by Holly Rayner
James took a few steps back from the window, clearly pondering. He looked at his shoes. Mia knew that that pair alone had cost nearly 2,000 dollars. She had half a mind to step on them with her less-than-illustrious J.C. Penny heel and demand answers.
“You think our child will really want to know about me?” James finally asked. His voice was soft.
“I think that will be one of the most important things they’ll ever ask you,” Mia said, laughing slightly. She remembered when she’d begged information from her adoptive mother and father, just to get a better sense for who they were as people.
James took a deep breath, then, as if coming to a conclusion. His eyes met hers. “Okay. I’ll fill you in. I’ll give you my past. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“I’m all ears,” Mia whispered. She leaned heavy against the windowpane, waiting.
But James just shook his head. “No. I can’t fully explain it here, in Portland. Portland is filled with such happy memories. It doesn’t show the stains of my past. We have to go elsewhere. We have to go to Canada. Next weekend.”
Mia’s face opened with happiness. She agreed readily, noting that these plans had already flustered James.
He swiped a sweaty hand through his hair. “I’ll have my secretary book the plane today, then,” he sighed. He collapsed in his chair, and it squeaked beneath him.
Mia stood before him, unsure of what to say. She emitted a brief, timid “thank you” before walking back into the hallway, sure that she’d done the right thing. She left him alone with his rushing thoughts, and she felt guilty for it the rest of the day.
Her stomach ached; she knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but she was directing them down a path of hardship, and ultimate understanding, for the sake of their relationship, and for the sake of their child.
EIGHTEEN
The following Friday, Mia felt James’ tentative hand on her shoulder, waking her up to the bright, clear light of the morning.
“It’s time to go, baby,” James whispered. “I’ve made you some toast. The plane leaves in about an hour.”
Mia rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers, trying to come back to life. “Do I have time to shower?”
James shrugged. “You can shower when we get there.”
“You still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
“Canada. Far up north, near Alaska. I’ve had one of my assistants pack you some winter clothing, actually. We’ll be seeing some snow.”
“But it’s August, James,” Mia teased, running her fingers along his shoulder. Already, he was dressed in one of his immaculate suits. “Why can’t we visit the bit of your past that exists at the beach?”
But James clearly wasn’t in a joking mood. He zipped the last of their suitcases and sat quietly as Mia readied herself, pulling a brush through her long locks, whistling as she swept water over her face.
“The plane’s meant to leave in forty-five, now,” he said from the corner. She could tell he was nervous.
“What’s the use in hiring a private plane if you have to get there at a certain time?” Mia called back.
Finally, she heard James offer a subtle laugh at her joke. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a tense weekend, after all.
Their driver, John, awaited them outside, grasping their bags and helping Mia into the backseat. “You’re getting rounder each day, my dear,” he told her, smiling. “Better lay off the breadsticks.”
“Very funny,” Mia smirked.
“Canada, eh?” John asked, his eyes searching James’ in the rear-view mirror as they snaked through early-morning traffic. “Didn’t think you’d ever go back.”
“He knows?” Mia whispered. Why did the driver know so much more about James than she did?
But James just shook his head. “John and I met when I was more open to discussing my problems. I’m not like that anymore.”
“Since then, he’s worked on creating many, many impenetrable layers. Isn’t that right, James?” John joked from the front. His eyes danced in the mirror.
“Where are you from, anyway, John?” Mia asked him. “If you’re so knowledgeable about James, we should all know a bit about your past. Don’t you think?”
“Not unless I learn about yours first, sweetheart,” he chided. He pulled up to the drop-off point at the airport, hopping out and opening her door for her. “But it looks like we’ll have to get to that some other time. You both have some traveling to do. Be safe.”
James and Mia gave their suitcases to an airline attendant and marched toward the private gate. As they walked, James took Mia’s hand in his. Around them, other Portland residents prepared for their departures. They glugged water at the security checkpoints, kissing and hugging each other as they said their goodbyes. Mia’s heartstrings tugged as she watched the commotion.
The attendant led them from the terminal onto the tarmac, where they walked up the steps of their private plane. Mia was reminded of old photos of presidents, standing at the top of the steps and waving to spectacular crowds. It was vintage glamour. But when she spun her head to look back, she saw nothing but sticky pavement and a few men in orange suits, racing with cones and luggage carts. The old world was gone; just memories remained.
Mia and James sat in the center of the plane, on reclined chairs. Mia gazed out of her window, feeling anxious as the airplane engine jumped into life, and moments later they zoomed into the sky.
James sensed her panic. “You don’t fly often, do you?”
“On this salary?” she teased, nudging him.
James ignored the dig. “I remember on our flight to Florida, you clung onto my hand so tight,” James spoke. “But when a baby began crying a few rows behind us, you immediately loosened your grip. It was like your body was responding to it. You knew a baby was in danger, and you forgot about yourself. It was oddly beautiful.”
Mia considered this. “So you think that was all biological?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Because I was pretty sure I just stopped worrying because they brought the snack tray around,” she laughed.
“Okay. If you want to go with that less romantic telling of the story, you can,” James said. “But before you get all jaded, look out the window. Don’t miss it.”
Mia swept her eyes back to the view. They were passing the mountains of Washington State. The wispy white tops made her heart ache for snow and Christmas. Behind the mountains, the sun was gracing the top of the Pacific Ocean with oranges and pinks and yellows.
The flight took about three hours, and the plane headed almost precisely north, near Alaska and deep in the mountains. Mia closed her eyes during the descent, hoping that James didn’t notice. He’d already called out her flight nerves once that day.
The plane landed easily, tipping slightly toward the nose before righting itself on the runway. Mia clapped her hands together as it stopped, and the stewardess raised an eyebrow at her, seeming to question if she’d ever been on a private plane before.
But Mia’s enthusiasm did not waver. The stewardess hauled the airplane door open and gave them a bright smile. “It’s about 20 degrees out there,” she said in a chipper, British accent. “So bundle up.”
Sensing that James was growing nervous, Mia grasped his hand as they exited the stairwell. Already, their fingers were growing frigid in the cold.
“I packed us some gloves,” James said, assuring her. His eyes were far away.
“Thank you,” Mia said, clinging to the optimism she’d garnered in a childhood filled with foster homes. If she didn’t have hope, what did she have?
They left the tiny, deserted airport after a brief scan through customs. The place was a ghost town, and James informed her that they probably only had a few planes arrive per month.
“How do they keep it running?” Mia asked. She crunched into the snow on the other side of the terminal entrance, feeling chilled.
“I think taxes. I’m not sure,” James said. He wave
d his hand in the air, then, summoning a small black car toward them. “I’ve hired a driver to take us where we need to go. I didn’t want to drive in this snow.”
“I know how you are at driving in snow,” Mia giggled, reminding him of their earlier encounter. “You’re wretched at it.”
“But pretty good at some other things,” James said saucily. He opened the back door for Mia, and she fell onto the leather cushions, blinking her wet eyelashes toward the driver. The bearded man wore a traditional driver’s hat.
“Hey, Mike,” James said.
Mike? Mia wondered.
“If you could take us to the hills. That would be great,” James continued.
“I already stocked the place for you,” Mike said, turning the steering wheel. “It should be all set for your arrival.”
“Thanks, as always.”
Mia gave James a harried look. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” she whispered.
“Oh, right, of course. Mike, this is Mia—my girlfriend.” Again, James scratched the back of his head. His nervous tick. “Mia, this is Mike. He’s an old friend.”
“Very, very old,” Mike laughed. His voice was warm, reminiscent of Santa Claus.
Mia snuggled closer to James in the back seat, her eyes gazing far out into the mountains. Apparently, James kept his secrets tucked far, far away from his reality—in a whole different ecosystem. But now, it seemed, he was prepared to show her.
NINETEEN
The car whisked them through the snow-drenched mountains while Mia pressed her face against the window, causing James to laugh softly. “All your nerves in the airplane, and now look at you,” he joked.
“I can’t get enough of these views,” she said. “I want to remember them forever.”
“Trust me,” James retorted, “You can get sick of them.”
“I won’t believe it,” Mia said.
“I’m still around,” Mike said from up front. “And I have to tell you, the snow gets old. Eleven months of it, Miss Mia. It’s enough to make you go stir-crazy.”
“And enough people have, trust me,” James offered.
The road eventually eased into a skinny dirt path that could accommodate only one car. The trees inched closer to the road, nearly covering the car and concealing the sky. Beneath them, the tires crunched on the gravel. Mia scrambled to grab James’ hand. She knew they were nearly there… wherever there was.
Finally, the trees parted, and the skinny road led them up a final ascent. There, atop the nearby hill, sat the most gorgeous house Mia had ever seen. It looked like an old English mansion, built in maybe the 1800s, meant for the stuff of countryside moors and dressed up Englishmen and women in large dresses. Trees peppered the snow-covered landscape, many of them evergreens, so reminiscent of Mia’s favorite holiday. Truly, the scene was fit for a Christmas card.
Mia turned her eyes toward James. She was brimming with questions, but James had already cranked his door open and moved from the backseat and into the snow. She heard him crunching around the back of the vehicle to open her door.
There was something ominous about this, she thought then. He hadn’t given her an ounce of information to lean on. In that moment, he was a stranger, coming to take her to a different realm.
But moments later, they stood together, partners, sinking slightly in the snow, both gazing at the mansion. With each exhale, Mia saw white puffs come from her mouth. “This is spectacular,” she finally whispered, but James didn’t say anything to acknowledge her words. “Do you know the person who lives here?”
Tense silence filled the air between them. Finally, James found traction. “Actually. This place is mine, Mia. I lived here for much of my childhood.” As he spoke, he began to crunch forward, toward the house and through the snow.
Mia hopped from one of his footfalls to the next. The snow was nearly a foot deep, and she could hardly lift her feet from its depth. Questions in her journalism brain raged, but she knew from experience to keep quiet and allow the story to unfold.
Finally, the couple stood meters from the front door. James began kicking beneath him, at the snow, causing flecks of wet to fly upward. The movement felt violent, but Mia didn’t speak. When James found solid ground, he reached down and lifted a single brick from the ground. “This is the walkway,” he explained, breathing heavily. “We kept the key under here.”
“You kept the key to a mansion beneath a rock?” Mia laughed timidly. In the back of her mind, she understood probably nobody lived around here with the willingness to break in.
Finally, James’ fingers found what they were looking for in the icy ground. Between his thumb and forefinger, he held what looked like an ancient key, the stuff of Shakespearean times. Mia felt in awe at the beauty of it as he twirled it, knocking dirt from its grooves.
“It’s gorgeous,” she breathed. “The entire place is. It’s a kind of secret. You know, it’s something out of a Christmas novel. It’s like the magic of Christmas never truly left.” With each breath of fresh air, she felt calmer.
But James didn’t respond. Mia felt slapped but tried to shake it off, reminding herself that while this place was beautiful on the surface, it was filled with terrible memories for James. He was revisiting elements of his past life that he didn’t want to address, and he was doing it for her.
Mia followed his loping form toward the front door. She placed her hand on her stomach, speaking mentally to her baby. “This is a part of your history, too. Do you feel it? Can you taste it in the fresh air?” She imagined a much younger James rolling down the hills, screaming at the top of his lungs. Once, he had been an innocent child, filled with optimism.
James slid the key into the lock and turned it, and they heard a begrudging click from within.
“When was the last time you were here?” Mia asked him quietly.
“It’s been years,” James answered. “I have Mike come up every month or so with his team, to clean, to make it seem lived-in again. But I haven’t had the strength to come back myself. To walk the halls. To see where it all happened…”
Mia followed him into the foyer, which echoed with each footfall. The walls around them were two stories high and completely devoid of portraits or paintings. The marble floors were bare, yet clean—clearly meant for large, decorative rugs. In the back of the foyer, a staircase swept up from the marble floor, arcing right and upward, to the higher floors. A large mirror still hung at the landing in the center of the arc. Mia wondered how many grand women and men had examined their reflections there.
“It’s really sparse these days,” James said, clearing his throat. “But when I grew up here, this foyer was really remarkable. People traveled from miles around to see it, and to celebrate with my father.”
His father. This was the first mention of him. Mia traced the line of her baby bump, wondering where this mysterious man was. She prepared her heart to break at the story. But it wouldn’t come. Not yet, anyway.
She followed James through the foyer, through what he said was once an immaculate dining hall. “They sold the dining room table. I mean, I told them to. It didn’t make sense, it sitting here, when grand parties weren’t a once-a-week norm anymore.” James’ voice was full, almost tinged with pride at this past she’d never heard of before.
Each room was empty. Each room had been stripped bare. And each was haunted by memories. “This was where my friends from the village and I used to play,” James told her of a particularly cozy room upstairs. “And this was the ballroom,” he said of a massive circular room. Together, they stood, gazing at the carved ceilings and the peach and gold painted walls.
“Did you dance here?” Mia asked him. Her voice was breathless. It seemed like the stuff of fairy tales.
“I did, as a boy,” James said. “To be honest, I hardly remember it.” But his eyes were dull, sad.
After giving her a tour of the two bottom floors and countless empty rooms, James brushed a brief kiss on her cheek. “That’s the lost part of
my past, and I like to keep it empty. Unused, like a shell. I’ve had Mike make up the third floor for us. We keep furniture up there. Nothing fancy, but very useable.”
Mia bowed her head, feeling fatigue set in. She stifled a yawn. “I could really eat something.”
James snapped his fingers, a bit of color coming back to his cheeks. “I can definitely help you with that. My lady?” He swung his elbow out for her and she accepted it gratefully, maneuvering with him up the back steps of the mansion.
