good,” she replied. “And you know I’ll be here to tell you that whenever you want. And if you ever find yourself in need of a good hug? Well, you know where to find me.”
She turned toward the tree again, hanging the ornament she’d been holding in her hand during my mini outburst. A part of me wanted to run into her arms and never let go, to thank her for being the mom I’d never had.
To tell her I loved her.
But I couldn’t.
Because she was wrong. It was my fault.
That night was all my fault.
“I HATE TO say it, but I think we need help,” I confessed, looking over all the notes Sam had taken since even before I’d started at the bookstore.
It was pages and pages, and we were still no closer to figuring out how to save the store.
“That’s what I have you for!” he answered, a slight smirk pulling at the side of his mouth. “And you’ve given me caviar dreams with no way to pay for them.”
I shook my head. “I know, and I’m sorry. I like the coffee idea, too, and I think it would really bring in customers, but without the money, I don’t know how we can make it work.”
His fingers threaded through his unruly hair as he leaned against the worn checkout counter that had probably been there well before his parents had been born. My fingers found a groove in the wood and began to trace it. I imagined what it would feel like — slightly cold and slick from the many layers of gloss it had retained over the years. If I pressed hard enough, I could almost feel it through the tiny holes in my gloves.
“So, who do we ask?” he finally questioned, obviously conceding to something I’d already come to terms with.
“Your dad?” I said quietly, already preparing for the retaliation.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“Willow, no.”
I’d learned enough about Sam now to know that when he used my real name, there was no fooling around. My mind had memorized each and every time I heard it, and in every instance, he’d been angry, attempting to be sincere, or… well, I wasn’t sure about the other time. Sweet maybe?
At any rate, I knew not to push him.
“Okay, what about my aunt?” I suggested, quickly switching subjects. “Or your sister?”
He laughed almost immediately. “My sister? You obviously don’t know her very well.”
I shrugged. “I’ve only met her once.”
“Right. Well, you know she’s the oldest?”
I nodded.
“Have you ever heard the saying, Age is only a number? Sometimes, I think it was created especially for Sophie. She’s a bit of a free spirit. At twenty, she’s no closer to becoming a grown-up than you and I are.”
“But I thought you said she was moving out on her own? That sounds pretty grown-up,” I said, trying to picture myself living alone.
Even though I’d practically raised myself — cooked my own meals, picked up my own messes, and did every other possible thing a parent did — the idea of actually being by myself, without anyone? It sounded horrifying.
“Oh, she’s living alone,” he sneered. “On my dad’s dime. She said she was going to find a job, go to school, whatever, but she has yet to do anything.”
“Maybe she just needs time?” I suggested, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
She had seemed nice — in the three minutes I’d gotten to know her.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Sometimes, I think we coddled her too much.”
That sentence confused me, and I found myself asking, “We?”
He nodded. “After my mom left, it was Sophie who took it the hardest. I mean, we all did… in our own way. No doubt you’ve heard how my father copes?”
“No,” I admitted. “When I got here, Addy told me to stay away from town gossip or at least not to believe everything I heard.”
He smiled. “That sounds like something she would say.”
It was weird, hearing him speak so fondly of her. I wish I had known about Addy’s friendship with Sam’s mom sooner, but then again, speaking about it would have been gossip in Addy’s mind… and she would have been right. It was better to hear it from Sam directly.
“You know those movies where a man loses his soulmate or whatever, and he spends the rest of his life being sad and alone?”
“Sure,” I answered, trying to picture the hardened face of Sam’s father crying himself to sleep at night.
“That’s not my father,” he replied flatly. “Let�
��s just say, he’s gotten over her. Many, many times.”
My eyes widened as I finally understood his meaning. “Oh! That’s… I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “My dad’s never been much for emotions. Hates showing them — well, unless it’s anger, of course. He loves that one.”
I could almost taste the bitterness in the air as he spoke about the man who had raised him.
“You don’t like him, do you?”
He struggled to answer. “It’s not that,” he replied. “It doesn’t matter if I like him or not, you know? He’s my dad whether I want him to be or not. Family is family. You don’t get to choose who you’re related to. But the more I get to know him as a man, the less respect I have for him. He’s just not a good person.”
I let his words sink in, and then I remembered what Addy had said to me the night before as we hung Christmas ornaments. “My aunt says there is no such thing as a good or a bad person, just a sum total of decisions — or at least, that was how I interpreted it.”
“Like a scale kind of,” he replied, his eyes watching my fingers as they traced the grains of wood on the counter.
“A scale?”
“Our family has owned various businesses in this town for generations. I recall, as a kid, we owned — still own, I think — the grocery store down the street.”
I nodded, thinking back to the many visits with Addy to that particular store.
“Before they installed the digital scales at the register, they used to have old-fashioned ones scattered all over — in the produce section, coffee aisle, anywhere customers might need to weigh goods. I, being the incredibly helpful kid I was, used to try and see how many items I could stack on each scale before it would tip.”
“What do you mean, tip?” I asked.
“Unlike the digital scales, these scales could handle only so much weight. I think the highest it went was around ten pounds.”
“That’s not a lot.”
“Well, keep in mind, it was mostly for weighing carrots and lettuce. Not huge bags of flour or six-packs of soda.”
I laughed. “That’s not helpful at all.”
He grinned. “You weren’t there when the six-pack crashed to the ground and exploded. I thought the old woman grabbing her rhubarb next to me was going to have a heart attack right there in the store.”
I gave him a dubious look, part amazement and part shock.
“She didn’t though. She lived, I think. Anyway, the point is, before my tragic accident with the soda, I used to run around the store, grabbing as many different things as I could — small, big, somewhere in between — determined to find as many combinations as possible that would tip the scale.”
“So, you’re saying the soda or the bag of flour are what? Our decisions?” I asked.
“Yeah, why not? Our decisions, good or bad, all make an impact, right? So we make an epic mistake? We cheat on a spouse or” — he swallowed audibly — “leave our family… that’s a big one… so load up a bag of flour. We—”
“Neglect our daughter,” I said quietly.
“Definitely a bag of flour or two.”
“But what happens when you do something good? Say the cheater becomes a nun?”
Sam shook his head. “Not sure that’s a good example, but okay, I see where you’re going. Maybe some of the flour comes off?”
“Some but not all?”
“Maybe eventually. But it’s a pretty heavy bag of flour.”
I hadn’t noticed, but as I was tracing the wood on the counter, Sam had begun a doodle of his own. There on the yellow notepad was a rough sketch of a scale. It was exactly as he’d described it. A round base suspended by two chains. At the top was the actual scale, numbered from one to nine, with small marks in between each number, almost like a strange little clock.
“But what if someone does something really bad? Like murder or…” My voice suddenly faded.
“I don’t know, Mittens. It’s just an idea,” he said casually. “Maybe some things you can’t come back from?”
Could life really be judged by a simple scale?
Had my mom already tipped hers?
What about Sam’s father?
What about me?
How many bags of flour were sitting on my scale?
I FELT LIKE I was carrying Sam’s heart and soul as I walked in the door that night.
“What do you have there?” Addy asked as I stepped inside.
“Notes. Lots of notes.”
“Homework? During Christmas break?” she asked.
I actually did have some homework to finish during my time away from school, but I planned on avoiding it for as long as possible.
Nothing like a good bit of procrastination.
“No, notes on the bookstore. Sam… and I are working to keep it open.”
The mention of Sam’s name obviously caught her attention. “Sam? You two are getting along then?”
A slight smile spread across my lips at the curious tone her voice had taken.
“I guess,” I answered. “I mean, we see each other every day, so we’ve kind of become friends.”
“Did you know your cheeks are turning red?” she said, a smug grin appearing across her face as she turned away from the dinner she was making.
“They are not!” I argued halfheartedly because I knew for a fact that they were.
“So, Sam, huh?” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she moved about the kitchen.
I carefully set the notes on the counter and took off my jacket, deciding to help her with dinner. “We’re just friends.”
“Okay,” she replied. Although she didn’t sound convinced.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me you and his mother were so close?” I asked, grabbing a tomato off the cutting board.
There was something therapeutic I’d come to enjoy about cooking with Addy. I hadn’t learned anything life-changing in regards to cooking when I was with her. Mostly, I just chopped vegetables and stirred sauces, but it was a routine I looked forward to every day. It was normal and boring and just plain nice.
“You know how I feel about—”
“Gossip. Yeah, I know.”
“Besides, I wasn’t sure how Sam would feel about me after all these years.”
“Sam thinks very highly of you actually. It’s why I have those notes. He wants me to have you look over them and see if you can offer us any advice.”
She stopped in the middle of rolling her meatball, her eyes showing the slightest bit of moisture as she pursed her lips together. “I would be honored.”
A couple of blinks and a few sniffs later, she was back to shaping another meatball when she asked, “He’s a good kid then?”
I smiled. “Yeah, he is.”
“I always knew he would be — or at least, I hoped for it. Every day.”
“How come you didn’t visit him? I mean, it sounded like you were a special part of his life back then?”
She’d just rolled one of the meatballs and placed them in the oven. As she washed her hands, I could tell her mind was wandering back in time.
“It’s complicated,” she explained. “I tried; believe me, I did. But Sam’s father, he wouldn’t allow it.”
The more I heard about this guy, the less I liked him.
“He wouldn’t allow it? Why?”
She’d shut off the water by now, and she was drying off her hands, the towel moving over her skin long after it was needed. She took a deep breath of air. “Because I was the reason Sam’s mother left,” she confessed.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Willow,” she said softly, “I’m the one who convinced her to leave her family. I’m the reason Sam doesn’t have a mother.”
IF CARRYING SAM’S prized notes home had been difficult, returning back to work the next day with the information Addy had shared with me the night before was pure torture.
She was the reason Sam’s mom had left?
What did that even mean?
>
We hadn’t spoken much after she dropped that bomb on me. Dinner had been shared in silence, and afterward, I’d retreated to my room, trying to come to terms with the fact that my perfect aunt was… well, less than perfect.
How many bags of flour did she have on her scale?
I dragged myself into the store, bright and early, a change from my normal schedule. Since it was Christmas Eve, we were only open until noon, and the woman who normally worked in the morning had grandchildren visiting.
So, once again, it was just Sam and me.
And the giant secret I was carrying.
“Are you coming in, Mittens? Or are you planning on letting all the heat out instead?” Sam’s voice cut through my wayward thoughts.
Looking up, I saw him standing by the counter, grinning. It was then that I realized I was standing in the doorway with my hand still on the giant old knob, one foot in and the other still on the pavement outside.
“Sorry, tired,” I explained.
“You know what would help?” he asked as I stepped in and closed the door behind me. “Coffee! But we don’t have any of that. Well, not yet. But soon, right? Because you talked to your aunt, and she had brilliant ideas?”
His mood was lighter today, and I could see the hope in his face.
How I hated to ruin it.
“I actually didn’t get a chance to speak with her,” I said lamely.
His expression instantly fell. “That’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”
But it was. It was a huge deal. And I knew that more than anyone. This was his home. He’d spent every waking moment trying to keep it alive.
“I’m going to talk to her, I promise. Things just got…”
Weird?
Tense?
“Awkward last night between us, and I ended up going to bed early. But I’d mentioned it to her when we were making dinner, and she seemed excited to help. We just didn’t get into details.”
That lifted his spirits slightly, and I watched as his eyes met mine.
“Okay, that’s a start I guess. Did you bring back the notes, so I could go over them while we’re closed?”
